Of Mice and Men
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Written by Eugene Solow based on the novel by John Steinbeck
1939/USA
Hal Roach Studios
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] George Milton: You had a cigarette and a drink and a look at a pretty dress, and it cost you fifteen bucks! You just shot a week’s pay to walk on that red carpet!
Candy: A week’s pay? Sure, but I worked weeks all my life. I don’t remember none of them weeks, but this – nearly twenty years ago – I remember that.[/box]
I find the modest dreams of common people to be the most touching and this is a story that breaks the heart.
George (Burgess Meredith) and Lennie (Lon Chaney Jr.) are itinerant workers on their way to a job stacking full bags of barley. George soothes hulking, half-witted, childlike Lennie with tales of a little farm they will acquire when they save the money. Lennie, who has a sort of fetish for soft things, always wants to hear about how he will get to tend the rabbits. The two had to flee their last job when Lennie started petting the dress of one of the women on the ranch and George has to keep an eye on him at all times.
George and Lennie find their next ranch is not a happy place. Curley, the owner’s son,.is pathologically jealous of his sensuous and terminally bored wife (Betty Field). Added to this is the fact that Curley is a pugnacious runt who wants to pick a fight with every man he meets. Curly is most jealous of mule skinner Slim (Charles Bickford) who, however, could easily lick him.
Candy is an old cook, who is devoted to an equally old, ailing and smelly dog. The other men goad him until he allows one to shoot the dog. Crooks is an African-American worker who is segregated off in the barn. When Candy and Crooks hear of Lennie and George’s dream they are ready to buy in immediately. But Slim unwittingly sets a tragedy in motion when he gives Lennie a puppy.
The ranch hands dream the sort of American dream that should be easily attainable if they could catch a break, which of course they can’t. This is a Depression era story of circumstances dashing the most ordinary aspirations. All this is captured most poetically in the excellent screenplay. I particularly like the parallels between Lennie and the dog, and indeed between the wife and Lennie. The acting is mostly fantastic. Lon Chaney Jr. does not generally shine but here he occupies the character beautifully.
Of Mice and Men was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture; Best Sound Recording; Best Music, Scoring (Aaron Copeland); and Best Music, Original Score.
Clip – Bunkhouse brawl
