City Girl
Directed by F.W. Murnau
Written by Berthold Vertel from a novel by Elliot Lester
1930/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb Page
Repeat Viewing/YouTube
Kate: Life on a farm must be wonderful!
Most romance films end with the wedding, this masterpiece begins with one and explores what happens afterwards to a loving couple who meet with real life all too soon.
Lem Tustine (Charles Farrell) is a young farmer from Minnesota. He has been deputized for the first time to go to the big city to sell the family’s wheat crop. Pa, a stern and controlling patriarch, has ordered him to settle for no less than a set minimum. But when Lem arrives wheat prices have dropped below that amount. He waits several days but the price keeps dropping and he decides he can’t wait longer and sells at a loss.
While he is in the city, he meets Kate (Mary Duncan) who hates her job as a waitress in a chaotic stifling diner. She is constantly groped and ogled. Charles comes back every day. He defends her and they fall in love. On the day Charles is to return home, they marry.
He brings home a new bride along with the wheat money. Pa is irate at the loss and the bride and makes life miserable for Kate, including by striking her. No one is allowed to cross or talk back to Pa, except Kate who isn’t taking any crap. She is disappointed in Lem. The idyllic country life she imagined has turned to another waitress job as she feeds a group of uncouth farmhands in for the harvest who leer at her and worse. The couple sleep in separate beds. I’ll end here.
This movie is perfect in my opinion. It’s not the equal of Murnau’s “Sunrise” but close. Everything feels quite real to me. There is a scene where the lovers run through the wheatfields that is positively lyrical. We also get loving shots of everyday country life and the harvest .Every single element is fantastic. AND it is currently available for free on YouTube in a good print. Highly recommended.
