The Power and the Glory (1933)

It is not unusual that, when Citizen Kane (Orson Welles 1941) is written about, The Power and the Glory (William K. Howard 1933) is mentioned as a possible inspiration. The earlier film is not widely seen but it is worth seeking out both because it is similar to Citizen Kane and because it is a good film in its own right. It is also Preston Sturges's first original screenplay and one of the first times Spencer Tracy plays a leading role, even though he is not as extraordinary good as he would later become, so it is a historically significant film.

It is about a man, Tom Garner, who works himself up from humble beginnings to become a powerful and wealthy man (he is in the railway business) but who alienate his family and dies alone. At the moment of his death he utters one single word. The film begins with the death and is then told in non-chronological flashbacks that take place on three planes, the rise from childhood, the fall, and the present day, and is quite intricate. So the connections with Citizen Kane are rather obvious. Welles though said (in This is Orson Welles) that he had not seen The Power and the Glory and since he was in general not shy of highlighting his inspirations he was probably telling the truth. But it is of course possible that Herman J. Mankiewicz, the co-writer on Citizen Kane, had seen it.

The script was so advanced that a new word was coined in order to explain it, "narratage", a term that did not really catch on. It refers to the use of a complex flashback structure that is authored by a voice-over to help give a sense of order and continuity. The Power and the Glory was not the first film with a flashback structure, that was common enough, but it was pushing the concept further.

The person who tells the story is Tom's friend Henry, one of the few who actually liked Tom. But how does Henry know all these things? In one scene Tom asks Henry "Do you know?" Henry answers "No." and Tom replies "It's a secret." Yet Henry has told us about it, or rather, he is in fact telling us about it, so he does seem to know. Is he even to be trusted? There are many in the film who are deceitful after all. The most remarkable deception is when Tom's second wife becomes pregnant and it turns out that it is not Tom but Tom's son from his first marriage who is the father.

The cinematographer of The Power and the Glory is James Wong Howe and there are some striking deep focus shots (such as when Sally Garner decides to kill herself), and there is a fine visual connection between the beginning and the end, with lights beaming through the windows in the opening sequence (the funeral) and the scene at the end when Tom dies. Howe and the director William K. Howard did several films together and who was primarily responsible for the look of them is hard to say.

The director William K. Howard was listed under "Subjects for Further Research" in Andrew Sarris's American Cinema and he has not yet been properly research. But he has made a number of fine films, sometimes working with James Wong Howe, and he had style and force. An important early film is said to be White Gold (1927). Another is Transatlantic (1931) and then there is the inspired The Princess Comes Across (1936), where Carole Lombard plays an actress who pretends she is Olga of Sweden, whom she plays as if she was Greta Garbo. If ever there was a meta-performance...

The theme of The Power and the Glory is similar to Citizen Kane, and many other stories as well. It is perhaps one of the oldest of tales, how greed and ambition can ruin a person. On his deathbed Tom utters one word. The word is "Sally", his first wife and one true love. He lost her, and everything else that mattered.

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Here is an earlier post about Sturges. When Sturges directed his first film, The Great McGinty (1940), which he had also written, he was again telling the story of the rise and fall of a man through flashbacks. It is less complex and more light at heart, but a very good film.

Sturges vs. Sturges

When people talk about a filmmaker called Sturges it can automatically be assumed that they refer to Preston Sturges. Conventional wisdom has it that Preston Sturges is the important one and John Sturges is "the other Sturges". However, I think the differences between the Sturges' are interesting and is about something essential in cinema, and what we value in the art form. What is valued in Preston Sturges is dialogue, humour, satire, characters and plotting, more of literary qualities. His films are extraordinarily quotable, his characters are rich and vivid, down to the smallest part (a thesis could be written about his bartenders), he tells ingenious, convoluted stories, and his satire can be both brave and dark. Nobody is safe from his sharp tongue and raised eyebrow and for at least eight years, from The Great McGinty (1940) to Unfaithfully Yours (1948), he was a one-man show in Hollywood, a writer-director-producer who made films that were very much his films.

But he has not made a film that is better than John Sturges's best films; Bad Day at Black Rock (1955, image above), a tense drama attacking racism and the treatment of Japanese Americans, and Hour of the Gun (1967, image below), a bitter and wise film with extraordinary music by Jerry Goldsmith. John Sturges had a strong visual sense and when he had the right script and a good cast he could do great things. His compositions are often striking, many of his films have shots and images that are far beyond anything found in Preston's films, and few have such a firm command of the widescreen image. There is real beauty in the geometrical precision with which he can stage and frame a shot. In addition, the ensemble acting in many of his films is remarkable, how the group becomes one. There is also, often, a peculiar mood to the films; as I have said earlier he is good at being uplifting and downbeat at the same time. Besides the two high points already mentioned other fine films of his are The Capture (1950, an independent production from his early, pre-widescreen, days), Backlash (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963).

So neither of the Sturges' is ideal, but both have great strengths; for one it is the written word, for the other the visuals. There is room for both.

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Preston Sturges is not really like anybody else, but it is tempting to put John Sturges together with Richard Fleischer (whom I wrote about four years ago here). A topic for another day. Andrew Sarris put both in the "Strained Seriousness" category but they are more than that.

Backlash, with its story (by Borden Chase) of a man hunting the man he believes is responsible for the death of his father, only to find out in the end that it is the other way around, that his father is a killer, is very good but it makes you wonder what Anthony Mann might have done with it. Mann is a much greater artist than any of those mentioned in this post.