Review of Carrie (1952) by Edith N — 24 Apr 2011

Not That [i]Carrie[/i], the Other One.

In several places, I am informed that the flophouse scene was excised from the American release of this film "because of the political climate at the time." Which is all the information most of the people seem to have or want to give. No details beyond that. Now, I have managed to find a suggestion that it's the idea that a Hard-Working American can end up dying in abject poverty. Which, okay, 1952 wasn't exactly 1932. We were all pretending that the American Dream was real for anyone who worked hard enough. But I think every average American must have known someone, or known someone who knew someone, for whom the American Dream failed. It's just that we occasionally go through this Thing where we aren't allowed to talk about it, and that was the '50s. Honestly, people were surprised William Wyler managed to get the movie made at all.

Carrie Meeber (Jennifer Jones) is a wholesome country girl who goes to Chicago to make her fortune. On the train there, she meets Charles Drouet (Eddie Albert), a cheerfully untrustworthy salesman sort. Carrie loses her job due to an accident (more on which anon), and she happens to encounter Charlie again. He "loans" her ten dollars, which her sister (Jacqueline deWit) won't accept for rent, afraid she knows where Carrie got it. And then Carrie ends up Living in Sin with Charlie, because it's the only way she can keep a roof over her head. Through Charlie, she meets George Hurstwood (Baron Larry), headwaiter at a fancy local restaurant. George's wife (Miriam Hopkins) has managed to get everything they own in her name. So when George falls in love with Carrie, all his savings are not enough to make a new life for them. He ends up stealing money from his employer (Basil Ruysdael) to cover running away with Carrie. He slides further down into desperation, and Carrie ends up a rich and successful actress.

There are actually several things in the movie which seem to have slipped by unnoticed because we were too interested in the flophouse. Like the fact that Carrie loses her job because of a cruel employer. She complains that there is not enough light in the factory, and she's told to suck it up and keep sewing, because the other option is losing her job. When she does, she sews through her finger and so loses her job. She isn't able to get another one in part because a lot of places don't hire women. She basically ends up a kept woman because her sister thinks she's already a prostitute. George's wife is arguably a prostitute herself, however. She is explicitly stated to have married him for his money and done everything in her power to get as much as she can of it in her own name. Initially, at least, Carrie is trying to get honest work. However, what we see is that there's no place for her in the working world. The world expects women to be in a handful of very specific places. George's wife braced herself for it. Carrie doesn't know how.

I've never actually read any Theodore Dreiser, but the movie strikes me as a bit of a condemnation of prudishness, as much of one as can be managed. After all, things would not have gone downhill for George quite so quickly had everyone not been so determined that he appear above reproach. If he had been allowed to divorce his wife peacefully, he and Carrie might have lived Happily Ever After. But because his wife convinced his boss that George's relationship with Carrie would reflect poorly on the restaurant, she also convinced his employer that his salary should be paid directly to his wife. (Which is insane to me on several levels.) Carrie really begins freaking out early in the movie because the little girl next door isn't allowed to talk to Carrie, because Carrie is Living in Sin. Oh, her relationship with Charlie is purely pragmatic, but the idea that it will be better if they're married is odd to me. She'd still be marrying him because it was better than homelessness.

The problem is that the story appears to be preaching a message which the climate was wrong for at the time. It isn't just the idea that hard work isn't enough to get you the American Dream, though that is of course part of it. Carrie, on the other hand, totally lucks into her own success. Maybe it's that the movie skips a fair amount of story, but I was unclear on how Carrie went from ironing George's shirts to standing in line with chorus girls to audition for a show, and from there how she went to a phenomenal success. Wife and Family aren't sacrosanct; George's wife is pretty awful. And a hypocrite--she yells at George for offering a drink to their daughter's boyfriend, but she's perfectly willing to live on the money they get from his being an esteemed headwaiter. (Do headwaiters really make all that much?) Only Charlie is quite cheerfully who and what he is, although he will, if it comes to that, lie about being willing to get married. If he has to in order to keep her there.