So Big! (1932 film)
Encyclopedia
So Big! is a 1932
American
drama film
directed by William A. Wellman
. The screenplay by J. Grubb Alexander
and Robert Lord
is based on the 1924 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Edna Ferber
.
The film is the second screen adaptation of the Ferber novel, following a 1924 silent
version directed by Charles Brabin
. A 1953 remake
was directed by Robert Wise
.
, where she enrolls in finishing school. Her father is killed, leaving her penniless, and Selina's friend Julie Hemple helps her find a job as a schoolteacher in a small Dutch community. Selina moves in with the Poole family and tutors their son Roelf.
Selina eventually marries immigrant farmer Pervus De Jong and gives birth to Dirk, nicknamed So Big, who becomes the primary focus of her life. When Pervus dies, Selina struggles to keep the farm afloat so she can afford to finance her son's education, hoping he will become an architect.
Dirk becomes involved with a married woman, who arranges for him to get a job as a bond salesman in her husband's firm. Eventually he meets and falls in love with artist Dallas O'Mara, but she refuses to marry him because of his lack of ambition.
Roelf, now a renowned sculptor, meets Dirk and, learning Selina is his mother, reunites with his former tutor. She is pleased to know her influence helped mold Roelf's character, even as she accepts her own son's weaknesses and disappointments.
, cast in the relatively small role of Dallas O'Mara, filmed So Big! simultaneously with The Rich Are Always with Us
. Following The Man Who Played God
, it was her second film for Warner Bros.
, and the first in which she appeared with George Brent
, who co-starred with her in eleven more films. Davis considered her casting in a prestigious Barbara Stanwyck
project a sign Jack L. Warner was acknowledging her value to the studio. In her 1962 autobiography A Lonely Life, she recalled, "It was a source of tremendous satisfaction, and encouraged me to unheard-of dreams of glory.".
Variety
noted, ""Wellman's endeavor at kaleidoscopic flashes in the life of Selina Dejong . . . make for a choppy continuity . . . As it is, the 83 minutes are overly long, but in toto, it's a disjointed affair."
The New Yorker
considered Barbara Stanwyck's performance "the best work she has yet shown us", while the New York Daily Mirror
called her "exquisite" and added, "Her great talent as an actress never has been demonstrated more brilliantly. A sparkling performance. She is magnificent.".
1932 in film
-Events:*Cary Grant's film career begins*Katharine Hepburn's film career begins*Shirley Temple's film career begins*Disney released Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon in three-strip Technicolor film.*Santa, first sound film made in Mexico released....
American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by William A. Wellman
William A. Wellman
William Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation...
. The screenplay by J. Grubb Alexander
J. Grubb Alexander
Joseph Grubb Alexander was an American screenwriter of the silent era. He wrote for 98 films between 1916 and 1932....
and Robert Lord
Robert Lord
Robert Lord was an American screenwriter and film producer. He wrote for 71 films between 1925 and 1940. He won an Academy Award in 1933 in the category Best Writing, Original Story for the film One Way Passage...
is based on the 1924 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...
.
The film is the second screen adaptation of the Ferber novel, following a 1924 silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
version directed by Charles Brabin
Charles Brabin
Charles J. Brabin was an American film director and screenwriter. He was active during the silent era, then pursued a short-lived career in talkies....
. A 1953 remake
So Big (1953 film)
So Big is a 1953 American drama film directed by Robert Wise. The screenplay by John Twist is based on the 1924 novel by Edna Ferber. It is the third adaptation of the book, following a 1924 silent film with Colleen Moore and So Big! with Barbara Stanwyck, released in 1932.-Plot:In the late 1890s,...
was directed by Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
.
Plot
Following the death of her mother, Selina Peake and her father move to ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where she enrolls in finishing school. Her father is killed, leaving her penniless, and Selina's friend Julie Hemple helps her find a job as a schoolteacher in a small Dutch community. Selina moves in with the Poole family and tutors their son Roelf.
Selina eventually marries immigrant farmer Pervus De Jong and gives birth to Dirk, nicknamed So Big, who becomes the primary focus of her life. When Pervus dies, Selina struggles to keep the farm afloat so she can afford to finance her son's education, hoping he will become an architect.
Dirk becomes involved with a married woman, who arranges for him to get a job as a bond salesman in her husband's firm. Eventually he meets and falls in love with artist Dallas O'Mara, but she refuses to marry him because of his lack of ambition.
Roelf, now a renowned sculptor, meets Dirk and, learning Selina is his mother, reunites with his former tutor. She is pleased to know her influence helped mold Roelf's character, even as she accepts her own son's weaknesses and disappointments.
Production
Bette DavisBette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, cast in the relatively small role of Dallas O'Mara, filmed So Big! simultaneously with The Rich Are Always with Us
The Rich Are Always with Us
The Rich Are Always with Us is a 1932 American drama film directed by Alfred E. Green. The screenplay by Austin Parker is based on the novel by Ethel Pettit.-Plot:...
. Following The Man Who Played God
The Man Who Played God
The Man Who Played God is a 1932 American drama film directed by John G. Adolfi. The screenplay by Julien Josephson and Maude T. Howell is based on the 1914 play The Silent Voice by Jules Eckert Goodman, who adapted it from a story by Gouverneur Morris....
, it was her second film for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, and the first in which she appeared with George Brent
George Brent
George Brent was an Irish film and television actor in American cinema.-Early life:He was born George Brendan Nolan in Raharabeg, County Roscommon on the opposite bank of the River Shannon from the town of Shannonbridge, County Offaly, Ireland, the son of a British Army officer.During the Irish...
, who co-starred with her in eleven more films. Davis considered her casting in a prestigious Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
project a sign Jack L. Warner was acknowledging her value to the studio. In her 1962 autobiography A Lonely Life, she recalled, "It was a source of tremendous satisfaction, and encouraged me to unheard-of dreams of glory.".
Cast (in credits order)
- Barbara StanwyckBarbara StanwyckBarbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
as Selina Peake De Jong - George BrentGeorge BrentGeorge Brent was an Irish film and television actor in American cinema.-Early life:He was born George Brendan Nolan in Raharabeg, County Roscommon on the opposite bank of the River Shannon from the town of Shannonbridge, County Offaly, Ireland, the son of a British Army officer.During the Irish...
as Roelf Pool - Dickie Moore as Dirk De Jong (younger)
- Bette DavisBette DavisRuth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
as Miss Dallas O'Mara - Mae Madison as Julie Hempel
- Hardie AlbrightHardie AlbrightHardie Albright was an American actor and the son of travelling vaudevillians.Born as Hardie Hunter Albrecht, he made his stage debut in one of his parents' acts at the age of 7....
as Dirk De Jong - Alan HaleAlan HaleAlan Hale may refer to:*Alan Hale, Sr. , American actor; played Little John in three different Robin Hood films*Alan Hale, Jr. , American actor in television show Gilligan's Island; son of Alan Hale, Sr....
as Klass Poole - Earle FoxeEarle FoxeEarle Foxe was an American actor.-Background:Foxe was born Earl Aldrich Fox in Oxford, Ohio, to Charles Aldrich Fox, originally of Flint, Michigan, and Eva May Herron. His older half sister was Ethel May Fox, a music teacher, born in Michigan to Charles Aldrich Fox and Katie Eldridge. Always very...
as Pervus De Jong - Robert Warwick as Simeon Peake, gambler
- Dorothy PetersonDorothy PetersonDorothy Peterson was an American actress.Peterson was born in Hector, Minnesota of Swedish immigrant ancestry. She made her screen debut in 1930's Mothers Cry, a domestic drama that required the 29-year-old actress to age nearly three decades in the course of the film...
as Maartje Pool - Noel Francis as Mabel, a 'fancy woman'
- Dick Winslow as Roelf, age 12
Critical reception
Andre Sennwald of the New York Times called the film "a faithful and methodical treatment of Miss Ferber's novel, but without fire or drama or the vitality of the original." He added, "A fine actress, Miss Stanwyck seems ill-suited to a role that hustles her in jerky steps from girlhood to old age; a role in which she is asked to express rugged grandeur and the beauty of a life well-lived from behind a mask of grease paint . . . Little Dickie Moore is delightful as the younger So Big. Bette Davis . . . is unusually competent.".Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
noted, ""Wellman's endeavor at kaleidoscopic flashes in the life of Selina Dejong . . . make for a choppy continuity . . . As it is, the 83 minutes are overly long, but in toto, it's a disjointed affair."
The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
considered Barbara Stanwyck's performance "the best work she has yet shown us", while the New York Daily Mirror
New York Daily Mirror
The New York Daily Mirror was an American morning tabloid newspaper first published on June 24, 1924, in New York City by the William Randolph Hearst organization as a contrast to their mainstream broadsheets, the Evening Journal and New York American, later consolidated into the New York Journal...
called her "exquisite" and added, "Her great talent as an actress never has been demonstrated more brilliantly. A sparkling performance. She is magnificent.".