A mild-mannered professor must contend with a campus controversy and a romantic rival who threatens his marriage.
College professor Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda) finds his quiet life thrown into turmoil during homecoming weekend. His wife, Ellen (Olivia de Havilland), feels neglected and finds herself charmed by the reappearance of her old flame, the bombastic former football star Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson). Compounding his marital woes, Tommy faces immense pressure from the university’s trustees, led by the authoritarian Ed Keller (Eugene Pallette), to cancel his plan to read a letter by anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti to his English class. Forced to defend both his marriage and his principles, the unassuming academic must discover a primal instinct he never knew he possessed.
The mechanisms of a classic battle-of-the-sexes comedy are employed here for a surprisingly firm defense of intellectual freedom. Adapted from the popular stage play by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent, the screenplay by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein is a model of sharp construction, balancing its romantic triangle with a principled argument for free speech. Henry Fonda is perfectly cast as the flustered intellectual, a man whose quiet integrity is tested from all sides. That the script’s political arguments were excised for a 1952 musical remake, She’s Working Her Way Through College, reveals the conviction of the original during a less cautious era.
Production Co: Warner Bros. / 101 mins / 1942
Director: Elliott Nugent
Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein
Main Cast: Henry Fonda (Tommy Turner), Olivia de Havilland (Ellen Turner), Jack Carson (Joe Ferguson), Eugene Pallette (Ed Keller), Joan Leslie (Patricia Stanley), Hattie McDaniel (Cleota)
