Classic Film Guide

Male Animal, The (1942)

This is a very funny film about the lives we choose, offering one woman a peek at what things may have been like if she'd chosen differently. Olivia de Havilland married the more stable, intellectual, played by Henry Fonda. However, during college, she'd been courted by a football jock, played by Jack Carson. Carson returns to campus, where Fonda is now a tenured professor, to cheer the current team during homecoming weekend and visits his friends de Havilland & Fonda. Of course, Fonda is none too thrilled at the jock's presence or his wife's memories of days gone by, so he acts strangely. Carson's visit is complicated by the fact that the school's football crazy alumni, represented by a trustee Eugene Pallette plays, is trying to censor the ideas of a progressive student Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson). Of course, Fonda's character supports Michael, and de Havilland's indifference to the issue also upsets her husband. There's also a current football star, Wally Myers (Don DeFore), with a natural affinity for Carson's character. Wally and his gal (Joan Leslie), combined with actor Anderson's Michael, offers a reflection- for Carson's, de Havilland's, and Fonda's characters - of their lives those many years ago.

Hattie McDaniel appears in a typical role; Gig Young appears, uncredited, as one of the students. Elliott Nugent directed and co-wrote this clever play with James Thurber; Stephen Morehouse Avery (The Gay Deception (1935)), and Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein (Casablanca (1942)) co-wrote the screenplay.

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