Oscar Profile #142: John Cromwell

Born December 23, 1887 in Toledo, Ohio, actor/director Elwood Dager Cromwell (stage name John Cromwell) had one of the longest and most prolific stage and screen careers of the Twentieth Century. He directed ten actors to Oscar nominations and had more films open at Radio City Music Hall than any other director – 18 in all. Astonishingly, he was himself never nominated for an Oscar. His only awards recognition came late in life when he was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for 1950’s Caged and two years later won a Tony for Best Featured Actor in Point of No Return in support of Henry Fonda.

Cromwell made his Broadway debut as John Brooke in a well-received production of Little Women in 1912 and appeared in 38 subsequent productions through 1971’s Solitaire/Double Solitaire. He also directed several productions including 1926’s The Silver Cord, the screen version of which he directed seven years later.

He made his screen debut as an actor in 1929’s The Dummy third billed behind Ruth Chatterton and Fredric March. He would appear on-screen from time to time through 1978’s A Wedding directed by Robert Altman.

Cromwell made his screen directing debut later in 1929 with the musical comedy Close Harmony with Charles “Buddy” Rogers and Nancy Carroll, continuing to direct A-list productions, reaching an early peak with three films in 1933: Sweepings; The Silver Cord and Ann Vickers..

Sweepings was a multi-generational story that spanned sixty years from the Chicago Fire of 1871 to the then near-present featuring an acclaimed starring performance by Lionel Barrymore. The Silver Cord was a beautifully acted version of the hit play with Irene Dunne, Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, Eric Linden and Laura Hope Crews reprising her Broadway triumph as a grotesque mother-in-law. McCrea and Dee met on the film and after a whirlwind courtship were married for 57 years until his death in 1990.

Sinclair Lewis’Ann Vickers was a controversial novel about, among other things, a once abused woman who fights for birth control that had the censors in convulsions. Cromwell was forced to make numerous changes to the material including having the married title character’s affair which results in the birth of an illegitimate child portrayed as a single woman. It was okay, though, to portray her later love as an unhappily married judge. The film almost single handedly brought in the tougher controls of the Hollywood Production Code but in spite of, or maybe because of the controversy, the film was a major success and one of the hallmarks of not only Cromwell’s career, but of Irene Dunne’s and Walter Huston’s as well.

Ann Vickers, though, had nothing on the controversy engendered by 1934’s Of Human Bondage even after numerous cuts were made to the script including having Bette Davis’ Mildred die of tuberculosis instead of syphilis as in the book.

Cromwell pretty much steered clear of controversy after that with such classics as 1936’s Little Lord Fauntleroy; 1937’s The Prisoner of Zenda; 1939’s Made for Each Other and In Name Only; 1940’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois; 1941’s So Ends Our Night; 1942’s Son of Fury; 1944’s Since You Went Away; 1945’s The Enchanted Cottage and 1946’s Anna and the King of Siam. He courted a bit of controversy with the 1950 women’s prison film, Caged and 1958’s The Goddess, loosely based on the life of Marilyn Monroe.

Cromwell was married four times, all to actresses. His first wife, Alice Lindahl, died in the flu epidemic of 1918. His second wife was Alice Goff whom he later divorced. He was married to the lovely Kay Johnson from 1928 to 1946. She was the mother of Cromwell’s look-alike actor son James and grandmother of even more look-alike, up-and-coming actor John. Cromwell’s fourth wife was character actress Ruth Nelson whom he wed in 1946 and remained married to until his death in September, 1979 at 91.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934)

The Catholic Legion of Decency, later the National Legion of Decency as it included Protestant and Jewish members in its organization, was formed in 1933 to combat what its members saw as morally objectionable. Films receiving the rare “condemned” rating from the national review board in its first two years of operation included Queen Christina; Design for Living and The Scarlet Empress. In the early days, a practice which was later abandoned, local groups also had the authority to condemn a film of their choosing. One such film was Of Human Bondage which was condemned in five cities and as a result brought in more money from those five cities than anywhere else, proving censorship to be counterproductive in the marketplace.

The film, based on W. Somerset Maugham’s semi-autobiographical novel follows the life of a struggling medical student played by Leslie Howard whose female lovers include Bette Davis, Kay Johnson (then Mrs. Cromwell) and Frances Dee.

THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937)

The fourth version of Anthony Hope’s celebrated novel, the first as a talkie, and long considered the best of all versions, before and after, this stupendous work was superior in every way thanks to Cromwell’s astute direction and a superb cast that included Ronald Colman in a dual role along with such stalwarts as Madeleine Carrol, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mary Astor, Raymond Massey, David Niven and C. Aubrey Smith. It was curiously light years ahead of the 1952 version which used the same script and featured such world-class actors as Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, James Mason, Jane Greer, Louis Calhern, Robert Douglas and Lewis Stone, yet was strangely inert.

SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944)

Life on the American home-front during World War II was conceived as David O. Sleznick’s greatest achievement, a more satisfying film than both Mrs. Miniver and his own Gone With the Wind, but somehow fell short of both. The fault was not in Cromwell’s direction. Nor was it in the brilliant work of the ensemble cast which included Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotton, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Robert Walker, Guy Madison, Lionel Barrymore, Hattie McDaniel, Agnes Moorehead and Nazimova. It was simply that Selznick set his sights too high.

ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM (1946)

The first of three films based on the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, the 19th Century British schoolteacher to the King of Siam’s wives and children, Anna and the King of Siam was about as lavish a production as Cromwell ever attempted and one that was quite successful.

Cromwell’s favorite actress, Irene Dunne, was as stunning as ever as Mrs. Anna and Rex Harrison made a great King despite the obvious ethnic miscasting. Supporting roles were well handled by Linda Darnell, Lee J. Cobb, Gale Sondergaard and Richard Lyon among many others.

CAGED (1950)

Focusing on a naïve young girl who becomes hardened during the course of her prison term, Cromwell’s women in prison drama supplied strong roles for Eleanor Parker as the girl and Hope Emerson as her mean matron, both of whom were Oscar nominated for their performances, as well as Agnes Moorehead as the sympathetic warden and Betty Garde, Jan Sternling, Lee Patrick and Gertrude Michael as fellow prisoners. Jane Darwell plays the isolation matron. This was a strong, uncompromising drama that has often been imitated, but never topped.