Jennie

Unfortunately even with its superb acting and outstanding direction from Marion Gering, it's impossible to condense Dreiser's 900 page epic into 90 minutes. As so often with screen adaptations, it ends up simply telling us what happens without telling us why it happens. Sylvia Sidney is fabulous but the role she's given doesn't have enough depth for us to get to know her well enough to care.

A year earlier Sylvia Sidney starred in Paramount's first Theodore Dreiser adaptation, AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY. Whereas that exemplified "creaky, crappy 1930s melodrama," this is professionally made and beautifully crafted....but still as miserable as hell.

Theodore Dreisler's naturalistic and depressing tragedy was given the glossy Paramount treatment - naturalism was completely jettisoned, the social inequality aspect was toned down but the misery was ratcheted up to eleven transforming it into nothing more than a formulaic weepie. Were this made by Warners, maybe it could have been a little more punchy, gritty and realistic but God help us, they might have shoehorned Hugh Herbert in there so perhaps it's for the best that it wasn't.

This is directed by unsung genius Marion Gering and stars his favourite actress Sylvia Sidney so there's no question that it's not superbly made. The way Mr Gering conveys so much narrative with imagery or with an expression on Miss Sidney's face is extraordinary but this is not one of his best. Unfortunately the story, particularly the diluted adaptation he had to work with is just too shallow, too rushed and tried too hard to be simply a tear jerker. Without depth it feels contrived and is difficult to engage with on an emotional level - which is the one thing a tear-jerker needs to do.

Being it's a period piece, it doesn't have that characteristic early thirties atmosphere but it's a good example of the escapism which pulled the audiences in to the picture houses back then. Such relentless misery like this was so popular during The Depression because however terrible the lives of those watching were, at least they weren't as bad as Jennie Gerhardt's. If this wasn't so well made and perfectly acted (unlike the dreadful AMERICAN TRAGEDY) it would just be another mushy, pointless melodrama. As it is, it's very watchable but at the end of the day, it's still a mushy, mindless misery-laden melodrama.