“I know quite well that one needs ridiculous, mad situations like that; one can’t write really well about anything else. Why was that old fellow such a marvelous propaganda technician? Because he had so many insane, excruciating things to get excited about.”
—Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Claiming that the 1940 film Pride and Prejudice is a faithful adaptation of the original Jane Austen text is like visiting Oz and calling it Kansas.
The Jane Austen novel is a sincere comedy about false perceptions and squirming social interactions awkwardly sorting themselves out. The 1940 film, directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Laurence Olivier as Darcy and Greer Garson as Elizabeth, is certainly a comedy, and certainly a romance, but the retelling seems to have gone awry. Instead of a plot centered on the humanistic reasons for the deep misunderstandings between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, the film chronicles the madcap misadventures of six man-hungry women and one sarcastic, short-haired Santa Claus all living together in a lavish mansion, after two rich, young bachelors bring the carnival to town. And don’t forget the neighbor, that kooky old Mr. Collins, always popping over to propose marriage to someone new; or even cranky old Lady Catherine, the loveable biddy who steps into save the day! Throw in Academy-award-winning art direction with several set pieces seemingly picked fresh at the Wonka factory, and costumes that were probably stolen from the Gone With the Wind backlot, and the result is a sugary, sensory blitzkrieg of a feature film that hardly resembles its literary blueprint.
But underneath its thick, saccharine coating; the film is something else: a contrived, convoluted morsel of political propaganda. Filmed by on American soil by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, this British adaptation shot directly after the French surrender to the Nazis, released during the Battle of Britain, and co-screenwritten by depressed British idealist Aldous Huxley, managed to transform that famous English book Pride and Prejudice into a partisan plug relying on Depression-era escapism, thematic idealization of a nationalistic Anglocentric tradition, the depiction of highly distracting romantic merriment, and a reassuringly happy ending to prepare and energize Americans for the inevitable: the United States’ joining the Allied Forces overseas to fight in World War II.
It all began when the British invaded Hollywood. During the Great Depression, Los Angeles had become the home to the angels of English Theater—expatriates such as Laurence Olivier, Greer Garson, Joan Fontaine, Edmund Gwenn, David Niven, Merle Oberon, Olivia de Havilland, Vivien Leigh, Charlie Chaplin, and Maureen O’Sullivan—as they searched for vessels by which to advance their crafts, or even migrated just to escape the collapsing European regimes. In 1938, the British Aldous Huxley, who had already gained celebrity status for penning the gloomy, brooding Brave New World in 1931, arrived in Hollywood to write the newest Garbo project, a film called Mme. Curie about the famed Jewish physicist and Nobel Prize Winner.
By the time Huxley had arrived, Adolf Hitler had already violated the Treaty of Versailles by militarizing the Rhineland and had just marched his armies into Austria. Still shell-shocked from World War I, Europe had now begun to crumble under the threats of dictatorial occupation and anti-Semitism, and in September, in an effort to appease the truculent, petulant Hitler, at a conference in Munich, ineffectual British Prime minister Neville Chamberlain parceled out the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland. Film projects like Mme. Curie were thought to be Hollywood’s best weapon against brewing Eastern-European small-mindedness, but the pacifist Huxley felt differently, writing to his brother Julian in November 1938 that “a treatment… of the life of Mme. Curie for Garbo… seems rather like fiddling while Rome burns.” The Mme. Curie film project was scrapped (and later revived with post-Academy-Award Greer Carson in the title role in 1943, when the overt theme of Polish accomplishment was even more relevant on the international stage), and Huxley began to adapt Pride and Prejudice for the screen.
Released in the United States on July 26th, 1940, just sixteen days after the Battle of Britain officially began, Pride and Prejudice was the newest cherry on top of Hollywood’s Allied boosterism—and would remain so until Charlie Chaplin trimmed his toothbrush moustache and spoke in phlegmatic, intelligible German gibberish in The Great Dictator. But unlike The Great Dictator, which had distributional difficulties considering it couldn’t be disguised as anything other than what it was—an agitated, fervent, anti-Hitler parody—Pride and Prejudice was a plea buried under goofy British manners and camouflaged by its classical skin. It slid into “neutral” America’s movie halls with ease, serving as a nice, subliminal follow-up to the glamorous newsreels circulating at the time. Pride and Prejudice is stupendously innocent-looking, especially given its ancestry. For example, Shakespeare had been adapted into similarly sparkly, supercilious features in the tradition of combating the Depression’s melancholic tendency (and keeping with the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 which kept movies clean and relatively apolitical), such as the 1935 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the 1936 Romeo and Juliet.
But then came 1939, the year Hitler invaded Poland contrary to the terms he agreed to in the Munich Agreement, and the United States simply changed its mind—about everything. Congress re-issued the Neutrality Act of 1937, which had previously established embargoes between Spain, England, and France, to stipulate a deal monickered “Cash n’ Carry” that allowed European democratic powers to buy war materials from the United States. Will H. Hays, the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, who had established the ethics code years earlier, repealed his ban on the production of propaganda.
Needless to say, Hollywood exploded with the production of black-and-white newsreels, animated political cartoons, and large-budgeted, emotionally-manipulative features, a large number of which were adaptations. In that same year, 1939, the British romance Wuthering Heights sashayed onto screen, in addition to two of the most famous adaptations in history: the Civil-War-era romantic tragedy Gone With the Wind, and the satirical Populist manifesto The Wizard of Oz. All three managed to combine the opulence of 1930’s Hollywood budgeting with some sort of relevant political concern—Wuthering Heights crying out for the preservation of the intelligent romanticism of the Anglocentric tradition, Gone With the Wind illuminating the terror of a war-torn land, and The Wizard of Oz reeking of anti-authoritarian frustration. Although the United States would not officially declare war until December 1941, it had already sided with the Allied forces. Involvement in the war was almost inevitable, particularly after the June 1940 fall of France, so Hollywood focused on readying the American public to want it.
However, in writing the film, Huxley, and his co-screenwriter Jane Murfin, focused more on reminding Americans of their duty to their English brethren than on convincing them that fighting the war against the evil Nazis was just a damned good, really helpful idea. It is extremely important to point out that, in the screenwriting of Pride and Prejudice, Huxley and Murfin adapted the Helen Jerome play Pride and Prejudice, which was in turn based on the Austen novel. This choice does not reflect a disdain for Austen’s legacy—as Huxley wrote in 1940 “one tries to do one’s best for Jane Austen”—but rather his desire to make the film as accessible as possible to the general public. The Helen Jerome adaptation had had a successful stint on Broadway starting in 1935, so it would have been significantly more apropos and perhaps even more de rigueur than the Austen novel; Huxley’s choice reflects his desire to make an enjoyed but dusty British story highly accessible to modern, American audiences.
The fact that the play had already arranged the third-person narration into dialogue must have been a boon to Huxley and Murfin, as well, even though, as New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson put it, “The bigwigs have long agreed that good plays cannot be conjured out of novels unless the playwright throws the book out of the window directly he has read it and writes his play as an independent work of art.” This criticism is largely valid; although the Jerome characters and events are undoubtedly modeled off the originals, this particular retelling does not belong to Austen. In the opening credits, the film cites that it adapts the Jerome text, but it seems that audiences, particularly the ones who read New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther’s adoring review, which declared that “The whole thing has been accomplished through a steady flow of superlative wit—most of it out of the novel and some of it supplied by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin—which puts a snapper on almost every scene; and also through a consistently artful inventiveness of detail and a keen appreciation of the subtleties of Miss Austen’s characters,” might not have cared, since Huxley and Murfin rewrote so much of Jerome’s dialogue anyway. Actually, the film Pride and Prejudice is an adaptation of the script Pride and Prejudice that is an adaptation of the play that is an adaptation of the novel, since director Robert Z. Leonard’s mise-en-scene or the actors’ performances pertained to his personal interpretation of the story, and had not been included in the writing process.
Robert Z. Leonard’s film repertoire (which includes the Best-Picture-Winning doily of a movie The Great Ziegfeld) screams that his aesthetic prowess was second to none. The set for the film, designed by Leonard and Academy-Award winning art directors’ Cedric Gibbons and Paul Grossefor, is at times an effervescent fantasy of English ritz, and, at others, a veritable amusement park of cute old English kitsch. The film’s opening, for example, is an silly, spooky inter-title emblazoned with the words “It all began in OLD ENGLAND, in the village of Meryton,” followed by more helpful inter-titles about where all the characters live a stationary several-second long establishing shot of that very town—it’s a tiny, rustic, extremely Tudor village with chickens and innocent shoppers bobbing about. Then the camera moves into a local dress shop, where the two most likable Bennet daughters, Elizabeth and Jane, are picking out dress fabrics with their clucking mother. Although this village is plainly, sweetly middle-class, the first words spoken are about which fabrics are most becoming on the girls—Mrs. Bennet fetters about which color is most appropriate for the new dresses they are requisitioning for the Assembly Ball, and especially considering their gumdrop dresses are already lovely and more reminiscent of the “Southern Belle” style than the dresses townsfolk might wear while shopping, this seems to imply that they are rich. However, when Elizabeth mentions that she needs a new party dress because she has worn hers for three years, the family’s social status teeters back towards middle, if not slightly lower class.
Huxley and Murfin’s words in this scene, none of which are from the novel or the play, establish a tone of modest extravagance, while the sets, not to mention the intertitles, create a very homey, olde-world atmosphere, and the princess-y dresses simply add a fairy-tale reason to stay tuned. The Benets are everything all at once, every social class, every—middle class people from somewhere in England who are getting excited about looking really nice and doing swell things. ‘Look at these great people,’ the film seems to say. ‘England’s full of them. Aren’t they just like you and me?’ This is why Elizabeth and Jane are the daughters showcased first instead of the other three—their coolness, cleverness and pleasantness counteract the bourgeois silliness of Mrs. Bennet, an annoying character. Without establishing likeable protagonists and an adorable setting (worth defending), Huxley’s cause – getting Americans to sympathize completely with the British—is totally lost.
Austen, Jerome, and Huxley place the same emphasis on class, however, in that all three versions have the same classless ending—Jane and Mr. Bingley marry, and Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy marry, despite their class and financial differences. The concept of any Pride and Prejudice adaptation is that is possible to climb up a social ladder, because everyone is equal—or rather, everyone has the ability to be equal. Most of the characters belong in many social circles, and it is possible to find love or friendship somewhere else. Perhaps this is the dominant reason why Huxley chose the Pride and Prejudice story for his anti-war-but-if-you-have-to-fight-then-fight-with-these-guys-esque opus instead of another classical novel (after all, many of other elements of the film Pride and Prejudice that make it jingoistic lie in plot alterations, or aesthetics —changes that could applied to any other story in the adaptation process): Pride and Prejudice is, at its core, a story about good, smart everyday people who make mistakes but learn their lessons just as much as it is a story about how important it is not to form judgments. Huxley nearly abuses this tone by exaggerating it in his own, though; any shred of mystery about the moral of the story is completely detonated throughout. For example, in the film, Mr. Darcy comforts Elizabeth after Caroline Bingley insults her. Elizabeth is shocked, and informs him, “At this moment, it’s difficult to believe that you are so proud.” Mr. Darcy smiles vainly and answers back, “at this moment, it’s difficult to believe that you are so prejudiced.” Huxley spells out the main paradox of the story, killing the main thematic mystery – the only thing left for the audience to wonder is how they can get shipped off to fun, idyllic England. Austen’s tone is inclusive, it’s happy, it’s insightful, and it’s open-minded—so now it fights fascism.
Of course, the aesthetics of the film Pride and Prejudice hide these anti-Nazi sentiments under tons and tons of poofy dresses and behind maypoles. For example, in the script, Huxley and Murfin manage to turn the extravagant Netherfield Ball into a garden party, which the film then turns into a frothy visual circus—where everything appears to be made out of cotton candy and wishes. This particular scene is shaved from Leonard’s Depresison-era filmmaking mantra that the number of sparkles crammed into a frame is directly proportional to the audience’s enjoyment level. Technicolor was a relatively new system in the 1930’s, and many studios still used black-and-white filming—to compete with the spectacle of color in other films, black-and-white movies that could afford eye-catching mise-en-scenes used them as much as they could. Pride and Prejudice, eager to be lapped up by these American cinephiles, exploited the more rococo aspects of its aesthetic possibilities to give it a fighting chance at the box office. The garden party scene is full of Fragonard-esque swings, and trees, and maypoles. Caroline Bingley is so refined that she is above this simple merriment—“entertaining the rustics is not as difficult as I’d feared,” she moans to Darcy at one point during the festivities—but everyone else, on and off-screen, is simply overwhelmed. Personally, I’ve never seen so much color in a black-and-white movie.
The film version of Pride and Prejudice is still a satire—actually, it mocks the ridiculousness of husband-catching even more than Jane Austen does, herself—but it much more of a romance than the original text. Mr. Darcy, for example, is clearly in love with Elizabeth the entire time, instead of remaining ambiguous on the subject, which is how he was originally written. For example, during the garden party scene, Dr. Darcy has just spotted Elizabeth hiding from the loony Mr. Collins, who is chasing her in an attempt to propose, and sends Mr. Collins in the wrong direction, so he can save Elizabeth from this tribulation. They casually flirt with one another over some casual archery practice and Elizabeth discusses his character. However, in the novel, a typical conversation between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy is far more condescending. “I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy,’” says Elizabeth during the Netherfield Ball, “‘that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was un-appeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created.’
“I am,” said he, with a firm voice.
“And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?”
“I hope not.”
“It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.”
“May I ask to what these questions tend?”
“Merely to the illustration of your character,” said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. “I am trying to make it out.”
“And what is your success?”
She shook her head. “I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.”
“I can readily believe,” answered he gravely, “that reports may vary greatly with respect to me; and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either.”
“But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity.”
“I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours,” he coldly replied. She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence; and on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree…
Huxley’s script works hard to delete as much of these unpleasant moments as possible from the tale, which creates an entirely new type of romance, and an entirely new type of hero. Mr. Darcy, who’s lines are nervously drawled by Laurence Olivier, is not Elizabeth’s willful counterpart; he is a bored, boring man in love with an interesting woman, who ultimately cannot even muster up the manly strength to tell her of his feelings after she rejects him just once before. This change in both general tone and character development has a twofold effect. First, it makes the story more of a romance, instead of a scathing social commentary, which is helpful considering Huxley’s concern with rallying together an audience to absorb his propaganda. Second, it emasculates Darcy for American audiences—if all the men in England are anything close to the way Darcy is, England is going to need a lot of help fighting the war.
Actually, several of the men in Pride and Prejudice are strangely redrawn—especially Mr. Bennet. Played by veteran British actor Edmund Gwenn (who would later win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street), he is the patriarch in this vibrant world, and, even though he chooses to seclude himself in his study, reading his highly philosophical books (as is the case in the novel), he is still the head of a household full of twittering creatures he does not understand. This particular Mr. Bennet, however (rather than the ineffectual, selfish, and careless version present in the novel), is at least a megaphone for Huxley-esque ideals, as indicated by a strange conversation he has with Jane, Elizabeth, and his wife. “Why does it matter where we go,” wonders Elizabeth pleasantly, when the family is contemplating where to move, after they have been shunned from society due to Lydia’s licentiousness, “as long as we go together?” “Yes Mama,” agrees Jane, adding peculiarly “We’ll make a little world of our own.” Jane’s weird comment seems to peak Mr. Bennet’s attention; “Yes,” he agrees in deadpan, “Yes, a Bennet Utopia, my dear. A domestic paradise.” He proceeds to joke a bit about the nature of this place, but the sentiment rings in the air long after he stops talking. Mr. Bennet is the presumably most learned character in the film—if he wants to decamp from reality, than things must really be in dire need of repair. As much as his statement is a call for help, however, it is also a beautiful, eerie moment of reflection about the way things—both in the warped, gingerbread world of the film, and the world the audience must return to when the film ends—really should be.
However deep these momentary philosophical tracks may run, the film Pride and Prejudice exists to entertain to the point of cross-cultural affection and solidarity. Perhaps best way to satisfy an audience that has grown attached to characters is to give those characters a ‘happy ending.’ Austen’s ending is happy – standard marriage roles between the two most likeable protagonists have been established and a bunch of other people save themselves from spinsterhood or shame with the institution of marriage. But once again, Austen’s novel is a commentary, and the happy ending really serves to re-situate the familial relationships in an interesting light. However, the ending to the film is just plain happy—almost too happy, in fact. Jane marries Mr. Bingley, and Elizabeth marries Mr. Darcy—but the Jane’s marriage was made possibly by the snooty Caroline Bingley, who apparently had a change of heart and sent her brother out after his love, and Elizabeth’s marriage was made possible by the haughty Lady Catherine, who had informed Elizabeth that she was forbidden to marry Mr. Darcy (as is the case in the novel), but merely to see how easily Elizabeth would back down, to measure how much she really loves him. Lady Catherine goes and reports their argument to Mr. Darcy, who then feels no shame in asking Elizabeth for her hand. There are no villains in this film adaptation, which flecks the tone with reassurance.
Huxley and Murfin’s happy ending overachieves anyway, just in case the lack of remaining villains isn’t satisfying or compelling enough—everyone gets married. The very last shot of the film is an ecstatic Mrs. Bennet closing the parlor doors on her last two single daughters—as they both suddenly have male suitors, who have clearly waltzed right into the house. Kitty lolls on the arm of a soldier, while Mary sings along at the piano as her new beau plays the flute behind her. “Think of it,” Mrs. Bennet squeals. “Three of them married, and the other two just tottering over the brink!” This ending is just as fictitious as the Lady Catherine addendum, but it does an excellent job bludgeoning the audience into a happy stupor.
Ultimately, Huxley and Murfin wrote the film Pride and Prejudice to be “eaten up” by audiences, deliberately melting down Jane Austen’s crackling, ironic sophistication to subversively rebuild the story from romantic, nationalistic, escapist fluff. The movie is still satirical, but its main goal is to spoon-feed audiences Western ideals to the point of moral indigestion; in other words, if the newsreels before the movie didn’t stir up enough moralistic, romantic pride inside them, the film most probably did. For this reason, Pride and Prejudice becomes extraordinary in another unprecedented way: it has become a delusional, picturesque, plastic masterpiece concocted to stir up thoughts with the appearance of vapidity. Therefore, this 1940 incarnation is a valued member of the World War II adaptation club; it proves that Austen’s book, much like Shakespeare’s, or Bronte’s, Baum’s, or Mitchell’s, can become whatever popular culture needs it to be.
And this means that Jane Austen will never go back to Kansas again.
