I had previously not seen this film when I sat down on Friday to watch and write about it. But I was tickled when it started with this bit of Wonky snark:
Dear Richest Men in the World:
We made up this character in the story, out of our own heads. It’s nobody, really. The whole thing is make-believe. We’d feel awful if anyone was offended.
Thank you,
The Author, Director and Producer.
P.S. Nobody sue.
P.P.S. Please.
Can you imagine if this was a current film, a couple of rich men would be throwing tantrums and assuming it was an insult aimed at them. And what is surprising is this movie created in 1941 has some very forward thinking ideas about workers’ rights, feminism, and wealth inequality. It was WOKE before woke was woke.
John P. Merrick is the richest man in the country and the Devil in the title. He owns many things including a chain of department stores. He and his rich bro friends have a problem: The workers are not happy with how they are treated and are trying to unionize. One of his stores had employed the leader of this labor movement. The rich bros want to squash this before all the workers in NYC start getting crazy ideas about fair treatment and respect.
Their plan is to find out who among this one store’s staff are union-sympathetic and fire them. But Mr. Merrick is too controlling to use a private detective; he decides he will go undercover as an employee to discover those he could fire. He starts work as shoe salesman Thomas Higgins and soon this other world he had no clue about begins to change him. Particularly because of one woman, Miss Mary Jones, who is kind, smart, and decent. They develop a surprising friendship and Merrick’s views on the workers become more personal.
The leader of the unionization movement is Joe, who is also Mary’s beloved. They want to marry but Joe holds back because he has been blackballed from employment and doesn’t want to have the two of them survive on just Mary’s small income. Mary just wants to be with Joe and says that it doesn’t matter. Joe is thinking of going to work on the Panama Canal.
When all this humanity hits John Merrick/Thomas Higgins like a boot to the head what he does next will affect the lives of more than just the workers at this one store. It is something that could be the first domino to fall in changing the lives of all the workers in the country.
Norman Krasna, Jean Arthur, and her husband Frank Ross took out a loan of $600,000 and agreed to no paychecks in exchange for some of the profit to make The Devil And Miss Jones. It was a project they believed in, Krasna said, “there was a tremendous social statement in” the movie.
The Devil And Miss Jones stars Jean Arthur, Charles Coburn, Robert Cummings, Edmund Gwenn, Spring Byington, William Demarest, and S.Z. Sakall. Directed by Sam Wood.
The Devil And Miss Jones (1941), available for free with ads on The Roku Channel and Plex; $3.99 in the usual places. With library card on Kanopy.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is Balance by Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein. It was the 1989 Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short.
Next week’s Movie Night selection is Duck Soup, available for free on the Internet Archive (FF to 9:22); $3.99 in the usual places. Free with ads on OKRU.
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I am fall over tired. Been an exciting, fun, but long day.
Good night all!
BONUS TRIVIA:
When this was filmed Jean Arthur was 40 and Robert Cummings (Joe) was 30.
Very unusual to have the ages switched .