A film
review by Andrew Wickliffe for thestopbutton.com on 15 Sept. 2017.
The Voice of the Turtle runs an hour and forty minutes.
There’s a split about forty minutes in and, in the second hour, leads Eleanor Parker and Ronald Reagan are playing slightly different characters.
Screenwriter John Van Druten adapted
his play (with additional dialogue from Charles
Hoffman) and had to clean things up.
The play was very controversial on release in 1943, dealing with affairs and
sexual desire and the like; the movie’s sanitized. There’s one shockingly
direct mention but it goes by so fast, it’s like it never happened. And then
there’s a wardrobe malfunction scene, which seems risqué, but isn’t explored.
Maybe it was a big moment in the play and they wanted to keep it.
A faithful
adaptation of the play is, frankly, unimaginable with the cast and production
of the film. Voice of the Turtle
plays like a strange attempt at big budget slapstick. The production values are
mostly great. The sets, the backlot street scenes. The frequent projection
composites, transporting Reagan and Parker to New York City locations, don’t
come off. But Sol Polito’s
photography is nice regardless. And Irving
Rapper isn’t a bad director. He does really well when Voice of the Turtle isn’t in its stage setting, Parker’s apartment. Once they’re in the apartment,
Rapper directs everything as though it’s funny, even when it’s not. Nothing
when it shouldn’t be, but the script introduces Parker’s eccentric neatness
tendencies way too late and Rapper seems to think it’s the best physical comedy
ever.
It’s not.
It’s not even funny. In the context of the narrative, given how upset Parker is
during some of the sequences, it’d be insensitive if Rapper weren’t generally
oblivious with how to direct the apartment sequences. Reagan and Parker share
sad faces, hugs, kisses, and comic set pieces. Everything comes off contrived,
which Reagan and Parker help counteract.
Second-billed
Parker is the lead. Reagan only gets one real scene to himself–a walk in front
of a projection of Central Park–but neither of them gets much to do. Parker
gets more because she’s also got this subplot involving getting a role with a
lecherous middle-aged actor and being oblivious. It’s diverting, because Parker
playing a solvent but unsuccessful actress is interesting, while her being sad
over scummy ex-boyfriend Kent Smith
dumping her isn’t interesting. For the first forty, Parker never gets to lead a
scene, she’s always playing backup to Smith, Eve Arden, or Reagan. But the first forty minutes are somehow more
successful, just due to lack of ambition. It’s a comedy of errors.
Sure, the
errors involve Arden dumping visiting soldier Reagan because a better prospect
is in town (Wayne Morris) and Parker
getting stuck entertaining him, but it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be risqué.
Arden gives it the right amount of wink and Parker plays along.
Parker’s
good. She never has a particularly great moment. The third act is particularly
rough, with Reagan getting better stuff to do. Parker just gets to clean. One
can only imagine how good she would’ve been in the play.
Reagan’s
likable without ever being particularly appealing. He does slightly better with
romantic sincerity than he does with the initially jilted booty call. He has no
sense of comic timing, which doesn’t end up hurting the film since Rapper
doesn’t have any either.
The
supporting cast is either fine or negligible enough not to make a difference.
Arden’s fine–she’s good in the first twenty, but the script turns her into a
caricature (as far as dialogue, maybe not intention) for the last hour. It’s
too bad. Morris is a little too absurd. Smith doesn’t have his full part–in the
play, he’s married and Parker’s his mistress; in the movie, he’s just a
moustached jerk. Still, if he did have more of a part, Smith probably wouldn’t
be able to handle it. He’s doltish.
John Emery has an awesome scene. It probably
would’ve been great if he and Parker could have implied premarital sex existed,
but instead, it’s just fun.
Max Steiner’s score is way too much. He goes
overboard trying to give the romance some melodramatic musical flare, amping it
up to the point it comes off inappropriate. It’s too much, given how lightly
Rapper and the script approach things.
The Voice of the Turtle is charming thanks to its leads and
the nice production values. Knowing about the play explains many incongruities,
but doesn’t excuse Rapper, Van Druten, and Hoffman’s failures to fix them. With
Parker, Reagan, and Arden, it wouldn’t have been hard to produce a solid,
innocuous, slight comedy. [Wickliffe’s rating: ** out of 4 stars]
Blogger’s
comment: I’m not as critical as Andrew Wickliffe. I thought this was a sweet,
light, romantic comedy and that Parker and Reagan had good chemistry. They even
had a song – Londonderry Air, to which the poem Danny Boy is typically sung.
And the title The Voice of the Turtle comes from the Bible: Song of Solomon
2:12 KJV: The flowers appear on the
earth; the time of the singing [of birds] is come, and the voice of the turtle
is heard in our land - although in some versions it’s turtledove rather than
turtle.
Labels:
comedy, Eleanor Parker, romance
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