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Of Mice and Men Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 10 Reviews)

Hits You Like a Gut Punch
This screen adaptation of the John Steinbeck classic novel is a harsh,fantastic film that took the wind out of me with its frank and brutal depiction of desperation and longing. Movies about the Depression that were actually made at the time of the Depression by people who knew of what they spoke by necessity feel so much more authentic than later movies that treat the Depression as a historical event. The men in this film are quite literally living day to day, and the comparison of men
to dogs that serves as a running motif throughout the film feels like more than just a poetic device. Like dogs, these men were faced with the scary prospect of some day being of no more use, and there was no system in place to take care of them when that day came. Being shot like a dog put out of its misery by its owner really was preferable to the alternatives awaiting them.

I was surprised about how candid this film was, and how bravely it tackled some of the thornier issues of Steinbeck's novel. The incident between Lenny and Mae is divested of some of its sexual overtones, but much is implied anyway. And a scene between Crooks, a black work hand, and some of the other workers, in which Crooks explains in blunt language what it means to be black, tackles race relations as honestly as many films today.

Moments of this film are almost unbearably sad and poignant, but never in that over-sentimental way common to Hollywood films of this time period. Burgess Meredith is terrific in the role of George; he expertly conveys--without ever directly addressing it--the bond he has with Lenny and the degree to which Lenny is as much George's savior as he is Lenny's. Charles Bickford is also excellent as a rough and world-weary
worker. The cast's weak links are Betty Field--hopelessly overplaying her bored sex kitten--and Lon Chaney as Lenny, though both are very good in the pivotal scene that sets off the action of the film's finale.

John Ford's adaptation of "The Grapes of Wrath" from the following year gets all of the attention today, and one hardly ever hears of "Of Mice and Men." But much of what is great about Ford's film is also great about Lewis Milestone's, and he deserves credit for laying a fine blueprint for bringing Steinbeck's beautiful and heartbreaking stories to the screen.

Grade: A

Live off the fat of the land
John Steinbeck's masterful story of friendship is definitively brought to screen in Lewis Milestone's 1939 OF MICE AND MEN. This is a terrific movie, essential viewing for anyone with a tolerance for black and white. The story is so universal and cleanly told this one is hard not to become deeply engrossed in.
Lon Chaney Jr., rightfully, is the chief reason we remember this movie. He nails the role of the feeble-minded Lennie, who wants nothing more than to tend his rabbits. I've never seen this movie before, and I was surprised at how effective Burgess Meredith was as Lennie's friend and protector, George. If Chaney steals most of the scenes he's in, Meredith is the reliable engine, grounded in humanity, that draws us in.
OF MICE AND MEN has been remade once, in 1992, in a production starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise. For all of Malkovich's talents, I still prefer Chaney's performance. More importantly, the 1939 production was contemporaneous with Steinbeck's novel. If the latter movie is a period piece, the 1939 version is current events, and that does make a difference.
Get out the hankies and get ready to be deeply moved. An essential movie.


Just Recalling It Makes Me Cry
Yeah, yeah, so it's a major motion picture that has been forgotten, etc., but I never forgot it. I first saw it when I was 11 years old, and it shocked and saddened me the same way the Zapruder film did when I first saw it. (In other words, I burst quite unexpectedly into tears. I hadn't read the Steinbeck short novel yet.) I became a lifelong fan of Aaron Copland, the composer of the film's score, and I already liked Lon Chaney because of the Wolfman and Mummy movies, and also Burgess Meredith, pre-Batman and pre-Rocky. All I can say is, in addition to the very moving Candy's dog sequence, the end of the film in which the music softly swells up while the squirrel runs up the tree and the leaves fall has to be one of the most affecting scenes ever made. Also I found that as I grew older, the plight of Curley's wife Mae touches me profoundly. Just thinking of Slim saying "poor kid, I shoulda let her talk" makes me kinda sorta a little bit weepy. *sigh* a real gem. (And it's not really in B&W, but sepia.) I actually bought the movie on two LP's in the pre-video days, and my best friend and I used to sit and sob and listen to the last side of the four sides over and over in order to weep.

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