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Customer Reviews of Our Town

American Theatre Classic goes Hollywood
Our Town was adapted from Thorton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning play. It has three acts, each about a different aspect of life in Grovers Corner, New Hampshire as seen through the life of two neighbors, the Gibbs and the Webbs. On stage, there were virtually no sets. The film had full sets. The one truly theatrical feature the film retained was Stage Manager, who narrates the film. The film version featured some early performances from future Oscar winners. <
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>The first act is A Day in the Life (June 7, 1901). We get to see a day in the life of the two families. The Gibbs are Julia (Fay Bainter), Dr. Frank (Thomas Mitchell), George (William Holden) and Rebecca. The Webbs are Myrtle (Beulah Bondi), Editor Charles (Guy Kibbee), Emily (Martha Scott) and Wally. This is the ordinary life of ordinary families. George and Emily are the same age and they have a crush on each other but they are too shy to express it. Most of the act revolves around this. <
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>The second act is Love and Marriage (three years later). George and Emily are about to be married and each has their own pre-wedding jitters. But before the wedding we see a flashback on the day that George and Emily finally admitted their feelings for each other. <
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>The third act is Death (nine years later). Emily has complications with child birth and dies. The souls of those who passed converse. Emily finds out that she go back and relive a day. Which makes her realize how much we take for granted. The one change that the film makes is here. In the film, Emily does not actually die but comes back to life to be with George and the baby. <
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>This change in the ending actually lessens the film. But what is even worse is the cinematography. In the cemetery scene, Emily's head is often out of frame. And as she about half the lines, its very disconcerting. This framing error happens often throughout the film. Also the contrast of black, white and grey is often murky. You might say that it is the transfer for the DVD but I also have a copy of the film from Turner Classics and it is as murky and poorly framed. Therefore, it was probably the original print. <
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>This is a wonderful play and it's interesting to see a very young William Holden. The best filmed version of this was the NBC production in 1978 with Sada Thompson and Barbara Bel Geddes but this is not available. So if you want Our Town, it's either this one or the Showtime production with Paul Newman. <
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>DVD EXTRAS: None <
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The Ending is Wrong
This version of the play is quite faithful to the original play by Thornton Wilder until the third act. Well, there is that little bit just before the wedding when George and Emily each have their separate moments of cold feet and their parents remind them of how much they are in love with their intended spouses and how the family is depending on them to go through with the wedding---the movie did skip that little bit in Act Two. But Act Three is very different from the original play. We get voice-over as the camera scans the graveyard and only after the camera pans the sky of sparkling stars do we see the dead sitting on chairs and talking---clearly the audience is supposed to think these people are in heaven. I really think Thorton Wilder clearly states that the people in the cemetery are in the process of forgetting their old lives and preparing for what comes after, so I don't think Wilder wanted us to think they were in heaven yet. And then to top it all off, Emily lives--the whole funeral procession, the coming back to see herself celebrate her 16th birthday (in the play it is her 12th birthday, but Martha Scott looked way too old for 12)and the being frustrated that life went by too fast and she did not take time to really reach out to the people she loved----it all turns out to be a dream! I have not been so disappointed since Patrick Duffy stepped out of the shower and an entire season of "Dallas" turned out to be a dream. When I showed this part to my students, they started yelling at the screen that it was just wrong, that the third act in this version missed the whole point that Wilder was trying to make in his play. The sound and lighting were good, a little fuzzy, as it represented a blurred look at life a century ago. William Holden is so young and his voice does not have the deep gravelly tone it had later after a lot of cigarettes, so he is perfect as George. Martha Scott is beautiful, if a little old-looking for Emily at the age she was supposed to be in the play. I recommend this movie version of the play to anyone who thinks that a happy ending is necessary for a movie to be good. A happy ending for "Our Town" is just wrong.

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Film adaptation of Our Town
I preface my comments by stating that Tornton Wilders play, "Our Town," is one of my favorite stage works. <
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>This film is quite good. <
>It's especially interesting in that it uses two performers from the original Broadway cast: Martha Scott as Emily, and Frank Craven as The Stage Manager. <
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>A considerable drawback of the film version is that it has a happy ending. <
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>In the play, Emily dies in childbirth. <
>Shortly after her on stage funeral, she finds herself seated among the Grovers Corners dead who are waiting patiently for their earthly desires and thoughts to be weaned away. <
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>In both the film and the play, Emily is given the opportunity to relive one special day in her life. <
>In the play, she returns to her grave with the realization that we mortals undervalue each and every moment we have here on earth. <
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>The play's final scene has George kneeling, overcome with grief, at Emily's grave. <
>Upon that, Emily comments to her deceased mother-in-law, "Mother Gibbs, THEY (meaning George and the rest of the living) don't understand (meaning the value of every moment of life), do they?" <
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>The film happy ending lacks the emotional blow to the gut which the stage version has. <
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>Wilder took umbrage that the film version rewrote his powerful final scene. <
>He also disliked that the film used realistic scenery. <
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>The play is meant to be performed on a bare stage. <
>No scenery whatsoever; except for a couple of ladders, two sawhorses and a wooden board (for the soda fountain scene), a few chairs (for the patient dead), and two optional trellises. <
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>If you want to see Our Town as more in the direction of how Wilder intended the work to be staged, look up the old TV version with Hal Holbrook, Sada Thompson, and Barbara BelGedes. <
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