Gordon Douglas's Claudelle Inglish (1961)

I think that Gordon Douglas's Claudelle Inglish is a better adaptation of Erskine Caldwell than John Ford's Tobacco Road (1941) or Anthony Mann's God's Little Acre (1958) simply because Douglas is more of a craftsman, Mann and Ford are artists. Mann and Ford, both of whom made many wonderful movies, were not entirely comfortable with the modern world and tended to retreat to the past, which they could shape to their own visions.  Douglas was more of a protean figure, adaptable to many different points of view, including those of Caldwell and Leonard Freeman, the writer and producer of Claudelle Inglish.  I wrote previously about the relatively unknown Douglas on Nov. 7, 2014 and Sept.18, 2014.  And I wrote about Caldwell on Sept. 6, 2015.

If Douglas has a theme at all to his work it is about finding one's individual identity and one's place in society.  These two things often come into conflict in Douglas's work and sometimes, as in Claudelle Inglish, these conflicts cannot be resolved and end in death and destruction.  Douglas's film perhaps does not transcend the time in which it was made but has much to say about that time.  Claudell is trapped with her parents -- her father is a tenant farmer (the isolation of the farm is emphasized by being shot on a sound stage) -- in a small rural town and marriage is the only escape.. Her boyfriend promises to marry her when he gets out of the army but instead, once out in the wide world, he finds and marries someone else.  Claudelle is devastated and essentially becomes a slut, sleeping with anyone who will give her presents.  This film deals with many themes that I experienced growing up in a small town when the movie was being made.  We may forget, those of us who knew, that opportunities were limited in 1961, especially for women.  But in small towns and rural areas many men did not go to college either, often being drafted into the service right out of high school and returning to work in local factories or on farms, where work, then, was always available. Many women married right out of high school and eventually became miserable, as Claudell's mother did, when the promises of wealth led nowhere.

Claudelle Inglish is shot in crisp black-and-white and Douglas and cinematographer Ralph Woolsey often capture conflict by putting three or more struggling people in a shot.  Diane McBain plays Claudelle, Constance Ford is her mother who tries to get her to marry someone rich, and Arthur Kennedy is her father, who pays for his integrity and pride by ending up alone.  There is a richly ironic musical score by Howard Jackson