#but francis still considered himself a child of frank (hence his name)

[0mega-x]

saw your france + hre banner and nearly screamed!! thank you for being on that same east/west francia brainwave :D

Holy shit I was just looking at your tumblr after seeing your post on frank/france when I see this 😭

Of course! I love that whole east/west francia, and I hope the fandom (because I doubt the canon will) expand on it. There is just SO much that could be talked about on the two's dynamic all the way hre's death

[dweemeister]

Friendly Persuasion (1956)

When watching the films of producer/director William Wyler, one notices that his body of work defies categorization. There’s the affluent marriage drama in Dodsworth (1936), the Gone With the Wind-esque warm-up film in Jezebel (1938), film noir The Letter (1940), post-WWII coming-home drama The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and sword-and-sandals epic Ben-Hur (1959). With Friendly Persuasion, Wyler turns to a Quaker family considering their participation in the Civil War – a thematic departure of scores of wartime films, but playing to Wyler’s strengths as an actor-friendly director. For in this film adapted from Jessamyn West’s novel of the same name, an astounding ensemble performance beautifully dramatizes the mental anguish, the tension between central religious tenets and an innate human impulse towards action.

Jennings County, Indiana is the home of the Birdwell family: patriarch Jess (Gary Cooper), matriarch and minister Eliza (Dorothy McGuire), eldest son Josh (Anthony Perkins), middle child Mattie (Phyllis Love), youngest son “Little” Jess (Richard Eyer), and their pet goose Samantha. Despite the American Civil War entering another year, little has changed in the lives of the Birdwells. Jess has a liking for horseracing, Eliza is an active participant at service on Sundays, Mattie retain her love for cavalry officer Gard Jordan (Peter Mark Richman), and “Little” Jess gets into squabbles with Samantha. But the Civil War is encroaching upon Indiana, with Confederate raids across Kentucky (which never joined the CSA, despite not abolishing slavery until 1865) striking fear into southern Indiana border. Friendly Persuasion postures itself as an episodic movie, almost like many Disney live-action movies in the 1950s and 60s. But as Morgan’s Raid commences, convictions are tested and difficult decisions must be made.

Officially, Quakers are known as the Religious Society of Friends, referring to each other as “Friends”. Hence, Friendly Persuasion. Quakers are typically rigid pacifists and, in antebellum America, were noted as one of the earliest and most vehement supporters of the abolitionist movement. Friendly Persuasion is one of a handful – maybe even a quarter-handful – of films that portray adherents and practitioners of Quaker beliefs with the utmost respect, allowing certain details of Quaker life in that most have not cared to learn about. A scene juxtaposing the near-silent, gender-segregated, and unorganized (as opposed to disorganized, which connotes a lack of control) Quaker meetings on Sundays with the nearby rambunctious service of a Methodist church is an early introduction into the differences between expectations for the dominant Christian groups in the United States and the Quaker community the audience is about to be introduced to. The dichotomy here prepares the viewer to set aside those expectations, to anticipate not proselytizing – Quakers, compared to established Evangelical groups, are much less inclined to proselytize – but a presentation of a culture little understood. 

Perhaps most jarring, if not perplexing, to first-time viewers is the substitution of the pronouns, “you”, “your”, and “yours” for “thee”, “thy”, and “thine”. By the Civil War this style of diction remained intact for numerous Quaker communities, but was falling out of style to the point where, today, Quakers have since abandoned this archaic English. Credit screenwriter Michael Wilson – more on Wilson shortly – for inserting those culturally- and temporally-specific pronouns into the screenplay; I would imagine most other writers then and today would attempt to modernize the richly-structured dialogue for the sake of audience accessibility.

Yet there are inconsistencies in Wilson’s screenplay. As beautifully as Quaker life is portrayed and as alternately humorous and evocative Friendly Persuasion’s episodic structure is, the final decisions of Anthony Perkins and Gary Cooper’s characters regarding their participation in the Civil War lacks narrative clarity. Perkins, as Josh Birdwell, has developed belligerent motivations from somewhere or something unspecified. As Friendly Persuasion hurtles towards the breaking point, as Confederate raiders have streamed across the Kentucky-Indiana border, it loses its focus on the precarious dynamic between religious nonviolence and existential tendencies towards self-defense.

One of the most-commented scenes in Friendly Persuasion is also one of the most derided. That would be the opening second involving Little Jess’ narration introducing Samantha the pet goose and acknowledging the constant bickering and violence in Little Jess and Samantha’s love-hate relationship. Some believe that the scene is too comical, too arbitrary, too Disney to be in Friendly Persuasion. But this is our introduction into the pacifism of the Birdwell family, of most in the Quaker community in which they reside. Because soon after, Eliza steps in and scolds her youngest child that violence is not what the family believes in. Her defense of that nonviolence is passionate, ingrained. By portraying this squabble between Little Jess and Samantha, Wilson’s screenplay becomes more efficient by not having to spend precious minutes explaining and lecturing in a more formalized, less “cinematic” setting on Quaker beliefs. 

For Michael Wilson, his screenplay to Friendly Persuasion had been completed in 1946, as Frank Capra’s short-lived independent studio Liberty Films had first purchased the rights earlier that year. But when Liberty Films was running into financial trouble and was dissolved in 1951, the rights were sold to Paramount, which later sold its rights to Allied Artists (which offered a soon-to-be out-of-contract William Wyler full artistic license and control). Within those years between the transfer of production rights, Wilson found himself blacklisted in Hollywood after refusing to provide names of suspected Communist Party members in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during 1951 hearing – this is part of the reason why Friendly Persuasion took so long to be shot and released. Thus, upon release, Friendly Persuasion had no credited writer until Wilson’s credit was posthumously restored in 1996.

At the head of a strong ensemble is Gary Cooper, who was reluctant to star in Friendly Persuasion because of his history of playing proactive characters when violence looms. Audiences would be confused, Cooper reasoned, but the book’s author Jessamyn West convinced Cooper that the very nature of deciding upon inaction is an action in and of itself. “You will furnish your public with the refreshing picture of a strong man refraining,” she told the actor, and Cooper portrays exactly that in the final cut. Though arguments can be made about Cooper’s age (he was 55 then, but this criticism was more salient for his role in Billy Wilder’s 1957 film, Love in the Afternoon), what is clear from the opening minutes is that even a graying Gary Cooper – who reportedly despised his performance in Friendly Persuasion – could still act with a seemingly effortless naturalism that he did in decades past. With subtleties in his facial and physical acting, he conveys thoughts and emotions seamlessly.

Cooper’s co-star, Dorothy McGuire, could also summon similar subtleties but was always less heralded than she deserved. From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), and Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), McGuire had already displayed a variety to her craft few other actresses could accomplish. Yet McGuire was one of the last choices for Allied Artists for the role of Eliza Birdwell; Cooper – who, if you couldn’t tell already, didn’t exactly have his heart set on Friendly Persuasion – was initially disappointed in the casting, thinking poorly of McGuire’s acting abilities and her attractiveness. But for the scenes where Eliza encounters Confederate troops and where she is directing the Quakers’ Sunday meeting, McGuire displays some career-best acting, showing incredible discipline in her performance.

But the breakout performance comes from a young 24-year-old Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates in 1960′s Psycho), whose appearance in Friendly Persuasion was only his second film role. As the determined, headstrong, loving oldest son of the Birdwell family, Perkins fills his performance with youthful anxiety, wondering about what to do with himself in the world. Before Perkins was typecast post-Psycho, this is Perkins displaying a vulnerability that would soon disappear from his later works. It is a treasure of a youth performance, especially in the scene where his character, Josh, realizes he has reached a wrenching milestone in his short life.

Taking from some of the lush string melodies found in his score to It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Dimitri Tiomkin’s gorgeous score is based upon the song that appears in the opening credits. “Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)” has music composed by Tiomkin, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, and is performed by Pat Boone. As titular theme songs go, “Friendly Persuasion” boasts a memorable string-dominated melody, with incredible harmonies that undergo various arrangements throughout the score (like in “Love Scene in the Barn”). It sets up an idyllic, pastoral lifestyle, which is rearranged into harsher orchestrations and dissonant passages when it is threatened by the incoming war. It might be the finest example of how Tiomkin could incorporate melodies invoking Americana into a film, but his work for Friendly Persuasion is an excellent work that successfully modulates given the film’s different moods that sometimes clash due to the narrative structure.

William Wyler’s Friendly Persuasion is intimately crafted, providing audiences a glimpse of a pacifist narrative more reluctant than that of Sergeant York (1941) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016) – these three films would make for an interesting comparative essay in how successful each executes its balance of nonviolence and belligerence and to what extent each film leans towards the notion that violence can be a terrible necessity. The film is always exudes familial warmth. And though it might not be a film of unshakeable moral or religious faith like some of its contemporaries, Friendly Persuasion poses questions rarely asked in American cinema. Even if just for the very presence of that inquiry, it is a remarkable piece in examining one’s conscience in times distraught and dire.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating.