The Male Animal

1942
Approved
1h 41m

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, and Joan Leslie in The Male Animal (1942)

Trailer for this rollicking re-union of the wildest college class ever...

Play trailer2:30

1 Video

10 Photos

Screwball Comedy Comedy Romance

A college English teacher suddenly finds himself the center of a free-speech debate on campus.A college English teacher suddenly finds himself the center of a free-speech debate on campus.A college English teacher suddenly finds himself the center of a free-speech debate on campus.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.6/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins total

Trivia
The play by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent opened at the Cort Theatre in New York on 9 January 1940 and closed on 3 August 1940 after 243 performances. Don DeFore, Ivan F. Simpson, Minna Phillips, and Regina Wallace were in the cast, and originated the roles that they play in the film version. The opening night cast also included Leon Ames as Joe Ferguson, author/director Elliott Nugent as Tommy Turner, and Gene Tierney as Patricia Stanley.

Goofs
When Tommy and Michael are drunk on the patio, the arm Tommy has in his jacket switches depending on the camera angle.

Quotes
Prof. Tommy Turner: [Reading Vanzetti's writing sample, at 1:35:40] If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man, as now we do by accident. Our words - our lives - our pains - nothing! The taking of our lives - lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler - all! That last moment belongs to us - that agony is our triumph.

Connections
Featured in AFI Life Achievement Award: AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Henry Fonda (1978)

Soundtracks
The Old Grey Mare
(uncredited)
Traditional
Played during the opening credits and later sung with modified lyrics as a football fight song

User reviews28

Review

Featured review

5/10

It's just not funny!

When college English professor Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda) says that he's going to read aloud letters from controversial figures in his class, the school bosses threaten to have him thrown out. This happens during the buildup to a major football game which sees the return to campus of former sports great Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), who seems to be making time with Tommy's wife Ellen (Olivia De Havilland).

The script by Julius and Philip Epstein and Stephen Morehouse Avery was based on a play by James Thurber and director Elliott Nugent. There's a lot that can be said about the clash between the academic and the athletic on college campuses, and the subject of free speech and what is and what is not appropriate for students to hear is something that seems to be in the news every week. Unfortunately, the movie is more interested in tired rom-com tropes, with the Fonda-De Havilland-Carson love triangle competing with the Herbert Anderson-Joan Leslie-Don DeFore love triangle for cliched banality. The performances are all fine for what they wanted to accomplish, but Eugene Pallette was maybe a little too annoying as an alumni blowhard. And it's hard to make Eugene Pallette anything but humorous.