Kings Row (1942)

Kings Row movie storyline. A thought-provoking, emotional, melodramatic, ‘Peyton Place’-like film with a turn-of-the-century, small-town setting that reveals evil, sadism, cruelty, and depravity. Directed by Sam Wood and with James Wong Howe’s cinematography and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s magnificently rich score, the tragic Warner Bros. film presents a compelling, penetrating and difficult story with eloquence and power.

Sam Wood had previously directed two Marx Brothers films, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Our Town (1940), Kitty Foyle (1940), Raffles (1940), and The Devil and Miss Jones (1941). Its screenplay by Casey Robinson was based upon Henry Bellamann’s widely-read, scandalous 1940 novel of small-town life at the turn of the century. The film’s tagline commented on the nature of the town: “The town they talk of in whispers.”

The film’s main characters were originally five childhood friends, including an idealistic young doctor Parris Mitchell (Robert Cummings), a pretty tomboyish working class girl Randy Monaghan (Ann Sheridan), the neurotic sheltered daughter Cassie (Betty Field) of the town’s Dr. Alexander Tower (Claude Rains), the daughter Louise Gordon (Nancy Coleman) of a sadistic, morally-righteous doctor (Charles Coburn), and playboy Drake McHugh (Ronald Reagan in his best film role), with the unforgettable scene of his realization that his legs have been amputated and his exclamation: “Where’s the rest of me?” — this would become the title of 40th President Reagan’s 1965 autobiography.

The Hays Code of 1934 required that much of the questionable, unfilmable content of the novel be modified – eliminating or seriously muting subjects such as illicit premarital sex, homosexuality, a sadistic and vengeful surgeon, and father-daughter incest leading to a murder-suicide. The wartime film’s nominations all lost to William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver (1942).

Directed by: Sam Wood
Starring: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Claude Rains, Nancy Coleman, Charles Coburn, Judith Anderson, Maria Ouspenskaya, Harry Davenport
Screenplay by: Casey Robinson
Production Design by: William Cameron Menzies
Cinematography by: James Wong Howe
Film Editing by: Ralph Dawson
Costume Design by: Orry-Kelly
Art Direction by: Carl Jules Weyl
Music by: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: April 18, 1942