Watch Mourning Becomes Electra For Free

I love this movie so much

To me, this movie is perfection.

The Age of Commercialism

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Academy Award winning screenwriter Dudley Nichols also produced four films and directed three, this was the last time he did either; his previous effort in both capacities also featured Rosalind Russell in the title role, Sister Kenny (1946). For both efforts, the actress received Best Actress Oscar nominations, this being her third of four (unrewarded) nominations for her career. Nichols also wrote the screenplay from the Eugene O'Neill play. In addition to Russell, Michael Redgrave (whose character doesn't appear until the drama's second act, one hour into the movie) received his only Academy recognition, a Best Actor nomination.The story is basically an updated version of the classic Greek tragedy of Agamemnon, the commander who returned from Troy hungry for a renewed life with his spouse only to find that his wife has strayed with a younger man (that could be his own son). She poisons him and then (she and her lover) must suffer the wrath of her own son and daughter, who are then haunted by guilt and their own demons (including near incestuous jealousy) for their vengeful act.In this case, Raymond Massey plays Union General Ezra Mannon who's returned home from the Civil War to his loving daughter Lavinia aka 'Vinnie' (Russell), the titled Electra, with his injured son Orin (Redgrave). Shortly before he's murdered, Ezra learns that wife Christine (Katina Paxinou, looking quite a bit younger and more attractive than she did in her Academy Award winning Best Supporting Actress stint as Pilar in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)) is in love with the son of a former Mannon family maid that he'd thrown out of the house for diddling his brother; Leo Genn plays Adam Brant. The drama plays out in three overwrought and overlong acts: The Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted.Also in the cast are Kirk Douglas (in his third film) as Peter Niles, who courts Lavinia, Nancy Coleman as his sister Hazel Niles, who's in love with Orin, Henry Hull as the Mannon's 40 year groundskeeper (that does what he's told) Seth Beckwith, Sara Allgood as a landlady, and Thurston Hall as the family doctor named Blake. Additionally, Elisabeth Risdon, Erskine Sanford, and Jimmy Conlin also appear briefly.

Bette Davis is famous for saying, "Fasten your safety belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride." More appropriate here is, "Put on your hip boots, you're going to have to wade through a lot of muck", Particularly if you watch the original 173 minute version shown on TCM.There are lots of reasons this film was such a financial disaster for RKO. For one thing, the matte artwork for many exterior shots is about the most fake looking I have ever seen in any film...and 1947 was not exactly the Stone Age. And, at least in parts, some of Rosiland Russell's acting seems to belong back in silent films (take for example her movement and looks when she sees an inopportune tryst of her mother's very early in the film).To be honest, there is only one performance here that I found had quality -- that of Raymond Massey. I'd have to say brilliant, in fact.Michael Redgrave is preposterous in this film. I know he became a great actor...it must have been after this film! Leo Genn was quite good.Katina Paxinou was a Greek actress that didn't translate well on the American scene. She is not tolerable in this film, Henry Hull always does nicely, and Kirk Douglas has a small part here.I know that the original play that this film is based upon was written by Eugene O'Neill. And I don't know much about O'Neill. But if this film is representative of O'Neill, then PU. As esteemed critic Bosley Crowther wrote at the time, the film is "a static and tiresome show", and that's putting it politely. This is probably the hammiest movie I have ever seen. If they showed this film in a movie theater today, the audience would be laughing out loud. Give me Lillian Hellman any day!

A proud ante-bellum family goes all 'Medea' on each other, and tears themselves to pieces for two and a half hours in this updating of the Orestia. It really pounds home how timeless the Greek classic is, in a way that seeing actors in togas, expounding on their anger, could never accomplish. The Little Foxes covers similar ground as a showcase for Bette Davis. And Peyton Place discloses the sinister secrets rotting the soul of an outwardly pleasant small town. But MbE is the most startling of them all, because it's so unsung. I put it on unsuspecting, and it was so engrossing and vengeful I couldn't stop watching until I saw who triumphed and who was punished. Only the last third falters a bit, as the rather explicit Freudian psychology of the first half doesn't have anywhere left to go.I don't understand viewer's qualms about 'dated acting.' It's 1947, what do they expect? I cut old movies a lot of slack for things like that as they also provide a window into a different moment in the culture. Everyone is up to their role, but Redgrave is above average. This is not a filmed play as some have indicated. There is modest camera work; this is clearly not some stage production that they just filmed. Just don't expect aggressive, needlessly showy visuals. The story is the thing here. This is where Tennessee Williams might have gone without resorting to excesses like cannibalism. It's a revelation that Rosalind Russell wasn't typecast, once upon a time. Not something I'd watch over and over, but wow, exhilarating, and relatively fast-moving for drama.

Eugene O'Neil or not, this 1947 film is pure junk.Rosalind Russell was favored to win the Oscar for playing the horrid Lavinia. The picture was so lousy, that's what did her in.A story of love and continuous death, people literally die off like flies in this one, is depressing. The cinematography may also be described this way.Former Oscar winner, Katina Paxinou overacts. She literally screams her part. Michael Redgrave, who was also Oscar nominated here, is really vacuous here.Rosalind Russell was a superior actress who was given an inferior script. Had I been her, I would have headed to the exits right after this film was made.A pure a-one stinker.