It was the misfortune of Lon Chaney Jr. that he had the historical film name he did. Being the son of the great silent film star associated with so many horror films, Lon Jr. might have escaped the pull of that reputation had his father lived really into the sound period. When Lon Sr. did his sole sound film in 1930 his film voice showed he could have handled the switch to sound. But he was dying (ironically) of throat cancer, and left the scene soon after. Had he lived he would have been used in many types of films, but many would have been the same type of horror films he was known for. Instead, his son inherited a great name and also the inevitable lure of those horror films.
He's not bad in them. For example, if he had not made OF MICE AND MEN he would have been best recalled for THE WOLFMAN ( as the doomed hero. He also was in horror films that have cult status, like MAN MADE MONSTER with Lionel Atwill. But he was forced to do many crappy films. Later films showed the fine actor he really was - most notably his ailing, old sheriff who just is too old to help Gary Cooper in HIGH NOON, and his determined good guy who thwarts racist Claude Atkins from turning in Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in THE DEFIANT ONES, but they were too few to keep him from being recalled as another horror actor.
Lenny Small is then his signature role - simple minded and so strong he does not know his own strength. Twice in the film he demonstrates this by his killing of the puppy he gets from Slim (Charles Bickford), and his killing of Curly's flirty wife Mae (Betty Field). Both times he kills by accident: he thought he was just showing the puppy who was master, and he kills Mae to keep her quiet (not wanting to set off a chain reaction that - ironically - he does still set off).
John Steinbeck is in that select group of early to mid-century writers (with Eugene O'Neill, Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway - but for some reason not F. Scott Fitzgerald) who managed to win and deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature. Steinbeck's novels have been translated to the screen frequently. At least two of Steinbeck's best tales (the present one and THE GRAPES OF WRATH) were made into truly classic films, with a third one worthy of viewing as part of the James Dean legend (EAST OF EDEN). Most American students first come to him when they read OF MICE AND MEN. It is a good start for the novella is a complex development of the tragedy hinted at in the source of the title - the Robert Burns' poem TO A MOUSE.
George (Burgess Meredith) and Lenny have been migrant workers together for years. Cousins, George used to play jokes on Lenny, but when he saved his life (in a joke that backfired) he changes and takes care of the slow-witted giant. They dream of owning a small farm of their own, where they are not at the beck and call of other bosses. Lenny also hopes to raise little rabbits and have puppies as well. But Lenny inevitably causes some incident at each site that causes them either to be fired or to flee some mob or posse (the film is set in the 1930s, but the rural nature of the background makes it like a western). When they find themselves at the current ranch Slim and the other men welcome them, as does the owner. But the owner's son Curly (Bob Steele) is perpetually trying to prove himself by acting belligerently (except to tall, intelligent people like Slim). His wife Mae is bored and slightly flirty, and this gives Curly his perpetual suspicion of all the men on the ranch.
George therefore has his hands full trying to keep Lenny quiet and trying to keep Mae from coming onto his cousin. George has set a goal of saving $600.00 to buy a small farm, but has to keep the jobs he and Lenny got for several months to save up. However an old hand at the ranch named Candy agrees to go in with them, and they now only need a little over two hundred dollars. But their scheme (like that of the mouse in Burns' poem) is bound to go agley due to the death of Mae by Lenny.
Actually it is not the only scheme. Mae wants to get away from her mother and marries Curly (who she dislikes). She also wanted a Hollywood career, which she never gets. Curly wants to dominate the men with fear, and ends up with a crushed hand and a dead wife who never loved him. Crooky, the African-American farmhand, can't even get equality with his fellow white workers - he lives segregated in a room near a dung pile.
There are many fine set pieces here - the stupid fight that Curly picks with Lenny, that ends with the giant crushing his hand; the comparison of the camaraderie of the hands' dinner with that of Mae, Curly, and Curly's father (the latter has two males concentrating on their meal, while a bored Mae toys with her own); and possibly the two most poignant - the killing of Candy's old, dying dog by Doc, with the hands aware of what is going to happen but sitting around trying to forget it (the gunshot from outside reminds one that director Lewis Milestone had done similar work earlier in the decade in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT), and the dreadfully sad "execution" scene - with George trying to make Lenny as happy as possible in his last moments. OF MICE AND MEN was a powerful story in 1939, and remains so to this day.
He's not bad in them. For example, if he had not made OF MICE AND MEN he would have been best recalled for THE WOLFMAN ( as the doomed hero. He also was in horror films that have cult status, like MAN MADE MONSTER with Lionel Atwill. But he was forced to do many crappy films. Later films showed the fine actor he really was - most notably his ailing, old sheriff who just is too old to help Gary Cooper in HIGH NOON, and his determined good guy who thwarts racist Claude Atkins from turning in Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in THE DEFIANT ONES, but they were too few to keep him from being recalled as another horror actor.
Lenny Small is then his signature role - simple minded and so strong he does not know his own strength. Twice in the film he demonstrates this by his killing of the puppy he gets from Slim (Charles Bickford), and his killing of Curly's flirty wife Mae (Betty Field). Both times he kills by accident: he thought he was just showing the puppy who was master, and he kills Mae to keep her quiet (not wanting to set off a chain reaction that - ironically - he does still set off).
John Steinbeck is in that select group of early to mid-century writers (with Eugene O'Neill, Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway - but for some reason not F. Scott Fitzgerald) who managed to win and deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature. Steinbeck's novels have been translated to the screen frequently. At least two of Steinbeck's best tales (the present one and THE GRAPES OF WRATH) were made into truly classic films, with a third one worthy of viewing as part of the James Dean legend (EAST OF EDEN). Most American students first come to him when they read OF MICE AND MEN. It is a good start for the novella is a complex development of the tragedy hinted at in the source of the title - the Robert Burns' poem TO A MOUSE.
George (Burgess Meredith) and Lenny have been migrant workers together for years. Cousins, George used to play jokes on Lenny, but when he saved his life (in a joke that backfired) he changes and takes care of the slow-witted giant. They dream of owning a small farm of their own, where they are not at the beck and call of other bosses. Lenny also hopes to raise little rabbits and have puppies as well. But Lenny inevitably causes some incident at each site that causes them either to be fired or to flee some mob or posse (the film is set in the 1930s, but the rural nature of the background makes it like a western). When they find themselves at the current ranch Slim and the other men welcome them, as does the owner. But the owner's son Curly (Bob Steele) is perpetually trying to prove himself by acting belligerently (except to tall, intelligent people like Slim). His wife Mae is bored and slightly flirty, and this gives Curly his perpetual suspicion of all the men on the ranch.
George therefore has his hands full trying to keep Lenny quiet and trying to keep Mae from coming onto his cousin. George has set a goal of saving $600.00 to buy a small farm, but has to keep the jobs he and Lenny got for several months to save up. However an old hand at the ranch named Candy agrees to go in with them, and they now only need a little over two hundred dollars. But their scheme (like that of the mouse in Burns' poem) is bound to go agley due to the death of Mae by Lenny.
Actually it is not the only scheme. Mae wants to get away from her mother and marries Curly (who she dislikes). She also wanted a Hollywood career, which she never gets. Curly wants to dominate the men with fear, and ends up with a crushed hand and a dead wife who never loved him. Crooky, the African-American farmhand, can't even get equality with his fellow white workers - he lives segregated in a room near a dung pile.
There are many fine set pieces here - the stupid fight that Curly picks with Lenny, that ends with the giant crushing his hand; the comparison of the camaraderie of the hands' dinner with that of Mae, Curly, and Curly's father (the latter has two males concentrating on their meal, while a bored Mae toys with her own); and possibly the two most poignant - the killing of Candy's old, dying dog by Doc, with the hands aware of what is going to happen but sitting around trying to forget it (the gunshot from outside reminds one that director Lewis Milestone had done similar work earlier in the decade in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT), and the dreadfully sad "execution" scene - with George trying to make Lenny as happy as possible in his last moments. OF MICE AND MEN was a powerful story in 1939, and remains so to this day.