Zandy's Bride

I'm watching Some Like It Hot now, on my father's recommendation, but we'll have to wait and see what I think about it (assuming we finish watching it, there are a surprising number of good movies on tonight). I can talk about Zandy's Bride, though.

It's a rough movie, which goes without saying for a '70s Western. Gene Hackman is Zandy, and Liv Ullman plays Hannah, his mail order Swedish bride. Zandy doesn't feel she described herself accurately, not that it would make much difference. He treats her horribly, far worse than his horse. He rejects or scorns her attempts to make his ranch more liveable for her. He insults her looks constantly, and generally acts as though she's an embarrassment to him. The visit to his parents' home in the first third of the film explains a lot. Zandy's dad is a real peach, and it's obvious Zandy learned from him.

Near the end of the film, he finally reconsiders his attitude, but only after he harangues and stresses her to the point she nearly keels over in childbirth, and his mother finally verbally kicks him in the teeth. Now, remarkably, given the time this film takes place, she survives, and Zandy gets to be the father of twins. Zandy makes a big attempt to make amends with gifts and apologies, Hannah seems to accept, Zandy gets to meet his babies before running out to milk the cow, it seems like everything will be better, hooray!

I can't help wondering, though, what Zandy might have done if the children hadn't survived his abandonment? Zandy's whole reason for ordering a bride from Sweden was to have sons. His major gripe about Hannah from the start was that she was not 22, as she claimed, and so he doubted her ability to give him sons. Throughout the film, he's shown a complete unwillingness to acknowledge his own faults, or out another way, a complete willingness to blame Hannah. He won't admit he fooled around with Maria, he vanishes for months to drive cattle, and when he sees Hannah has made changes to his home (meaning, improvements) he pitches a fit and drives his cattle right through her garden and chickens like a dick. So I can't help wondering how he would have reacted if he came home and there were no kids.

FYI, we gave up on Some Like It Hot. Jack Lemmon's lady voice was irritating.

It's hard for me to assess Hackman's performance. Zandy is unlikeable, and the movie's attempt to pin the blame for that on his father doesn't chance the fact I think Zandy's a piece of crap. There's nothing sympathetic about him at all. But if the goal is for him to be entirely unlikeable, then Hackman does a great job. Every chance he has to say something nice about Hannah, he opts for an insult instead. She dresses up nice for this community get-together (the rare time a ship arrives with mail), and he basically calls her a harlot. It's an impressive lack of compassion.

Liv Ullman's more interesting as Hannah. On the one hand, she tends to accept Zandy's abuse quietly, but at the same time, there are certain lines she draws. If Zandy won't go along with them (and he usually doesn't) she goes right ahead and does it herself. The clothesline, the chickens, she got her trunk home herself after Zandy rushed off to move the cows. She's thrown into a place unlike any she's known, with only one actively hostile person for companionship. But she adapts, she figures out how things work, and she does the best she can.