Directed by:
King VidorCinematography:
Harold RossonCast:
Brian Donlevy, Ann Richards, Walter Abel, John Qualen, Stephen McNally, Mary McLeod, Rudolf Myzet, Charles Irwin, Kay Medford, Paul Porcasi, Frank Faylen (more)Plots(1)
Director King Vidor intended An American Romance as the third entry in his "War, Wheat and Steel" trilogy (the War had been covered in The Big Parade, while Wheat was dispensed with in Our Daily Bread). Two years in production, the film cost nearly $3 million-little of which actually shows up on screen due to heavy post-production editing and rearranging of scenes. Brian Donlevy stars as immigrant laborer Steve Dangon, who becomes convinced early on that the only way he'll get anywhere in life is to accumulate huge sums of money. He takes a job in a midwestern steel mill, calculatedly working his way up the ladder from foreman to owner of an auto manufacturing firm. Though he regards himself as a "man of the people", Dangon resists the efforts of his workers to form a union.--even when his son Teddy (Horace McNally) is won over to the workers' point of view. A bitter three-month strike forces Dangon's board of directors to give in to the workers' wishes Disillusioned, Dangon retires from his business, but returns to work determined to switch over to the manufacture of airplanes when WW2 creates a demand for defense products. The "documentary" aspects of the story are far more compelling that the dramatic passages, with Donlevy's performance vacillating from strong to so-so. Minus any real star names (the leading lady is MGM contractee Ann Richards, a graduate of short subjects), An American Romance flopped at the box office, and Vidor in later years tended to dismiss the film as a misfire, severly damaged by studio tampering. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
William Tannen
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
Fury (1936)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Edmund Mortimer
USA
Best movies:
Edison, the Man (1940)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
It Started with Eve (1941)
Edward Hearn
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
Edison, the Man (1940)
The General (1926)
Fred Aldrich
USA
Best movies:
The Great Dictator (1940)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Barbara Pepper
USA
Best movies:
My Fair Lady (1964)
Of Mice and Men (1939)
A Child Is Waiting (1963)
Lee Phelps
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
After the Thin Man (1936)
Robert Emmett O'Connor
USA
Best movies:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
Easter Parade (1948)
Pat O'Malley
USA
Best movies:
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Gentleman Jim (1942)
Harry Cording
UK
Best movies:
East of Eden (1955)
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
Bill Borzange
USA
Best movies:
Support Your Local Sheriff! (1968)
The Great Race (1965)
War of the Wildcats (1943)
J.M. Kerrigan
Ireland
Best movies:
Gone with the Wind (1939)
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
Barbara Bedford
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Boys Town (1938)
Leon Belasco
Russian Empire
Best movies:
Casablanca (1942)
It Started with Eve (1941)
Adventures of Don Juan (1948)
Richard Crane
USA
Best movies:
So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
Follow the Boys (1944)
A Lady Without Passport (1950)
George Meader
USA
Best movies:
Edison, the Man (1940)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Roy Gordon
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
Lust for Life (1956)
The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
Howard M. Mitchell
USA
Best movies:
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Of Mice and Men (1939)
John Sheehan
USA
Best movies:
The People Against O'Hara (1951)
The Big Clock (1948)
Woman of the Year (1942)
James Carlisle
USA
Best movies:
Edison, the Man (1940)
After the Thin Man (1936)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Ilka Grüning
Austria-Hungary
Best movies:
Casablanca (1942)
Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Madame Curie (1943)