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1934 Anne of Green Gables

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SYNOPSIS
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LMM’s COMMENTS
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In 1934, Anne of Green Gables was produced into a black and white, 79 minutes long, “talking” film by RKO Pictures. The film starred actress Dawn O’ Day, who hereafter adopted the name “Anne Shirley” for a screen name. The film was largely successful, and was followed by a sequel, Anne of Windy Poplars (Anne of Windy Willows in Britain) in 1940, black and white, 86 minutes.

Cast

Anne of Windy Poplars (1940)
(Anne of Windy Willows, U. K.)

Cast
(partial list)
James Ellison
Patric Knowles
Anne Shirley
Slim Summerville
Henry Travers

Summary and Review

The film opens with “Rachel Barry” - a combination of Mrs. Lynde and Mrs. Barry - telling her daughter Diana that she is surprised to see Matthew drive to Bright River. Matthew is surprised at the station, and treated to Anne’s chatter on the way home. Marilla is surprised and confronted with Anne “spelled with an e”, begging to be called Cordelia, weeping in the depths of despair. They go to see Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett about the mistake, but is Marilla is reluctant to give Anne up to a life of drudgery with Mrs. Blewett. Just as in the novel, Anne says her prayers for the first time that night, and the Cuthberts decide they will adopt Anne although Marilla does not tell Anne right away.

Rachel Barry arrives the next day and Anne flies into a temper with her, and Matthew has to secretly coax Anne to apologize. Anne does her dramatic apology, and Mrs. Barry lets her become friends with Diana afterwards, although there is no “solemn vow and oath.” Anne gives a brief history of herself - stating her parents’ names and that they were teachers, and that she is 14 years old - when she attends school the next day with Diana. She infamously breaks her slate over Gilbert’s head when he calls her carrots. Marilla does not scold Anne for it once she learns that it is Gilbert Blythe, for the Cuthberts and Blythes are sworn enemies.

Matthew gives Anne a dress with puffed sleeves for the “hay-ride” (which has replaced the Sunday School picnic); but Anne can’t go until she makes up a confession about losing Marilla’s brooch, which Matthew then finds.

After this point, Anne and Gilbert feud and flirt for the rest of the film, and the next few years fly by. Anne boasts she will twist Gilbert around her finger, so at the hay-ride he ignores her. She retaliates by claiming that her beau is the famous essay-winner Herbert Root. When Root arrives at their school, Anne is embarrassed over her fib. She berates herself for letting her imagination run away, but Matthew pacifies her, and she feels imaginative enough again to re-enact Elaine in Matthew’s boat.

Anne pretends to be The Lady of Shalot, but she does so alone, paddling down the lake and reciting Tennyson’s poem until she lies does and finds out the boat is leaking. She hangs off a tree-branch to save herself, and Gilbert, spying on her from the shore, runs over to rescue her.

Gilbert and Anne reconcile the minute he saves her life, and they date secretly. The “next three years” fly by with a few brief scenes of Anne and Gilbert’s secret meetings where they exchange presents and kisses, until Rachel Barry catches them kissing. Marilla stops the relationship altogether. Gilbert departs for medical school, and Anne goes to normal school. When she kisses them both good-bye, they both muse on how they love her.

Nothing is shown of Anne’s time away at school. Anne finds out that Matthew is ill two weeks before her exams, when Diana, a married woman, comes to visit. Anne hurries home and is greeted by the doctor at Green Gables who demands a specialist. The finances at Green Gables are dire: the Cuthberts have deprived themselves to send Anne to school, and cannot afford Dr. Terry. But Anne, knowing that Gilbert is Dr. Terry’s apprentice, seeks Gilbert’s help. And so, Matthew recovers, and praises Gilbert, saying he “might have been his son.” The film ends with Marilla giving her blessing for the relationship.

The film follows the book fairly faithfully for half the film, but deviates completely after the “hay ride.” It feels very rushed. Diana does not get drunk on currant wine, nor does Minnie May get sick with croup. There is no Christmas concert, nor Anne dyeing her hair green, nor breaking her ankle from walking on picket fences; no White Sands concert, or jumping on Aunt Josephine in the spare-room bed. Josie Pye, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Charlie Sloane, and Aunt Josephine are not in this movie at all.

Instead, the focus of this movie is the love story of Anne and Gilbert. Just after Anne breaks her slate over Gilbert’s head, she finds out that the Blythes and the Cuthberts have an ancient feud because Gilbert’s father ran away with Matthew’s fiance. Inspired by this, Anne tells Matthew the story of Romeo and Juliet - foreshadowing her own romance later on in the film. Every scene thereafter revolves around Anne’s flirtation with Gilbert - Anne’s motive for attending the hayride is to prove her power over Gilbert Blythe, and she pretends that Mr. Philip’s esteemed former pupil, Herbert Root is her beau to taunt Gilbert. Anne makes up with Gilbert and offers to kiss him just after the “Lady of Shalot” scene. The plotline of the rest of the movie has to do with Anne and Gilbert’s romance, and Matthew’s sickness -and recovery - is a plot device to bring the lovers back together.

<i>Other Notes</i>

One conversation between Anne and Gilbert in Sullivan’s 1985 Anne of Green Gables appears to have come from this adaptation.

Anne: It is impolite to pass a person without at least nodding, so from now on I will be nodding to you.

Gilbert: Oh, why don’t you come off your high horse?

Anne refuses to speak to Gilbert altogether in the book, so none of this banter occurs.

Images

Posters and Covers

Cast

Opening Credits

Stills

L. M. Montgomery’s Comments

Article from Chatelaine Magazine, January 1935

The other day I sat and watched the ‘talkie’ with mingled feelings. On the whole I liked it it much better than the silent picture. Naturally, no picture can, in the very nature of things, reflect the characters and setting just as the author has conceived them. So at times I had the sensation of watching a story written by somebody else.

The little girl who played the part of Anne — whom we must call Anne Shirley, since she has taken that name for the screen — is a good Anne. There were many moments when she tricked even me into feeling that she was Anne. I loved the rick-rack braid on her pinafore. It was just what I wore myself oncee. Matthew, whom I have always seen with a long grey beard, seemed a stranger to me at first, but he was so good that I finally forgave him his clean-shaven face. Oddly enough both Matthew and Gilbert Blythe were exceedingly like the Matthew and Gilbert of the silent pictures, though entirely different people. Marilla was not the tall, thin, auster Marilla of my conception, but it was impossible to help liking her. I had, for the time being, the convictoin that although Marilla was not the least like that, she should have been.

Of all the cast I liked Mrs. Barry the least. They tried to make a composite fo Mrs. Barry and Rachel Lynde, and the hybrid result was not satisfactory. Diana was a washout.

There were no American flags in the picture. Canada and the Island were given some credit for the story. Prince of Wales College was even mentioned by name. Which indicates some faint glimmerings of a sense of geography on the part of hollywood which seemed entirely lacking in the silent version. The opening views are real Island pictures but the rest of the setting is California, not PRince Edward Island; and ‘Green Gables’ is New England colonial and not an Island farmhouse. The river where Anen was nearly drowned, while dramatizing Elaine, is not my blue Lake of Shining Waters. But how could it be? One must not be unreasonable.

Naturally, the introduction of dialogue to the picture adds to the versimilitude and is a distinct asset to stories which, like mine, owe much of their interest to the ‘talk.’ The producers sent me a copy of the script, but I had no ’say’ in it in any way or in any features of the story which was bought outright from the publishers. For two-thirs of the film my story was followed with reasonable fidelity. in teh remaining third the producers ‘produced’ a narrative of their own for the purpose of providing Anne with a love story. They dragged in the old Montague- Capulet motif and everything ended bee-yew-tifully, with Matthew — who died in teh book —scued from the brink of the grave. But I am devoutly thankful that they did not end the story with a lingering kiss between Anne and Giblert. Had they done so I would have risen up and shrieked.

On the whole, the ‘talkie’ gave me a much greater sense of reality than the silent picture. And I looked back to the evening of long ago, when I began the story of Anne with a smile and a sigh. For it is a ‘far cry’ from those days to these, and the creation of the story and its characters and atmosphere gave to em a delight that Hollywood cannot give or take away.

Excerpt from letter to pen-pal G. B. MacMillan, December 27, 1936

“I saw it… four times. Yes, I think ‘Anne Shirley’ was a very good Anne, all things considered, lacking some of what I trtied to convey as delicate elfin charm. Her eyes were good and in the scene where she ‘floated down to Camelot’ she was Anne completely and satisfyingly. Despite the newspaper I consider her beautiful, though not with the sugary prettiness of so many ‘film’ stars. She and I correpsond occasionally. And it does give me the oddest thrill to be walking along a Toronto street and suddenly see a neon sign flaming out ‘Anne Shirley in So-and-So.” I have the weirdest sensation that Anne has really come to life.

“I forget if I told you my reactions to the characters too. I agree with you in all your statements except one. Helen Westley would have been perfect as Mrs. Lynde. Why they blended Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Lynde is ‘one of thoth thingth no fellow can understand.’ But I don’t think as you do that Gertrude Messenger was a good Diana. She was too fair and babyish. My Diana was a dark lady with sloe-black hair and flashing black eyes. I didn’t like Gilbert at all and I haven’t come across anybody who did. So you are certainly “with the multitude.” The indignant letters I’ve got from girls about it!!

“As for the scenery two scenes in the picture were photographed on the Island. one was the opening one and the other as the background of the scene where Anne is talking to Matthew while he was fencing. All the rest is pure California. The house shown, both interiro and exterior is no house in P. E. Island, and does not resemble any farmhouse with which I am acquainted. The real house they photographed is somewhere in California. Mr. Webb, who is married to a cousin of mine, lives on the farm where Lover’s Lane is and this place is often referred to as Green Gables although in reality Green Gables was practically imaginary.”