The Prodigal isn't necessarily a bad film, and it is interesting in that it portrays adultery in a non-judgemental light, but it isn't good either. The production values are quite nice, the music is absolutely wonderful, Roland Young is nicely droll and Lawrence Tibbett with his charisma and big voice is a likable lead. However, Esther Ralston shows no chemistry with Tibbett and for me this is the only Lawrence Tibbett film where neither the comedy or romantic elements quite work, the comedy being unfunny excepting Young's drollness and the romance underdeveloped and syrupy. The story is also very creaky, the characters are stock and uninteresting and the film is too short and unevenly paced. I didn't like the representation of the plantation workers either, it was stereotyped and verged on racially offensive. Overall, interesting curiosity but not a treasure. Worth seeing for the music, the subject and Tibbett if not much else. 5/10 Bethany Cox
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"The Prodigal" appears to be assembled from leftover script ideas from other films. It opens with some pretty good scenes of the lives of tramps in the early Depression years. Soon it focusses on Jeff Farraday, one of the tramps who actually comes from a wealthy Southern plantation family. Jeff has been exiled from the family, served time in jail, and is detested by his brother Rodman and sister Christine. The Farraday family seems to be withstanding the Depression quite well. Jeff returns to the plantation with a couple of other bums, is welcomed by his adoring mother, scorned by his siblings, and falls in love with the charming and perky Antonia, the wife of his brother Rodman. Rodman, of course, is a cruel, bullying stuffed shirt who hates Antonia but won't give her a divorce.
The film veers from melodramatic family conflict to awkward love scenes to thoroughly unfunny comedy to incongruous musical numbers. Jeff is played by opera-singer Lawrence Tibbett who frequently breaks into song. Tibbett can really sing but he can't act, nor can any of the other characters in this mishmash. But then with lines like these, it would be impossible for any actor to seem anything other than ridiculous.
Not to be overlooked are the really horrible portrayals of the blacks on the plantation. Even for the time (when Aunt Jemima type characters are standard), these racist portrayals are extreme. One farmhand is a whining, sniveling wimp; other scenes involving the darkies' BBQ make a viewer want to crawl under the table. -
bkoganbing3 October 2016Some wonderful singing by Lawrence Tibbett saves The Prodigal from total oblivion. As it is it's a film not likely to be remade in this day and age or the future because of some really bad portrayals of southern blacks as happy contented darkies. In this film Tibbett plays the title role, a prodigal son returned home to his southern gentry family where it looks like they haven't heard the bad news from Appomattox.
Anyway Tibbett who's been on the road with pals Roland Young and Cliff Edwards returns home to the old plantation presided over by Emma Dunn and her two children Hedda Hopper and Purnell Pratt. Pratt's a dull witted lummox of a man who doesn't know that his wife Esther Ralston is running away with his friend Theodore Von Eltz.
Anyway Tibbett arrives and unsettles a whole lot. He also gets to sing Life Is A Dream and Without A Song and snatches of other numbers and a song with the field hands who are referred to as 'pickaninnies'. That's the reason The Prodigal didn't get many viewings after the 60s.
Besides Tibbett's singing I have to give some kudos to Roland Young playing a droll cashiered former English army surgeon who has some interesting observations to make.
Still The Prodigal will not find favor with many. -
bbmtwist6 November 2016This is an odd film that goes nowhere after taking a small time setting itself up. For an hour and sixteen minutes we wonder whether she really will leave her husband and marry her brother in law. The denouement is abrupt and disappointing. No final clinch. Just a promise.
Ralston and Tibbett are at ease with each other and play charmingly together. They make a good team. It's a shame Tibbett made only six films, one of them extant only in small chunks (ROGUE SONG, for which he was nominated for an Oscar - luckily the entire soundtrack exists). This then is THE PRODIGAL's one reason for existence, the presence of Tibbett.
Scenes between he and his mother early in the film are dreadfully acted by both he and Emma Dunn. For the rest of the film though he is charming and a natural actor. Ralston shows great poise and promise. Stealing the film however is Roland Young as Tibbett's tramp friend, Doc. Had there been a Supporting Actor Oscar category then, he would have deserved a nomination.
The scenes with Stepin Fetchit and the Chitlins barbecue number amongst the plantation workers are embarrassingly bad. Hard to believe this sort of stereotypical racism was tolerated amongst the film actors of color. Songs include Without A Song, Rest By The River Side, and Home Sweet Home.
Worth seeing only for fans of Tibbett, Ralston and Young. -
"The Prodigal" is a movie that suffers from two major problems. The first is technical, as the movie has rather poor sound...which a problem since it features the opera singer, Lawrence Tibbet, and it doesn't show off his skills well at all. The problem is common in films made up to about 1932, as sonud technology wasn't great and the resulting sound was weak and tinny. The second is a product of the times in which it was made...and that's the antics of Steppin Fetchit and a very problematic musical number called 'chitlins'. When seen with modern sensibilities, they both make you cringe and I am not in any way apologizing for the racist depictions in the film. It's the way it was...though I am loathe to say the problematic scenes should be excised or the film censored. Instead....just watch it and hold on tight!
The story is about Jeffrey Farraday, a man who comes from a very wealthy Southern family...but has chosen, instead, to be a hobo! After five years of hobodom, Jeff is returning home for a brief visit....and it immediately becomes apparent why he left. His family are mostly a lot of stuck-up and stuffy jerks. The only saving graces among them are Jeff's mom and sister-in-law, Antonia. As for Antonia, however, she's miserable...as her marriage is loveless...and having Jeff visit is a breath of fresh air. So what's next for this dysfuctional family?
The saving grace in the film is Lawrence Tibbet. Although he only made a half dozen movies (at least one of which has been lost over time), he's excellent here in a singing and comedic role. His voice really is lovely...not so much operatic but powerful and pretty amazing...and I wish the recording was better.
So is it worth seeing? Well, it all depends on you. If you are a very politically correct sort who would rather die than see Steppin Fetchit and racist depictions in films, skip it by all means. But if you can look at the film in its historical context, you may find it's still pretty watchable.
By the way, the ending is about as indicative of the morality of the Pre-Code films than just about any I've seen. Watch the picture...you'll see what I mean. -
boblipton3 December 2019Five years after he had to hot-tail it out of town, Lawrence Tibbet returns with fellow tramps Roland Young and Cliff Edwards. He sings some songs, terrifies Stepin Fetchit and charms the children and Esther Ralston (Yowza!) and worries the men, who fear for their women-folk.
It looks like an attempt to do for Tibbet what The Champ did for Wallace Beery, but Harry Pollard ain't King Vidor. Once Tibbet gets a bath, everyone is clean and neat, especially the darkies down at the meeting house in the swamp who sing about chitlins. Except Roland Young. Of course, I love Young from the late 1930s, but it's nice to see he could do more, as here. -
marcslope30 October 2019Lawrence Tibbett was a major MGM contractee when they cast him in this, and it's built all around his capabilities-most notably that voice, a fine operatic baritone. A little funny-looking, he was nevertheless a capable leading man, and he's well cast as a black-sheep Southern aristocrat who's done some hobo-ing (with pals Roland Young and Cliff Edwards), done some time, and returns to the plantation (how his family survived the crash so well is never explained). Most of the Faradays hate him, especially his brother (Purnell Pratt), who beats his wife (Esther Ralston), but his mother (Emma Dunn) adores him-I've never seen so much lip-kissing between mother and son. Tibbett falls for his sister-in-law, and, uncharacteristically for the era, the movie stays on his side, with his mom eventually aiding in the bust-up of her other son's marriage. There's also a picturesque fox hunt sequence, rather pre-"Love Me Tonight" and "Auntie Mame," and much vocalizing. Tibbett does a splendid "Without a Song," which was then a new Vincent Youmans song, and engages in a long spiritual sequence, aided by some now-offensive plantation workers; there's a big production number about chitlins, I'm not making this up. Stepin Fetchit does his usual thing, the sound equipment failing to capture his lines in an understandable way, and what's meant to humanize Tibbett-look how well he gets along with the folk of other color-now comes across as patronizing. The comedy doesn't work and neither, really, does the romance, but Tibbett's quite watchable, and if the whole thing now looks incalculably racist, well, enjoy it as a history lesson.
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richard-17874 December 2019I'm a big fan of Metropolitan Opera baritone Lawrence Tibbett, so I sat through this movie. It wasn't easy, though. Tibbett only gets a few numbers, and he doesn't do anything noteworthy with any of them, even Vincent Youmans' very beautiful "Without a song." He is often very stiff, and while it is true that the script is very bad, he doesn't deliver most of his lines very well. So, in short, it really isn't worth sitting through 76 minutes of bad melodrama to see him.
The rest of the movie is just bad. The melodrama is bad, as I said, and none of the other actors do anything interesting with it.
And then there is the depiction of the black characters, starting with Stepin Fetchit. Even for a 1930s movie, it's bad.
So, my recommendation: if you want to hear Tibbett sing, go to YouTube or your record collection - if you're old enough to have one. Don't regret not seeing him act. He really doesn't here. -
gratwicker3 October 2016Falling in love with your brother's wife is a good starter. There's plenty of tension between the brothers. Their mother is in between but obviously sees the failings of the successful, stay at home, brother. His wife is bored as her husband fails to think of her...Lawrence Tibbitt gets to sing, and he's as good an actor as most opera stars(not very).
This reviewer was glad to her his voice. The justly criticized scenes with stereotyped darkies are as bad as you'll ever see, but Steppin Fetchet answered critics of his portrayals with the remark that he "laughed all the way to the bank."
I am pretty far to the left, but I judge art as a product of its time. The singing and dancing of African-Americans in this film was joyful and artful, though admittedly stereo-typed. It was not embarrassing. -
GManfred7 July 2020How much you like this picture depends on how much you like Lawrence Tibbett. He is in almost every scene and the picture is clearly designed for him, and he doesn't disappoint. Tall and handsome and with a great baritone voice, he carries the picture through all of its illogical eccentricities and old-fashioned moral values.
He is the scion of a wealthy southern family who 'hit the road' and became a hobo after becoming disenchanted with the graceful plantation way of life. He returns home after five years to a mixed welcome, from his mother who adores him and his brother who hates him. His brother's wife, played by Esther Ralston, is also in his corner. The story is trifling and dated but I felt Tibbett makes it work, right up to and including the peculiar ending. The plantation workers were stereotyped and this couldn't be made now, but it worked in 1931.
Not sure you will take to it, unless you are a fan of one of the Metropolitan Opera's great voices.
7 stars - Website no longer prints my star rating.