Autumn Leaves 1956

Autumn Leaves is a strange, strange movie, one I have a real love/not quite hate relationship with.

On the "love" side, it has a truly wonderful, touching performance by Joan Crawford as the shy, lonely lead character Millicent Weatherby, a freelance typist who lives in L. A. She's so tentative, so skittish of romance that it's likely she's unintentionally sabotaged her chances for a relationship. She's an absolute sweetheart, this Millie Weatherby, a now middle-aged woman who's spent most of her life looking after her ailing father. When he died she was left alone, with only a few friends

(like her landlady Liz Eckhart) and her work to keep her occupied.

Desperate to break out of her routine one evening, she attends the symphony and is overcome with memories...

After, she stops by a cafe for a "quick, chicken salad" and since the place is crowded, she's forced to share a booth with a charming, somewhat younger man, Bert Hansen.

Although Millie is initially hesitant, the two strike up a conversation, have a few laughs and he walks her home.

After chatting awhile on her front step he asks her to go to the beach next weekend. She accepts and he surprises her with a quick kiss on the cheek!

(the budding romance is utterly charming)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"I knew I should've gone on that diet!"

Bert however isn't having any of her modest robe...

Millie, shyly: "Do you like it?"

(He likes it)

After a wonderful day together they arrive back at her place and Millie, trying to protect herself and him (she fears the age discrepancy will lead to problems) thanks him for everything but asks him not to call her again:

"If you knew a girl your own age you wouldn't want me, and that isn't fair."

--------------------------------------

A lonely month passes...

...and then one day Millie returns home from shopping, only to find Bert waiting for her. Against her better judgement, she agrees to go to a movie with him...

(it's kinda neat to see them in the audience watching black and white cartoons)

...but afterwards, her attempts to play it cool are no match for his simple declaration:

"I wish you'd marry me...I love you, Millie"

"Love me...?"

A hot minute later, Bert and Millie are husband and wife.

The only off-moment is that Bert's personal information on the marriage certificate is at variance with what he's told her. Millie shrugs it off and they seem to be genuinely happy together.

(celebrating their second "weekiversary")

But the half-truths and flat-out lies keep mushrooming,

culminating in a visit from Bert's hitherto unmentioned former wife Virginia (even worse, he hadn't known Virginia had divorced him when he'd married Millie)!

Per the settlement, she just wants Bert to sign over some property to her. She also casually mentions that Bert's supposedly deceased father is alive and well and just happens to be in town...

"He's staying at the Chapman Park Hotel, I think."

Millie pays him a visit that very afternoon and he's even weirder and chillier than Virginia had been. He's very clear on one thing at least:

"My son is no good."

At several points he almost seems to be subtly hitting on her.

(for some strange reason, all I'm noticing right now is Lorne Greene's hilariously enormous ass in this shot-didn't he know he was on camera?)

When Bert gets home from work Millie confronts him angrily but his responses are so genuinely bewildered that she has no choice but to accept that something went terribly wrong in his life,

 something he can't even bring himself to remember. Maybe together they can work it out, but to get at the truth they have to meet up the with his father, for Bert's own good:

"You do have a father and he loves you very much!"

Next day, Millie arrives early at the hotel and while waiting for Bert in the lobby she wanders out to the pool. At this point it seems like the best thing to do is let the visuals tell the story...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following this, Bert regresses to something like infantilism or at least severe depression. He rarely gets out of bed and cries himself to exhaustion and sleep.

But one fine day, just as Millie is taking Bert out for some fresh air,

 Mr. Hansen and Virginia show up, anxious for Bert to sign the property settlement, to fund their swingin' lifestyle.

Millie rushes outside to bar them from her husband but unfortunately Bert overhears Papa Hansen unctuously advising her to "put him away-lock him up!"

Adds Virginia: "Sure, he should be committed!"

Bert wanders away from the window,shattered, and therefore misses his wife's response:

"You'd like me to commit him-put him away somewhere where he'd never be able to remind either of you of your horrible guilt! How you and you committed the ugliest of all possible sins, so ugly that it drove him into the state he's in now!"

Virginia, defensive: "She's the one who's crazy!"

Papa Hansen: "Gotta be crazy to put up with that weakling!"

Millie (one of my all-time favorite Crawford speeches):

"YOU, his loving, doting fraud of a father, and you...

you...SLUT!"

She races inside and slams the door on the fraud and the slut but Bert, his paranoia and psychosis escalating, mistakenly believes Millie's in cahoots with his father and Virginia.

He gets violent...

...and yet remorseful.

And Millie still thinks her love can cure him.

But at a certain point, after much soul-searching and many sleepless nights spent trying to comfort Bert, she realizes he must be committed. His ferocious outburst at her as he's being taken away is truly frightening.

--------------------------------------------------------

Millie spends the next months working overtime, typing her fingers to the bone to pay Bert's medical expenses off,

but he never responds to her letters, even as she continues to talk to his doctor (shrink, psychologist, whatever).

(Can I just add that Dr. is so condescending, so full of it, that I just want to punch him whenever he's onscreen?)

Millie gradually accepts that his cure may end his need for her, his love for her...

--------------------------------------------------------

The final scene is heartbreaking. Joan Crawford as Millie is infinitely tender and selfless here, and Autumn Leaves contains one of her finest performances.

Also Cliff Robertson is terrific as the messed-up Bert Hanson. Bert does seem to genuinely love Millie, but he's also frighteningly violent. And yes, it doesn't hurt that he's hot.

My main problem with Autumn Leaves is that it seems designed to appeal to women in the audience who themselves may be trying to rationalize abusive behavior on the part of their own spouses ("He doesn't mean to hit me...he just has problems").

Like many so-called "women's films", Autumn seems to ennoble female suffering, although on the other hand these soap operas provided the great ladies of Hollywood with some powerhouse roles.

Coming from a different perspective, as a gay man I can appreciate movies like this as a chance to see some great acting. And (as always with Crawford) I just love watching that face!

The second thing I don't care for about Autumn Leaves is the director, Robert Aldrich.

Although I haven't seen too many of his films (Vera Cruz is considered a classic, apparently) I honestly think he was an over-rated hack. He seems like a bit of a sadist, the way he puts women in his films through the wringer. The movies he directed that I happen to love (Kiss Me Deadly, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte) had great (or at least, appropriate) acting and great scripts going for them, but his directorial flourishes don't add anything to the final product.

Thank you Susanne for sending me this DVD (along with many others) last Christmas, that was one of the best presents I ever got!
Autumn Leaves is still worth checking out, still a classic, though more because of the genuinely touching (if disturbing) romance between Millie and Bert, and because of the lead performances of Cliff Robertson and Autumn Leaves real auteur,  Miss Joan Crawford!
-------------------------------------------
(Off-topic sorta, I'm considering moving to tumblr. All blog stats are down and tumblr seems to be the way it's going. I like the format (pics, gifs and likes) but I really prefer reading opinions and writing, so I'm thinking maybe keep this site for reviews and linking to here from tumblr when it's on-topic? Just wondering).