A Greek Tragedy

Take murder, adultery, incestuous love and what do you get? A Greek tragedy turned into a movie. Eugene O’neill’s play, turned movie, “Mourning Becomes Electra,” (1947) is a dark and haunting story of a family during the civil war. In the Greek myth the characters are Orestes and Electra the children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Electra persuades her brother Orestes to avenge Agamemnon’s death by helping her to kill her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

The movie “Mourning Becomes Electra,” (1947) has the same characters and the same storyline only it’s an updated version of the story. Orin (Michael Redgrave) and Lavina (Rosalind Russell) are the children of an American Civil War General Ezra Mannon (Raymond Massey). Ezra’s wife Christine (Katina Paxinou) is a sultry middle age woman who has been alone in her dark and dreary mansion in New England during the Civil War. While her husband was out fighting, Christine was having an affair with a younger man Adam Brant (Leo Genn).

Little did she know that not only was Adam sleeping with her, but was also sleeping with her daughter Lavina. Lavina finds out of her mother’s affair and confronts her about it. Lavina reminds her mother about her age and predicts that Adam will eventually leave an aging woman. Christine doesn’t care; she wants Adam, no matter the cost. She plots with her lover to kill her husband when he returns from the war. Ezra returns and wants to rekindle the love he and Christine once had for each other. Christine can’t bear his touch and just wants him dead. Ezra has a weak heart and Christine hopes to excite him enough to get his ticker to stop. On the same night of his return she argues with him, and tells him of her affair with Adam. Ezra gets excited, and his heart begins to fail. He asks his loving wife, ah, murderous wife for his pills. She instead gives him poison, but before he dies, Lavina who adores her father walks in and hears Ezra’s last words, words that damned Christine. Ezra is buried, but Lavina knows what happened and threatens her mother with telling Orin the truth should she stay with Adam.

Christine agrees to never see Adam again…I don’t think so. She continues to have clandestine meetings with Adam. They talk and dream of going away to some Island “where they don’t know sin.”

Orin returns and doesn’t put much importance to his father’s death, he is more concerned with his mother. He worships the ground she walks on. You can clearly see the incestuous relationship Christine has with her son. He confronts his mother about the rumors of the affair which she vehemently denies. After much pleading, and crying from Christine, Orin believes her. Lavina knows differently and tells Orin that she can prove that Christine is having an affair, and is guilty of killing their father. A distraught Orin demands proof, and so he gets it. Lavina takes him to the boat where the lovers meet and plot their get-away. Orin sees it all and Lavina persuades him to avenge their father’s death. He must kill Adam. Orin kills Adam and tells his mother. His mother moans like a banshee. Orin realizes that his mother does not love him as much as she loved Adam. Orin becomes distraught because he can’t comfort his mother. Christine is so hopeless that she commits suicide.

Lavina and Orin leave the ominous house and its ghosts and go off to an island for a while. Although Orin cannot get out of the depression that has overtaken him, Lavina has blossomed and seems happy since her parent’s death. In fact, Lavina had many lovers while on the island, and is even planning to marry Peter (a very young Kirk Douglas). Orin can’t take the guilt. Lavina is cold and perfectly fine with everything, after all, “it was justice,” in her mind. Orin finally ends his life…the pain was too much. Lavina breaks up the engagement to Peter after realizing that the dead will always “come between them.” Lavina stays in the house, all the shutters are nailed shut, and the door forever closes to the outside world.

The movie was well done. Rosalind Russell as Lavina was superb. Katina Paxinou’s short, but powerful role as Christine is memorable. The film has great close-up shots, and crispy black and white cinematography, the use of shadows and lighting brings the dark story to life. At times I felt that it was a story written by Freud himself. The family loyalty was extreme and seemingly incestuous. Other times I felt that the movie was Shakespearean-esque. The movie is long, dramatic, suspenseful, and a little depressing, but excellent nonetheless. I highly recommend you see it.