The Life of Emil Zola **** (1937, Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden, Donald Crisp, Vladimir Sokoloff, Louis Calhern) – Classic Movie Review 3131

Emil Zola: ‘I shall tell the truth. Because if I did not, my nights would be haunted by the spectre of an innocent man expiating under the most frightful torture a crime he never committed.’

Director William Dieterle’s intelligent and entertaining 1937 triple-Oscared biopic provides an ideal showcase for the now largely forgotten star Paul Muni. Warner Bros modestly advertised it as ‘one of the few great pictures of all time’. Be that as it may, it won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Heinz Herald, Geza Herczeg and Norman Reilly Raine) and Best Supporting Actor (Joseph Schildkraut), while Muni had to be content with a Best Actor nomination, though he did win the New York critics’ Best Actor award for his quite brilliant performance.

Muni plays the famous real-life French 19th-century muckraking writer Emil Zola, who tries to fight the injustice of the Dreyfuss Affair by helping wrongly condemned Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Schildkraut).

Muni’s kudos, the prestigious project, top-quality Warner Bros production values, the outstanding art direction by Anton Grot and the relishably tasty, crowd-pleasing but precise performances helped to turn an unlikely Hollywood serious subject into an unexpected popular hit.

It also stars Gale Sondergaard as Lucie Dreyfus, Gloria Holden as Alexandrine Zola, Donald Crisp, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Morris Carnovsky, Louis Calhern, as Vladimir Sokoloff as painter Paul Cezanne, Harry Davenport, Dickie Moore, Robert Warwick, Robert Barrat, Marcia Mae Jones, Ralph Morgan, John Litel and Henry O’Neill.

Also in the cast are Charles Richman, Gilbert Emery, Montague Love, Frank Sheridan, Lumsden Hare, Walter Kingsford, Grant Mitchell as Georges Clemenceau, Moroni Olsen, Egon Brecher, Frank Reicher, Arthur Aylesworth, Frank Mayo, Paul Irving, Pierre Watkin and Holmes Herbert.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3131

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