I don't think I've ever read the Victor Hugo novel on which the film version of Les Miserables is based. I saw the musical in the early 1990s on Broadway; the tickets were a birthday gift to Partner At The Time, but we both had a great time at the theater that night. The musical was pretty lengthy, and the book has a reputation for being quite the time-killer as well. However, the 1935 film, which was nominated for Best Picture, is pretty brisk, coming in at just under two hours long. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the adaptation, but this is an enjoyable film with two strong lead performances by Fredric March and Charles Laughton.
March is Jean Valjean, a man sentenced to prison in France during the early 1800s after stealing food to keep his family from starving. While serving time in the galleys--in scenes reminiscent of ones in Ben-Hur--Valjean comes to the attention of Javert (Laughton), a man whose father died in jail and who was himself born while his mother was in prison. Javert is a strictly by-the-book disciplinarian. Much like the judges who sentenced Valjean, Javert does not believe that the law has any room for empathy or consideration of mitigating circumstances.
After Valjean serves his sentence and is released, he finds that no one will provide him with lodging or food save for a bishop. He is carrying a so-called "yellow passport" that identifies him as a former prisoner, and only the bishop sees a fellow human being in need. Valjean, though, is desperate for money and steals silver plates and candlesticks from the bishop. He is captured and returned, but the bishop refuses to press charges. He gives the silver to Valjean, who apparently has a kind of spiritual epiphany on the journey that follows.
We next see Valjean years later when, using the name of Madeleine, he is asked to consider being the mayor of the town where he has built a factory that employs many workers. On that same day, one of his managers fires a woman named Fantine, who has a child at a boarding house she is trying to support. Valjean learns of the woman's plight and takes her under his care. He also takes over the guardianship of her daughter, Cosette, who has been put to work in the boarding house doing chores like washing dishes despite her young age. Upon Fantine's death, Valjean assumes the role of parent of the child.
Of course, Valjean is still on the run from his past, and it isn't long before he's recognized by Javert. Valjean helps to lift a wagon that has been stuck, and it's oddly reminiscent of how he used his back in prison once to save a fellow prisoner. Javert, now a police inspector, makes it his mission to capture Valjean and make him admit to his identity as a former prisoner. You see, there's another fellow who has been charged as Jean Valjean, a drunk who's willing to admit to almost any crime. Javert begins investigating the mayor over the objections of everyone else. The real Valjean admits who he is in open court, but when Javert shows up to arrest Valjean, the mayor and his "child" escape and assume new identities. He now becomes a gardener at a convent where his daughter is schooled, and they seem to be happy for a time.
I know I'm making this plot sound horribly convoluted, and I'd be willing to wager that the book itself requires you keep a list of all of the characters, but really, it isn't all that tough to follow. I suspect the story has been remarkably streamlined in order to fit within a two-hour time frame, but the intrigue is still strong. The key, of course, is trying to discern if Laughton's Javert will truly find March's Valjean and arrest him and send him to jail despite all of the good deeds that the reformed prisoner has done.
March is very good here, playing Valjean and his various aliases each with a somewhat different style. Yet he remains the same man of integrity throughout the film, and his affection for Cosette is one of the film's strongest points. March always had an intensity to his acting, displayed perhaps best in his two Academy Award winning roles in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Best Years of Our Lives. The real star, though, is Laughton. He is younger and leaner here than I remember him from other movies of the era, and there's a hunger to him, an energy to prove himself that seems to drive his actions. He was an actor who always had a haughty look to his face, and it's used to good advantage here. His single-minded desire to arrest Valjean leads him to a harrowing trek through the sewers of Paris, but he refuses to give up. Laughton had already won an Oscar the previous year for playing the title role in The Private Life of Henry VIII, and he would co-star this same year in the original Mutiny on the Bounty, which defeated Les Miserables for Best Picture of 1935. It is starting to look like quite a string of great roles he had during that decade.
There's more to the story, of course, but why bother rehashing all of it? There are revolutionaries and rioting and all sorts of discussions of right and wrong. The year 1935 had a lot of high-brow literary adaptations, among them fellow nominees David Copperfield and Alice Adams and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This version of Les Miserables certainly belongs in that august company.
Oscar Nominations: Picture, Assistant Director, Cinematography, and Film Editing
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