MAGIC TOWN

 

This is a 1947 RKO release that was produced & written by Robert Riskin, and directed by William Wellman. It stars James Stewart and Jane Wyman. With a roster of talent like that, most of you reading this may be wondering why you haven't heard of this film. It wasn't a success when it originally came out, and it almost never plays on TV. I watched it once, years ago, and I recently bought it on Blu-ray from Edward R. Hamilton. 

MAGIC TOWN was Robert Riskin's attempt to make a comedic-dramatic look at American life like the ones he collaborated on as a writer with Frank Capra in the 1930s. The title refers to a small Midwestern town called Grandview, a place whose residents accurately reflect the opinions of most Americans. Pollster Rip Smith (James Stewart) discovers this, and he and his associates (Donald Meek and Ned Sparks) immediately set up shop in the town as insurance agents. Smith's plan is to covertly access the citizens thoughts while supposedly trying to sell insurance, and selling the findings to various companies. Smith knows that any major changes to Grandview will throw off his scheme, so he keeps an eye on the local newspaper editor, a woman named Mary Peterman (Jane Wyman) who believes the town should stretch out and grow. 

Rip and Mary grow attracted to one another, and Smith starts coaching the local school basketball team. Just as Rip is becoming a trusted member of the community, and he and Mary are becoming more and more serious about each other, she discovers his scheme (a development one knew was going to happen). Mary prints a story in her newspaper detailing how Grandview is the perfect American city, which draws all sorts of attention to the town. Grandview becomes a national sensation, while Rip sullenly goes back to New York City. The first official poll the citizens of Grandview take on their own winds up way off of what the majority of Americans think, causing the town to go bust. A chastened Rip and Mary try to figure out a way to bring the town back to its senses. 

The idea of a town reflecting the majority of the average American's opinions is a good one, but one can tell from the above synopsis that Robert Riskin wasn't able to properly figure out how to use it. MAGIC TOWN tries very hard to be a classic Capra comedy that also reflects contemporary social issues, but there's something about it that just doesn't jell. The folksy elements so beloved in Frank Capra's work come off as forced and obvious in MAGIC TOWN. William Wellman was an excellent director--he's one of the most underrated filmmakers that worked during the Golden Age of Hollywood--but one gets the feeling this wasn't his type of material. 

James Stewart is fine as always, but his Rip Smith is more of an antagonist instead of a protagonist. Rip constantly wavers back and forth between being a hard-boiled cynic about what he is doing and someone who truly loves Grandview and its citizens. The movie has a lot of scenes detailing Rip and Mary's relationship, but Stewart and Wyman just don't seem to click. Jane Wyman's Mary is too severe, and in my opinion the actress is stuck with an unflattering hairstyle. 

MAGIC TOWN is filled with plenty of character actors who play the type of "regular people" roles that Frank Capra loved so well--actors like Donald Meek, Ned Sparks, Wallace Ford, and Ann Doran and Regis Toomey, who play almost exactly the same type of roles that they did in Capra and Riskin's MEET JOHN DOE. The "ordinary folks" antics in this movie seem a bit contrived. 

The best sequence in the film shows how Grandview changes after getting national attention. While watching this last night I first thought that the presentation of the town going from bucolic to booming to bust happened way too fast, but considering how in today's world yesterday's trending topic becomes forgotten a few days later, Robert Riskin was onto something here. The sequence also has an energy and a drive that reminds one of the Capra touch. 

The biggest issue I have with MAGIC TOWN is the ending. To revitalize the citizenry of Grandview, Rip and Mary come up with the idea of shaming the populace into building a new high school and civics center, even though the town is now broke. Most of the great Capra-Riskin films deal with an individual facing huge odds. MAGIC TOWN deals with a city instead of a leading character, something that is much harder to dramatize. The climax of MAGIC TOWN involves a discussion about city planning issues, which isn't exactly the type of thing to get an audience excited about. (During the sequence, the citizens--which are all gathered together in the best Capra tradition--swear that if they have to they will build everything themselves, which seems very hard to believe.) 

James Stewart is one of my all-time favorite actors, and I really wanted to enjoy MAGIC TOWN, but it just didn't work for me. It would be intriguing if someone took the main idea of MAGIC TOWN and did a different spin on it--but in today's world society is so fragmented that a town that reflects what the majority of Americans think seems something out of a science-fiction tale.