21 Days

Later re-titled as 21 Days Together. Also known as Three Weeks Together and The First and the Last, which was the original title of the source, a short story and play by John Galsworthy. Seems like nobody could make up their minds about this one.

I was trying to figure out if this movie was pre-Scarlett or post-Scarlett in Vivien Leigh’s filmography. Turns out it is both. It was filmed in 1937 but not released until 1940, after Gone With the Wind. This was deliberate. Alexander Korda, the producer, decided to delay it for two years after Vivien landed the biggest plum role in Hollywood history.

So Larry (played by Larry Olivier) is the wastrel younger brother of Keith, a lawyer who is up for a judgeship. Larry is in love with Wanda, but three years ago she married a bad man in desperation, and now he shows up demanding money. There is a fight, each man trying to strangle the other. They fall down and the husband hits his head on a firedog and dies. Larry and Wanda panic, move the body. It is found by an ex-vicar, now a wino, who is arrested for the murder. The vicar is only too eager to take the blame, to atone for his past sins. Larry determines to turn himself in … but only after sentencing, to spare the man the gallows. The couple has 21 days to enjoy themselves.

But Keith thinks that if his family name is attached to a scandal, he will lose the judgeship forever. He wants to send Larry off to South America. Larry is adamant. He’s going to do the right thing. So they whoop it up, and then he takes off for the Central Criminal Court to turn himself in. Then, in a deus ex machina of truly epic proportions, the vicar dies of a heart attack. Everybody is home free!

This strikes me as such an ethical muddle it’s hard to sort it all out. First, the coroner inexplicably determines the cause of death to be strangulation, apparently not noticing the busted skull. Second, the death was clearly an accident, and Larry and Wanda could both testify that it was Larry who was attacked. Worst case: manslaughter. Still, I guess that might be enough to queer Keith’s chances. I’m left wondering just what sort of judge Keith would make, so willing to cover up a murder. I’m certainly not rooting for the cowardly bastard. And as for the vicar, he will now go to his pauper’s grave forever branded as a murderer. Is this right?

I kept being struck by how rare it is, today, for the driving force behind a plot to be the main character’s guilty conscience. These days we tend to see stories where people will go to great lengths to get away with real crimes, not turn themselves in for imaginary ones. There must be a few movies like that, but none come immediately to mind. The whole thing is really a mess, in my opinion.