The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1950 EDWARD, MY SON

Wanganui Chronicle, 1 February 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1950 EDWARD, MY SON

"piIE film. “Edward, My Son,” because of the very great ability of the actors engaged in it, is likely to be misunderstood. The story of the play is simple enough: it is that of an ambitious man who seeks to gratify the every wish of his son, without regard for what is right and what is wrong. Notwithstanding the boy, Edward, dying before a denouement in his career can develop, the boy exemplifies the inevitability of the law whereby the sins of the fathers are borne by succeeding generations. These succeeding generations have an evil inheritance and it goes with them wherever they may walk. The film is tremendously strong in construction, each of the four or five main characters getting an opportunity to dominate at least one scene, each character is essential to the plot, there being no loose ends and no actor is guilty of overplaying his part. Spencer Tracy carries the part of the father, who succeeds, notwithstanding his unscrupulous conduct. Everything he touches turns 1o money and lie sees that, by hook or by crook, it does so.

His wife, unable to put an end to her marriage, takes to drink and sinks down and down with some flashes of insight that drunkards have and to which they occasionally give expression. The doctor, denied the family that marriage would have provided, finds in the care of his little patients that, interest which parenthood would have provided. The partner of the father, once in gaol and tricked into a guilty position, longs not for success, nor for anonymity, but for the position of an honest and respected citizen which he knows can never again be his. The schoolmaster, defeated by the wealth of the scoundrel, must succumb to pressure against his will. The secretary, fascinated by her employer’s success, adopts his methods to her own undoing. All of these combine to make the tragedy a wellknit affair. But the simplicity of the plot- remains: it is the gratification of the son Edward which, to his own detriment, provides the dynamic. The film will lay hold on the imagination of many people. The chances are, however, that they will see in the film the danger of a man, having the ability to makfTmoney and at the same time being an unmitigated scoundrel. It could easily be said: “See what a rich man can do, if he will.” It is to be emphasised that one rich man may do much harm, but it is also equally true that the damage that he does will be seen by many people. If a, thousand poor men play the same game, applying the same unethical standards for the gratification of their children’s undisciplined whims they will do many times more damage to the community than any one single rich man may do. And further, the damage will not so easily be undon'e; it is more likely to pass unnoticed and unchallenged.

How many parents in New Zealand, drawing comparatively modest incomes, indulge their children to such an extent that the latter lose the sense of the value of money? How many children fail to regard it as a reward for strenuous effort and as such to be prized and spent as though in fulfilment of a trust; That is as it should be. The youngster that grows up without discipline, whose many desires are easily, and without effort on their part, gratified, cannot be wholly blamed if they take it as their right to all that this easy money can provide. It is an evil inheritance they arc having bestowed upon themselves by their parents and others; and the damage may not be so dramatically exhibited as in the ease of Edward, but revealed or not it is there.

Competent judges of children who are concerned to enquire as to the cause of so much child delinquency are of the opinion that the real cause of this social evil is due to the children being given too much money too easily by their parents. When the supply is cut off the desires are so strongly developed in the children that they commit crimes to replenish the monetary flow that has stopped.

It should be emphasised that Edward’s father was not typical of businessmen, nor of rich men; he was an exception; he was an outsider of the class that runs big business. A rich man’s son is, if he be fortunate, restricted in his pocket-money so that he shall learn the value of money’. He is taught not to seek his own gratification and then rely upon parental influence to rescue him from the consequence of his wrongdoing; he is taught self discipline and the spartan life of an English public school backs up that family tradition. The easy-come-easy-go conduct of the vulgar finds no place in England’s aristocratic and. commercial classes. That is why they survive.