The Howards of Virginia (1940)

• Year: 1940
• Released: 19 Sep 1940
• Country: United States
• Adwords: Nominated for 2 Oscars. 2 nominations total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032612/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_howards_of_virginia
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Approved
• Genre: Drama, History, War
• Runtime: 116 min
• Writer: Sidney Buchman, Elizabeth Page
• Director: Frank Lloyd
• Cast: Cary Grant, Martha Scott, Cedric Hardwicke
• Keywords: government, surveyor, virginian,

	6.0/10
	52% – Audience

The Howards of Virginia Storyline

Beautiful young Virginian Jane steps down from her proper aristocratic upbringing when she marries down-to-earth surveyor Matt Howard. Matt joins the Colonial forces in their fight for freedom against England. This puts him in direct conflict with Jane’s brother Fleetwood, who supports the Crown.

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The Howards of Virginia Movie Reviews

Patriots and Tories

Movies about the American Revolution for some reason have never succeeded as well as those about the Civil War. My guess is that the best of them is Drums Along the Mohawk and that was about one of the more obscure theaters of that war.

Like Gone With the Wind, the Howards of Virginia is taken from a rather sprawling novel. But Gone With the Wind was very faithful to the original and managed to hold interest even given its length. The Howards of Virginia is a condensed version of the novel and some of the characterization has been sacrificed in the screen translation.

Nevertheless it’s a good story about a fictional Matt Howard from his days as a youth hearing the news about his father’s death with Braddock’s army in the French and Indian War to just before the Siege at Yorktown. Of course growing up with Thomas Jefferson, it’s not surprising that Howard develops the opinions he does.

Cary Grant is cast against type as Matt Howard. Takes a bit of getting used to in buckskins, but I like his characterization. In point of fact if you want to see the real Cary Grant on screen look at None, But the Lone Heart, Gunga Din, or Sylvia Scarlett. That’s where you see the real Archie Leach. Cary Grant was the best role Cary Grant ever played.

If The Howards of Virginia were made 10 years later, Burt Lancaster would have been spot-on in terms of casting.

Martha Scott is fine as the Tory girl that Cary Grant woos and wins. It’s quite a culture shock for her coming to the mostly unsettled Shenandoah valley among Grant’s frontier friends and neighbors, but her best scenes in the film are at that point.

Of course I think both Grant and Scott are acted off the screen when Cedric Hardwicke is on. As Scott’s older brother Fleetwood Payton, Hardwicke is easily the best in the film. He’s a privileged Virginia aristocrat and loyalist supporter of the crown. He’s an aristocratic snob to be sure, but he’s also a tender and loving brother to Martha Scott. Hardwicke managed to capture all the elements in Fleetwood Payton well as well as his losing his mind as his well ordered aristocratic world tumbles down about him.

Richard Carlson is very much what I picture as the young Thomas Jefferson, full of new ideas and quite the rebel against his own class. Of course Patrick Henry and George Washington make their appearances as well in colonial Virginia. My guess is that in the book a whole lot of familiar names made it there, but were not in the screenplay.

This is not the American Revolution’s Gone With the Wind, but taken on its own terms The Howards of Virginia is good entertainment and does capture some of the motivating spirit behind the Virginia patriots and tories.

Possibly Cary Grant’s worst performance…terribly miscast…

CARY GRANT insisted that he would never do another costume film after THE HOWARDS OF VIRGINIA and it’s easy to see why after viewing the film tonight on TCM. Except for a couple of well played scenes with his sons (TOM DRAKE and PHIL TAYLOR), Grant’s performance is way too broad to be acceptable as part of a serious historical epic.

Director Frank Lloyd never once tones down Grant’s performance and lets the hyperactive Grant overact at any given moment in a role he clearly doesn’t know how to play. At least we do get more restrained work from MARTHA SCOTT as Grant’s aristocratic wife and SIR CEDRIC HARDWICKE as her snobbish brother who sides with the British during the Revolutionary War period.

Obviously a lot of expense went into creating the right atmosphere for this story of the turmoil surrounding America’s independence among the colonies, and there are times when you wish even more had been spent to produce the film in the gorgeous Technicolor of that era. But the script is a weak one, never able to maintain the sort of interest it should have had over a running time of two hours.

The banal dialog that closes the film is about as jingoistic as you can get and enough to make anyone wince. The story was probably chosen because the producers hoped to make another DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK or GONE WITH THE WIND–but they failed utterly to do so.

Summing up: Sad to see Grant so badly miscast and not given proper direction.

this was MUCH better than I expected

Despite rather mediocre reviews here on IMDb and in Leonard Maltin’s guide, I really liked this movie. Unlike the few other American Revolution films Hollywood has made, this one was both interesting and did an excellent job in conveying WHY the Colonists were rebelling and didn’t paint the British as total buffoons or Nazis (like in THE PATRIOT). Plus, the main character’s father-in-law is a loyalist, so the real tensions that existed within families was given decent treatment. As an American History teacher, I must point out that despite coming from Hollywood in 1940, the realism in spirit is quite surprising and I could recommend this to kids, as they’d learn a lot.

It was odd to see Cary Grant as a bit of a rag-tag outdoorsman, but he carried it off better than I’d expected. Plus, his British accent really wouldn’t have been out of place in the Colonies at that time.

Another big plus for the film was the relationship between Grant and his sons. Yes, it’s a bit manipulative, but I really liked the way the writers dealt with this relationship in the movie. All in all, an excellent film.