The Male Animal

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The Male Animal ★★½ 1942

Fonda uses his penchant for playing principled men to uneven comedic effect as stuffy English professor Tommy Turner. He gets into trouble with university trustees over his views about free speech and it threatens his job, which worries wife Ellen (de Havilland). Tommy gets jealous when Ellen's college beau, exfootball star Joe Ferguson (Carson), suddenly shows up on campus and seems to want to rekindle the flame. The men behave like idiots while Ellen deals with their male posturing. Based on the play by James Thurber and director Nugent. Fonda later played the same role in a Broadway revival. 101m/B VHS . Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Jack Carson, Joan Leslie, Eugene Pallette, Herbert Anderson, Hattie McDaniel, Don DeFore; D: Elliott Nugent; W: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Stephen Morehouse Avery; C: Arthur Edeson; M: Heinz Roemheld.