Book Adaptations: My Sister Eileen

"My sister Eileen and I, movie fans when we were five and six, respectively, would have scorned Mickey Mouse in our youth; we preferred Theda Bara to Fatty Arbuckle, and that was the acid test."

Author Ruth McKenney was born on November 18, 1911 in Mishawaka, Indiana, but she was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Peers called her overweight; she was never the belle of the ball, unlike her younger sister. She and Eileen worked at the Harvey Tea Room at Union Station while attending Shaw High School. They were close in spite of their differences. Ruth studied journalism at The Ohio State University but quit before graduating. She found a job working for the Akron Beacon Journal and won awards while on staff. Her success tempted her to move east, first to New Jersey and then to New York and while living there she rented an apartment near Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village which became the inspiration for a chapter of "My Sister Eileen," a series of stories first published in The New Yorker.

McKenney specialized in what became known as cringe comedy. "Once shame or embarrassment is dragged out into the open for the friendly amusement of others, it no longer has the power to trouble us," she said. Discomfort and the ridiculous were often topics in her writing.

Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov adapted McKenney's stories about her sister for the Broadway stage in 1940. Ruth and her Eileen were invited to see the premiere at the Biltmore Theatre, but four days prior, Eileen and her writer husband Nathanael West were killed in a car accident, and Ruth never saw the play. It was a wild success, lasting for 864 performances.

Fields and Chodorov were recruited by Columbia Pictures to adapt their play for the screen. The final two chapters are the main inspiration, which describe the basement apartment and the incident with the Brazilian Navy. "The little admirals from the far southland were, to our surprise, copiously supplied with American dollar bills, which they kept giving to the waiter, who put them in the pants pocket of his overalls, and to the orchestra, so they would play more rumbas." This film is tightly scripted and staged so that not a moment is wasted. There are layers below the surface dialogue for those willing to look for them. In the beginning of the film, when Ruth and Eileen are discussing leaving for New York with their family, their father, played by Grant Mitchell of Columbus, Ohio says, "Columbus boys are not dopes! Why, I was born and brought up here myself." He was.

Chester Conklin plays the bum who tramps up and down the sidewalk outside the apartment, a comic legend in a minor role. The film tops itself after the manic conga scene by throwing in a Three Stooges cameo for a final laugh. Photoplay called it, "A howl from start to finish. Dialogue that leaps in the air like popcorn over a fire."

Rosalind Russell remembered having a frank talk with Janet Blair when they started the film. She felt the actress was trying to upstage her at the expense of the likeability of the character. She expressed the desire to work as a team and assuaged her fear of competition for the sake of the film, and it shows. Russell was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for this film but lost to Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver.

L. V. Bergtold of the Westby Theatre in Westby, Wisconsin said, "Your average and slightly higher intellects will rate this a very fine comedy entertainment. Business was just a shade over average."

Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune said, "One of the comic delights of recent theatrical seasons has been made into an exceedingly amusing film. My Sister Eileen is a charming and disarming screen lark."

CBS intended to adapt the My Sister Eileen stories to the radio starring Lucille Ball and written by Arthur Kurlan who secured the rights from McKenney, but budget cuts caused the series idea to be axed. They soon released a new show with a dizzy lead character called My Friend Irma, and Kurlan sued for copyright infringement. In 1953, after six years in the courts, he won a settlement of $75,000 from CBS, half of what he originally demanded.

Wonderful Town, a musical adaptation of My Sister Eileen, premiered on Broadway in 1953 and won five Tony awards. The music was written by Leonard Bernstein and the lyrics were by Comden and Green. This version of the story was brought to the screen in 1955, but Columbia could not afford the rights to the music, so Leo Robin and Jule Styne did the music for the film version and Bob Fosse did the choreography. Janet Leigh, who played Eileen, knew Fosse's work from The Pajama Game and wanted to work hard to measure up. "He was accustomed to professional dancers, and I guessed he wanted to assess my range of capability," she wrote in her memoir. "I was worried. I couldn't measure up to his standards. So the sooner we started rehearsing the better." He admired her tenacity.

One of the standout scenes features Fosse and Tommy Rall doing a dance tug-of-war over the affections of Eileen in the alley by the stage door. Fosse sounds just like Dan Duryea as the soda jerk in love.

Richard Quine directed the film with expertise derived from having been cast in the play and the 1942 film version in Fosse's role. The performances are more impressive than the direction. In the scenes outside on the patio, actors are often shot with their faces in shadow.

Betty Garrett was highly praised for her portrayal of Ruth. Lester Dinoff for Motion Picture Daily said, "Miss Garrett, whose adeptness with fast, sophisticated dialogue has long been missing from the screen, is a solid comedienne who walks off with the acting plaudits."

The Independent Film Journal's reviewer said, "Top romantic ditty, 'It’s Bigger Than You and Me,' is brought home in neat style by Lemmon and Miss Garrett. Latter, however, steals the show every time she kicks into a dance." Jack Lemmon was in the early part of his movie career but already showed star power and strength in comic scenes.

Florence Epstein of Modern Screen said, "If it isn't the best musical of the year, show me another."

Garrett fits the part of an average-looking, intelligent woman with talent trying to make it in New York better than Russell, who is too much of a movie star to genuinely appear to be outshone by Blair. However, Blair makes a better impression as Eileen overall. She plays the part with a childlike naiveté that makes you want to protect her, whereas Leigh plays the part with a do-gooder slant but shows more maturity.

The film wasn't the last time the story would be brought to the screen. A 1958 television adaptation of Wonderful Town brought the music from the stage version to celluloid with Rosalind Russell again playing Ruth. There was even a television series in 1960 starring Elaine Stritch and Anne Helm.

The story is endlessly entertaining and the various renditions are worth seeking out, though the 1942 film version stands out as being especially brilliant. It has a manic energy that even music and dancing can't top. The frustration of pushy people and mistaken assumptions comes through better too which makes it feel more like the book.

Though McKenney's other works sustained her writing career, (she even wrote movies with her husband) she never approached the success of My Sister Eileen. It was printed many times in various editions, so copies are not difficult to track down, and I recommend you make the effort.