As the aftermath of the horrific Maui fire is all over the news, my mind has gone to films that deal with fire. There’s “San Francisco” from 1936, of course, which stars Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald against the background of the earthquake and ensuing fire in 1906. Two years later, “In Old Chicago” featured Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and Alice Faye in a fictionalized story about the O’Leary family, whose cow may or may not have started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. However, there’s another film which seems even more comparable to what happened in Lahaina.
The Scene
In this scene, which takes place ten minutes into the film, Knox and two of his henchmen pay a visit to Tom Logan, who greets them in his living room with his wife and a few friends. Knox is particularly determined to take down Logan, because he is one of his only vocal opponents in Clover City. Logan is running for justice of the peace against corrupt Judge Bronson (Guy Kibbee), and he is also housing his friends whose property was burnt and stolen by Jim Knox. Knox pays Logan this visit under the guise of wanting to buy his property for $1 per acre, but he really plans to call all the men away from their posts so one of his lackeys can set fire to the barn. Thankfully, Tom’s son, Harvard-trained lawyer Steve (Nelson Eddy), arrives just in time to secretly knock out the arsonist before he can do any damage.Logan isn’t an unreasonable man; he offers to sell Knox just the land he needs for the railroad itself while keeping the property around it. Naturally, this isn’t enough for the financier, who won’t be happy until he owns everything. Like all villains of this kind, Knox starts by being friendly. However, he becomes more pointed and even rude as he grows frustrated with Logan’s stubborn determination. He says, “You’re yesterday, Logan; I’m tomorrow.” Tom argues that he has put too much into his homestead during the past fifty years to give it up so easily, saying, “It’s my land! I fought for it. I fought the deserts and the Indians ... I planted this land, and I made it grow. I brought horses and ploughs and wheat to it. I’ve been wiped out by sand and rain. I’ve gone for years with nothing in my belly, but I stuck to the land. I won it with work, and it’s mine.”
Its Significance
In “Let Freedom Ring,” Lionel Barrymore and Edward Arnold’s characters have the same conflict as their characters in “You Can’t Take It with You” had the year before. Edward Arnold’s Jim Knox is trying to build a huge business venture, and Lionel Barrymore’s Tom Logan refuses to sell his family home for any amount. However, Jim Knox is much wickeder than Anthony P. Kirby in the earlier film, who is just a single-minded businessman. While Kirby tries to use legal means to obtain the property he needs for his factory, Knox quickly gains control of the Old Western town’s limited law enforcement, so he doesn’t need to use legal methods.Knox argues that Logan and his fellow “bullheaded backwoodsmen” settlers are standing in the way of progress because they don’t want to sell their homes. Logan argues that he believes in true progress as much as anyone else, but not on Knox’s selfish terms. “I’m just as much progress as the railroads. Why can’t you have progress without wrecking a lot of honest folks that’s worked hard? Ain’t there enough of this progress of yourn to go ‘round?” As Logan knows, real progress benefits everyone, not just the elite few who get rich off the so-called improvements. If honest citizens have to pay the price for technological, social, or economic advancements, that isn’t real progress.
Cathartic ‘Progress’
The Greek word “catharsis” means cleansing or purging, usually in a violent or unpleasant way. Today, people use the term “cathartic” to mean something which is therapeutic or relieving, but the full meaning indicates trauma, such as cleansing by fire. It can also have a negative meaning, such as a person indulging their own anger or desires by violently lashing out, attacking or eliminating anything that stands in their way.Is catharsis perhaps the most popular tool of the financiers, the Jim Knoxes of the world past and present, who will stop at nothing to achieve their ideas of progress? Thankfully, this movie also reminds us that Jim Knox and his kind are not invincible, as beautifully described in this dialogue from the leading lady, played by Virginia Bruce: “You own the sheriff and the courts, and you’ve got all the money in the world, but you haven’t got enough to win because there’s something stronger than you are ... honest folks, and all they need is for someone to show them how to fight, and nobody can lick them.”
