A House Divided. 1931. USA. Directed by William Wyler. 70 min.
A distant Laemmle relative, William Wyler left Europe to join Universal as a messenger in 1923, and rose to become one of the studio’s leading directors. This rare 1931 film reflects Wyler’s growing ambitions and skill, blending Ibsen and Freud for a starkly Oedipal tale of a stern fisherman (Walter Huston) and his soft son (Kent Douglass, later billed as Douglass Montgomery) who come into violent conflict over the father’s mail-order bride (Helen Chandler).
