From RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
Starring
Jane Wyman
Charles Laughton
Don Taylor
Joan Blondell
Richard Carlson
Cyril Cusack
Agnes Moorehead
Audrey Totter
Natalie Wood
Vivian Vance
Everett Sloane
Carleton Young
Dan O'Herlihy
This is quite possibly the first film that ever made me cry. Its sentiment made such an impact on my young mind and my old mind finds it pretty touching, too. It's likely there are many of you who have never heard of it but I'm betting there are those who hold it as the great sentimental favorite that I do.
Wyman plays Louise (LouLou) Mason who loses her baby while she is still in the hospital. Her husband has died in the war and she is at loose ends. With no specific skills to land her a good job, she applies to become a governess.
Her first assignment is for the widowed Laughton and she becomes very attached to his baby for the months she works for him. After a short time and seeing her attachment to his son, Laughton proposes to her but she declines his offer. He then marries his secretary (Vance) who, though she likes Wyman, decides they don't need her services.
She is then employed by a fading musical actress (Blondell) whose daughter (Wood) is closer to Wyman than her own mother. Wyman makes the difficult decision to leave so the pre-teen will bond more with her mother.
Wyman's most trying assignment comes at the start of WWII working for Totter and O'Herlihy and watching their baby son, Tony. At one point, the father is sent overseas and injured and Totter flies to Europe to be with him, leaving Tony behind with Wyman. For awhile Totter sends money home and then it stops as does any communication. Wyman concludes the boy is hers and even goes into hiding with him. When Totter returns she and Wyman legally wrangle over the boy and Wyman loses.
When she has trouble getting a new assignment, it is apparent that others consider she is too old. Heartbroken, she goes to work cleaning school classrooms. After nearly being hit by a car that she failed to see, she decides to have her eyes checked. Her life changes as a result.
The eye doctor (Taylor) turns out to be little Robby all grown up. Their discovery of each other's identity, to say the least, is very touching. She tells him of her life-long service to children and shows him a portfolio of all her charges. He asked her if he can borrow it to show his wife and then invites her to dinner at his home a few days later.
You see it coming, don't you?
The good doctor and his wife greet the old lady warmly and lead her to a closed door. It opens and there they are... the adult versions of her youthful charges. As she discovers who each of them is, it's tears all around. One, however, is missing. The doctor takes his beloved LouLou to a chair and a long-distance phone call from Tony who advises her he's sorry he can't be there but will be in town soon.
As she remains seated, taking it all in, two young children appear at her side. The others watch as she slowly notices them. The doctor, his heart swelling, says they come with the house. This is Andy and Julie. They're yours now.
As if you couldn't guess, the film is all Wyman. She is in virtually every scene while all other actors have but a few. Her old Warner Bros pal, producer Jerry Wald, brought the script to her. It was based on a successful 1942 French film, Le Voile Bleu. Wyman thought it was wonderful and looked forward to playing a character who ages forty years. She engaged a couple of the famed Westmore brothers to handle the extensive makeup and prosthetics. Playing a character who ages worked so well for the actress they did it again two years later for the remake of Edna Ferber's tale of mother love, So Big.
I have always regarded Wyman as quite the versatile performer. She did comedy and drama, she could dance and she could sing. She was a brassy blonde (and often a showgirl) in many 30's flicks. She was a deft, brunette comedienne in so many (check out 1944's Crime by Night some time) and remarkable as the deaf mute in 1948's Johnny Belinda. She would one day be a superbly starchy matriarch in 1960's Pollyanna (a training ground for the far-off Falcon Crest). For The Blue Veil, she delivered the goods on a soft-spoken kindliness. She was very deserving of her Oscar nomination although I am not saying Vivien Leigh didn't deserve to win.
Though she had been at the acting game for years and had won an Oscar for Belinda, she said she never learned so much about her craft as she did when huddling with Laughton. It seems an unusual role for Laughton to accept. His screen time is so limited, the role is so straight and it's not much more than a cameo. This was the second of five costarring ventures Wyman and Moorehead enjoyed and they were great pals. For all these reasons, this was one of Wyman's favorite films.
Bernhardt handled directing chores well. He brought out the best in his large cast-- a number of them formidable souls to be sure-- and the sentimentality (which I do not regard as a bad thing) didn't dissolve into ultra-mushy. It is a soaper but on a higher level. I've always considered Bernhardt a good director by way of his handling of A Stolen Life (1946), High Wall (1947) and Miss Sadie Thompson (1953).
Here's a look at a couple of scenes stitched together...
Answers to Tuesday's quiz:
1. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
2. Vertigo (1958)
3. Rope (1948)
4. Rebecca (1940)
5. I Confess (1953)
6. Strangers on a Train (1951)
7. Psycho (1960)
8. Saboteur (1942)
9. Dial M for Murder (1954)
10. North by Northwest (1959)
11. Spellbound (1945)
12. To Catch a Thief (1955)
Next posting:
Remakes
No comments:
Post a Comment