My Romance with Movies: From the 1940s: The Yearling

1946 Family Drama

From MGM

Directed by Clarence Brown

Starring

Gregory Peck

Jane Wyman

Claude Jarman Jr.

Chill Wills

Forrest Tucker

Clem Bevans

Margaret Wycherly

Henry Travers

Donn Gift

Jeff York

June Lockhart

It was lauded by film critics and audiences in 1946 and based on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's 1938 Pultizer Prize-winning novel. It had originally started filming in 1941. Rawlings was hired as a consultant and location scout and Spencer Tracy and Anne Revere hired on as the leads.

Production, however, was shut down apparently because of an infestation of bugs and heat, fighting between the director and producer and (oddly) a lack of enthusiasm for the plot which caused the actors to leave. If Tracy had once been high on the project, apparently he changed his mind once he spent some time in Florida's scrub country.

The project came to life again in 1945 with a new cast and director. All that remained from the 1941 attempt were some outdoor animal shots and atmospheric shots.

It has long been said the story concerns a pre-teen backwoods Florida boy and his love for a trouble-making pet deer. I expect that along with all the praise heaped on the film there must have also been some disappointment since the creature doesn't come into the story until early in the second hour. That was way too long for most kids to wait and perhaps this wasn't as much of a favorite film for kids as MGM would have liked folks to believe.

Come say how do... sit a spell.

My take is The Yearling concerns itself with a coming-of-age story that focuses on the love between a father and son and on that level it succeeds admirably. We see the richly-drawn human emotions, the innocence and trust of the boy and the yearning love and anxiety of the father. Penny Baxter (Peck) and his son Jody (Jarman) quite obviously adore one another. Part of the father's motivation stems from the fact that Ma Baxter (Wyman) withholds her affection from the boy and is stern, unreasonable and cold. Jody knows it and turns to his father for all his needs. The Baxters had several children who died and Ma has remained distant from her only surviving child for fear she'll lose him, too, and be hurt again.

The Baxters have carved out a piece of farmland in the Florida swamps near Lake George in 1878. They raise corn, beans, tobacco and whatever else that can thrive. They have some hunting dogs, a cow, an all-purpose horse (used for riding, plowing and pulling a wagon), chickens and hogs. They are dirt poor. They are trying to save every penny so they can build a well right outside their cabin. The adult pain and struggle of frontier life is uniquely captured.

Father and son spend nearly all their time together working the crops, building fences and the like. The lowkey story gets exciting when chasing down a bear, getting into a free-for-all fight in town with a local family (Pa using his fists and Jody jumping on the backs of the offenders) and enduring a heavy, six-day downpour that ruins their crops.

Jody enjoys a happy life but misses having an animal he can raise and love and who will love him in return. One day Pa is bitten by a rattlesnake while at the same time he and Jody spot a doe. Pa kills it and Jody cuts out the liver to be used to draw out the venom. Within minutes they spot the doe's fawn which Jody begs his father to let him keep. Both parents agree but tell Jody there may come a day they will have to set it free.

The film captures the magic of the novel and Jody's love of and enchantment for wild things. It may be best expressed in a scene where the fawn, now named Flag, and Jody are running through the woods and are joined by a small herd of deer running, more or less, along with them. The music played during the scene is the Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream meant to represent fairies romping in the forest.

As Flag grows into a yearling, it becomes the nuisance the parents always knew it would. After it eats the corn and the tobacco crop, they are ready to get rid of Flag but Jody begs for it to be allowed to stay. It is agreed the yearling will get one more chance and that Jody will keep a closer watch on it. Mother and son replant and Jody builds the fence higher. Still it does not keep the animal from scaling the fence and eating the crops again.

Pa orders Jody to take the yearling into the woods and shoot it. The boy and Flag go into the woods but Jody can't bring himself to do it and he lies and says he did. That night Flag returns and eats the crops again. Ma ends up shooting the animal but unfortunately only wounds it. Pa, who is laid up from an injury, tells Jody he must finish the job and through great, heaving sobs, Jody kills his pet.

Unable to bear what he's done, he runs away. Days later he is found unconscious and adrift in an old canoe, discovered by a riverboat captain who takes him in and nurses him back to health. Jody returns home and into the arms of his beloved father who is as understanding as ever. Jody is told his mother is out searching from him.

The story ends in Jody's bedroom as Ma returns, relieved to find her son alive, which, in turns, allows her to let go of her longtime fears of losing her last child. They hug, kiss and cry. Things are going to be better. Jody will probably get a dog.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings left Kentucky to move to the tiny hamlet of Cross Creek, Florida, where she was fascinated with the remote wilderness and the local residents. She took up with neighbors Calvin and Mary Long and their family who became the prototypes for the Baxters. It was their daughter who found the fawn.

As I said in my piece on the film Cross Creek, my partner and I traveled there and became immersed in the same things that enchanted Rawlings. It is a very poor area, perhaps a little spooky, but picturesque. Her home has been maintained just as it was when she lived there. Bits and pieces of The Yearling were filmed on her property.

MGM had great hopes for The Yearling and entrusted it to one of its favorite directors, Clarence Brown. The studio referred to him as a master pictorialist who could capture the beauty of his landscapes, sets and stars. He was respected for his handling of historical and literary properties. He was a frequent director of Garbo. His work included Ah Wilderness, Wife vs. Secretary, Of Human Hearts, The Human Comedy. The White Cliffs of Dover, National Velvet and Intruder in the Dust.

Brown hired Peck because he was certain the actor (in only his fifth film) had what it took to play the backwoods farmer. I didn't. As much as I loved this actor, I thought he was miscast. His scenes with the kid were magical and tender but he seemed far too smart and well turned out to buy him as a backwoodsman. In this regard, Tracy would have been much better. Nonetheless, Peck was nominated for an Oscar.

Also nominated was Wyman. She said she had never played a role like this... saying she tended to make cocktail party movies. Her role in the previous year's The Lost Weekend turned Brown onto her. Peck was surprised at her casting until he saw that film and it's likely The Yearling is what set her up for her Oscar-winning performance in Johnny Belinda two years later. She said playing Ma Baxter changed her career.

She wasn't warm in this role whatsoever and I didn't warm to her. Actually, I didn't like her character at all. While I had empathy for her loss of so many children, I was turned off by how unloving she was to her only living child.

Brown conducted a nationwide search for a child to play Jody. It's been said 19,000 boys were auditioned or at least interviewed. Really? Jarman had never made a film before and it's been said he was chosen because he looked the part, particularly with his long hair. Peck said he thought the film was too lushly done and that the boy cried too much. He did definitely cry or tear up a lot but too much? I'm not so sure. There is no denying he is the best thing about the film... without him and his thoughtful, earnest acting, I would have found this film to be just so-so.

The Academy was so touched by his emotional performance that they awarded him a special Oscar. But Jarman would only make 11 films, among them Rio Grande, Roughshod and one of his best, Intruder in the Dust. After being out of the business for some 19 years, he showed up in a small part in the mammoth TV miniseries, Centennial (1979). He is still alive as of this writing.

Forrest Tucker, Chill Wills, Margaret Wycherly (who in three years would play Cagney's crazy mother in White Heat), Clem Bevans and Donn Gift were among those who played the Baxters' neighbors, the Forresters. All were well-cast.

Some considered it a difficult shoot and if they did, other than the shoot taking 10 months, it more than likely had to do with the deer... make that plural. A number of them played Flag, chiefly because they grew too fast, but all had one thing in common... they were difficult.

The fawns were adorable, of course, and it's too bad they were not used beyond a couple of scenes. Those playing the yearling were a bore and I felt no emotional connection to these animals. You want an emotional animal movie? See Old Yeller or even Born Free.

In all there were 126 deer, 9 black bears, 37 dogs, 53 wild birds, 17 buzzards, 83 chickens, 36 pigs, eight rattlesnakes, 18 squirrels, four horses, 17 raccoons and one owl.

In addition to the Oscar nominations for Peck and Wyman, Brown was nominated for best director and the editing got a nomination as did the film itself. It won Oscars for best cinematography and best art direction/interior decoration.

The Yearling was filmed almost entirely on location in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness in the Ocala National Forest.

Here's the bear scene: