The Yearling (1946)

The Yearling
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Paul Osborn from the novel by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1946/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Penny Baxter: [on the ocasion of the burial of Fodderwing] Oh Lord. Almighty God. It ain’t for us ignorant mortals to say what’s right and what’s wrong. Was any one of us to be doin’ of it, we’d not of bring this poor boy into the world a cripple, and his mind teched. We’d of bring him in straight and tall like his brothers, fitten to live and work and do. But in a way o’ speakin’, Lord, you done made it up to him. You give him a way with the wild creatures[/box]

I spent most of the movie thinking it was way too folksy for me. I ended up crying like a baby by the end anyway.

Eleven-year-old Jody Baxter (Claude Jarman, Jr.) lives with his kind but rugged father Penny (Gregory Peck) and no-nonsence mother Orry (Jane Wyman) in pioneer Florida. Father and son are close and enjoy working and hunting together.  Mom lost all her other children to diseases and, as a result, is distant and rather hard.  An only child, Jody longs to adopt a forest creature as a pet.  Mom is adamantly against this idea and Penny backs her up.

The day comes when Penny is bitten by a rattlesnake.  He shoots a doe in the belief that its organs will help draw the poison out.  Jody runs for help.  When Penny recovers from this close brush with death, Jody begs to adopt the doe’s baby fawn in gratitude for the sacrifice of its mother’s life.  Although Orry is concerned about the amount of milk the animal will take from the family, Penny agrees and tells Orry he doesn’t want to hear a word out of her about it.

Jody is inseparable from the fawn whom he names Flag.  The year cycles around again and it is time for planting.  Penny has decided to try a cash crop of tobacco to get the money to dig a well so Orry won’t have to walk a mile for water. The whole family pitches in with all the hard labor this involves.  Meanwhile, Flag has grown and developed an appetite for greens.  With Chill Wills, Margaret Wycherly, Henry Travers, and Forrest Tucker as friends and neighbors.

This is heavy on the paternal folk wisdom, all in dialect that sounds pretty funny coming out of the mouth of Gregory Peck.  But it contains so many lyrical moments that somehow I got caught up in it anyway.  Jane Wyman was the standout for me.  She is not afraid to make Orry generally unsympathetic with beautiful flashes of the woman within.  The ending might wring tears from a stone.  Its work was easy on a soft touch like me.

The Yearling won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Color and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color.  It was nominated in the categories of: Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Actress; Best Director and Best Film Editing.

Kiddie matinee trailer