Johnny Belinda (1948)

Johnny Belinda
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Irma von Cube and Alan Vincent from the play by Elmer Harris
1948/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Aggie McDonald: It’s hard to be born and it’s hard to die.[/box]

This had a bit more moralizing than I like but is a solid and sometimes beautiful film. I thought Jane Wyman deserved her Academy Award.

Dr. Robert Richardson’s (Lew Ayers) wife has left him for another man.  He is still recovering from this blow and moves to an isolated, rural island off the coast of Nova Scotia for the “simple life”.  He finds life is anything but as the island is full of petty jealousy and gossip.  He gradually builds up a practice.  His beautiful young housekeeper Stella (Jan Sterling) has a crush on him but he is completely oblivious.  Stella has recently inherited some money and is being courted by burly, bullying fisherman Locky McCormick.

One day, Aggie MacDonald (Agnes Moorhead) rushes in asking for help for a cow which is having a difficult calving.  Stella tells Richardson that nobody has anything to do with the MacDonalds but the doctor is always ready to help.  On his visit to the farm, he meets Aggie’s bother Black (Charles Bickford) and his daughter Belinda (Wyman).  Belinda has been deaf since the age of one and cannot speak.  She works hard on the farm and keeps track of all the orders for flour from their mill.  Her family and everyone else on the island treat her as if she were retarded calling her “The Dummy”.  Richardson, who has had prior experience with the deaf, makes it his mission to teach her. She proves to be a willing and diligent student who picks up sign language and lip reading rapidly.

Stella is very jealous of Richardson’s attentions to Belinda.  Then Lockey starts eying the newly cleaned up deaf girl.  Richardson eventually takes Belinda into town for a thorough examination by an ear specialist.  The specialist discovers that Belinda is pregnant. Her family is brought to supporting her during her pregnancy and does not blame Richardson.  However, the town gossip looks likely to drive Richardson out of town, further impoverish the MacDonalds, and jeopardize Belinda’s custody of the child.

I don’t know why the screenwriters had to put a lot of little speeches in Lew Ayres’s mouth.  We can see for ourselves the damage done to Belinda by the attitude that because she can’t hear she can’t do anything else.  It would have been more effective to just let us come to our own conclusions about the obvious injustices that permeate this movie.

That said, I liked the depiction of life on the island and the acting a lot.  Agnes Moorehead is especially good and Jane Wyman is really touching with her big brown eyes.  The cinematography is beautiful and I enjoyed the film overall.

Jane Wyman received the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Johnny Belinda.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Actor (Ayers); Best Supporting Actor (Bickford); Best Supporting Actress (Moorehead); Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; Best Sound, Recording; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Max Steiner).

Trailer