Johnny Belinda **** (1948, Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Stephen McNally, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead) – Classic Movie Review 1353

Based on the 1940 Broadway stage hit play by Elmer Blaney Harris, director Jean Negulesco’s 1948 tearjerker was controversial in its day and now is still touching, sensitive and extremely enjoyable. Jane Wyman won the Best Actress Oscar and the Golden Globe for her stupendous performance as Belinda McDonald, a young deaf-mute country girl helped by a do-gooding doctor, Dr Robert Richardson (Lew Ayres), who comes to Cape Breton Island on the east coast of Canada.

The film shared the Golden Globe for best motion picture with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1948 after The Third Man.

Stephen McNally plays the evil villain Locky McCormick who gets drunk at a dance and goes to the farm where Belinda is alone and rapes her, which results in her pregnancy. Charles Bickford plays Belinda’s father Black McDonald, who uncovers the truth when Locky inadvertently reveals to him that he is the father of the child. Black follows Locky and threatens to expose him to the townsfolk, who suspect Dr Richardson of getting Belinda pregnant just because he has spent a lot of time with her.

The film’s story sets out to dramatise the consequences of spreading lies and rumours, and shows the horror of rape. This is very grown up for a film  of its period. The American Motion Picture Production Code before this banned rape on film and this is the first Hollywood film for which the restriction was relaxed, and as such was at the time of its initial release

There were 11 other Oscar nominations, including Ayres as best actor, Bickford as best supporting actor and Agnes Moorehead as best supporting actress as Belinda’s aunt, Aggie McDonald.

Jan Sterling also co-stars as Dr Richardson’s secretary Stella McCormick, with Rosalind Ivan as Mrs Poggety, Dan Seymour as Pacquet and Mabel Paige as Mrs Lutz. Further down the cast are Ida Moore, Alan Napier, Barbara Bates, Monte Blue, James Craven, Franklyn Farnum, Creighton Hale, Jonathan Hale, Holmes Herbert, Charles Horvath, Douglas Kennedy, Blayney Lewis, Ray Montgomery, Snub Pollard, Jeff Richards, Richard Walsh, Joan Winfield, Ian Wolfe and Frederick Worlock

The story is based on a real-life incident that happened near Elmer Harris’s summer residence in Fortune Bridge, Bay Fortune, Prince Edward Island. Belinda is based on the Lydia Dingwell (1852-1931), of Dingwells Mills, Prince Edward Island.

It was remade by director Anthony Harvey (The Lion in Winter) as a TV movie in 1982, in which Rosanna Arquette gives a terrific performance as the young deaf-mute country girl helped by do-gooding doctor Richard Thomas. There were also four other TV versions in 1955, 1958, 1967, 1969. The 1967 TV movie starred Mia Farrow as Belinda, Ian Bannen as her doctor and David Carradine as the rapist.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1353

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