Plot Intro
Dr Robert Richardson (Lew Ayres) is new to a small fishing town in Nova Scotia. On a visit to a farm just outside the town owned by Black MacDonald (Charles Bickford) and his sister Aggie (Agnes Moorhead), Robert meets Black’s deaf-mute daughter Belinda (Jane Wyman). Belinda is considered stupid and useless by her family and the townsfolk but Ralph discovers that she is actually very intelligent and teaches her to lip read and sign. Her father is delighted with her new-found communication and Ralph and Belinda become increasingly besotted with each other. But then one of the towns folk, a bully named Lock McCormick (Stephen McNally), rapes Belinda which results in her pregnancy, leading to huge controversy in the prudish town…
Jane Wyman’s childhood was not the happiest. Her biological parents divorced in 1921 when she was 4. Her father then died the year after and her mother moved away and left Jane (born Sarah Jane Mayfield) in the care of foster parents. Remarkably, however, she started her showbiz career singing on radio when she was 13, but she claimed for many years to have been born in 1914 so that employers and audiences didn’t know she was underage.
This effectively means that Jane has one of the longest careers of all the Best Actress winners, and certainly one of the most consistent. She acted in a multitude of “B Movies” throughout the 30s and most of the 40s. Her movement into “A Movies” and therefore bigger stardom came in 1945 when she was in the Best Picture winner of that year, The Lost Weekend. The year after saw her gain her first Best Actress nomination which she lost to Olivia de Havilland, and two years later her second nomination led to her only win.
She became the first performer in the sound era to win without having said any words on screen (interestingly, there are more), and defeated movie titans Bergman, de Havilland, Stanwyck and Irene Dunne to the crown. Her performance is yet another classic addition to stoic '40s women. To say that poor old Belinda has a raw deal in the story is a gross understatement. She starts off underestimated and disregarded by everyone including her loving father and acerbic Aunt. Even when she does find a way to communicate, she is raped, impregnated, then rejected and insulted by the towns people, then endures her father’s murder, and is finally put on trial for murder (admittedly, she’s guilty but the guy had it coming). She bears all of this with inner strength, impassive determination and a steadfast dedication to virtue, love and kindness, just like Greer Garson, Jennifer Jones, Olivia de Havilland and Loretta Young did in their own winning performances. It’s actually quite sickening but at least she gets some very satisfying vengeance on her rapist.
This seems to be the ultimate Hollywood image of '40s women. The feisty, fiery tempers of Claudette Colbert, Marie Dressler and Bette Davis in the '30s have gone. After a decade and a half of economic devastation, fascism and warfare, audiences wanted to see idealised icons of fortitude and tenacity that they could look up to as the world rebuilt itself.
However, Johnny Belinda probably isn’t the most enduring example of this. I was never bored and I was certainly on Belinda’s side throughout. But it tackles rape in an extremely clumsy manner. It does well to point out the hypocrisy of society’s attitudes exemplified by three gossipy old women who were akin to Ena Sharples, Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst from the early days of Coronation Street. Even though Belinda is raped, it is she who is the sinner because she conceived a child out of wedlock, while her male rapist is considered an upstanding citizen and suffers no consequences at all until Belinda finally grabs the gun. The last half hour of the film descends into insane melodrama. The murder of Belinda’s father wasn’t needed and was probably added just to increase her vulnerability by removing her main source of male protection. And the final court room scene is one of those hilarious sketches where the key witness has a sudden crisis of conscience, shouts out “No! No!” and concludes the story conveniently. Gaslight, which also covered abuse of women, was far more realistic and hard-hitting even if it did lose its way in the last five minutes.
But I can see why Jane was a popular and reliable actress (even if she doesn’t have the same esteem as Bergman, Hepburn, Davis or Crawford). She went on to garner two more nominations for Best Actress. Fun fact, Johnny Belinda became the fourth of, so far, fifteen films to gain nominations in all acting categories. Other examples include Sunset Boulevard, Mrs Miniver, From Here to Eternity and Silver Linings Playbook. It’s theme of rape was also very controversial and it is considered one of the first films to address the issue as the Hays Code (which put restrictions on such content) was slowly relaxed.
The '60s and '70s were quieter for her as she went into semi-retirement. But she came out of that when she gained the lead role in Falcon Crest, an '80s melodrama similar to Dallas, Dynasty and Knots Landing, which lasted for a solid nine years and reintroduced her to a new generation of audience. Her health deteriorated, however, and she barely appeared in the ninth and final season. Dedicated to the end, however, she went against her doctor’s advice to appear in the final episodes, even writing and performing her own soliloquy for the closing scenes.
She married five times in her life, her most famous being to fellow actor and later President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. They had a daughter, adopted a son, and then lost a baby due to a premature birth. Interestingly, they divorced due to the political differences. Wyman was a lifelong Republican and Reagan, at the time, was a Democrat. She stayed relatively silent about him during his time as President but she apparently voted for him in both of his successful election campaigns. She eventually died in 2007 aged 90.
Agnes Moorhead as Belinda’s snarky Aunt gives a magnificent performance. Unlikeable and hotheaded to begin with, she heroically pulls herself together on discovering Belinda’s pregnancy and becomes her ultimate ally. It’s a convincing and lovely performance that deserved its Best Supporting Actress nomination.
The final court room scene is not needed and detracts from the deeper themes of the film. They should have really focussed on Belinda finding ways to communicate her victimhood and strife to the townsfolk and gaining their support, but the writers evidently favoured the soap opera option.
Jane Wyman, who is not deaf-mute but it was the ‘40s so I’m not that surprised, plays a deaf-mute woman in this promising but ultimately silly film.
It’s a shame because it starts interestingly, with hints of Helen Keller’s deaf-blind story (which itself becomes an award winning film with The Miracle Worker some years later) - a young woman isolated by her inability to fully communicate with the outside world and a kind stranger intent on helping her through modern thinking and practices.
Wyman is effective, playing her as a naturally clever person who has just been curtailed by life’s circumstances. She’s subtler than you might expect and we see the pride she takes in being useful alongside the irritation of not being able to take part fully in life. It’s why she quickly acquiesces to working with Doctor Robert and I enjoyed the fact that her surrounding family weren’t stubborn and against it, but embraced her becoming able to partake in life.
Where the film takes a curve for the worse is when they decide to chuck in a rape storyline. It’s totally unnecessary as the film was already interesting regarding the struggles of a disabled person trying to be present in a world not disposed to them. It feels a bit like Hollywood writers felt it needed something grisly and sensational in what was turning out to be a subtle, quiet but powerful piece on the importance of inclusion.
As soon as they go into the rape storyline, the film and the performances pretty much collapse. Wyman is made to look haunted, her attacker is just Evil, her father gets thrown off a cliff (I know) and it ends in a hurried court case scene which feels purely tacked on. As Paul says, it’s soap opera, and it’s a real shame. But as with all these earlier films that tackle things we still consider today, it’s impressive to see them look at issues like disability this early. Even if they got an entirely able-bodied actor to play the disabled characters.
The first third of the film, where Belinda begins to open up and her character blooms is done in a lovely and honest way. Particularly the scene when she experiences music through vibration is gorgeous - and reminded me of the extraordinary deaf Dame Evelyn Glennie who plays drums and percussion barefoot, using the vibrations of the floor to lead whole orchestras.
I’d say the last two thirds of the film for the reasons stated above, but actually it’s the title. Why is it [son’s name / woman’s name] ? Just call it Belinda, and leave the patriarchy out of it.
Mark
4/10
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