The Yearling
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Movie Reviews of The Yearling
Movie Review: Bad Reviews/Comments Lame
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished reading the negative reviews for this movie. Although the good far outweighs the bad, I wanted to point out some of the negative comments and why they are without merit:
"I was so turned off, I turned (the movie) off" - This reviewer didn't even watch it through...enough said. This same reviewer also said "I didn't like the looks of the little boy" - Are you kidding?
"The mother's acting is nearly as bad (as the boy's) - Jane Wyman's performance is guarded and understated. She plays a mother afraid to love her young son too much, because she has lost three other children. She does eventually open up, let her guard down, and embrace her young son.
"Too many people die! It's very sad!" - Yes, the movie did include three children we never see who died in infancy before the story begins. There is another death of a child, and animals are also killed. Sad, yes, but part of life and part of Jody's journey through childhood. Life was hard in the post-Civil War pioneering country, and I'm sure people faced death often and were forced to make gut-wrenching decisions.
"He (Jody) cries too much, and sorry to say, he acts like a girl." - Jody is a lonely child longing for the companionship of a pet--any animal he can love and nurture. He was poor, he worked from sun-up until sundown, he had a cold mother, no siblings...he faced death, saw his family's crop rot from rain...I could go on and on. The point is, he had a lot to cry about. Some other reviewers criticized Claude Jarman, Jr's performance; however, critics raved over his moving movie DEBUT (amazing!), and he was awarded a miniature Oscar at the 1946 Academy Awards.
Other reviewers were critical of the Southern dialogue. Yes, Gregory Peck's accent wasn't particularly convincing, but he gives an endearing, gentle performance nonetheless. Jane Wyman was from Missouri (not far from the South), and Claude Jarman, Jr. was born in Nashville, TN. There is too much beauty and emotion in this film to disregard it because of a lack of perfect dialogue.
I agree this is not a film for young children--too emotional and graphic. I also agree that a lot of mention was made of Oliver, whose role is small--only two short scenes as I can recall.
If you haven't seen the movie, please disregard the weak negative comments, which are without merit.
Movie Review: One of the most haunting movies ever created
Summary: 5 Stars
How any critic can give this wondrous film anything less than five stars is beyond me. Do not apply modern or should I say post-modern values and views to a work that as a book received a Pulitzer in 1939 (back when that really meant something), or the post war 1946 movie which should have garnered even more awards than it did. The technicolor cinematography, the haunting sound track, the incredible acting of a young Gregory Peck, a clear foreshadowing of his far more famous "father role" in "To Kill a Mockingbird," and yes even the fresh faced innocence of young "Jodie," it all comes together with this movie.
No sense in now just reciting the plot of the story, though I think it fair to forewarn that if you are watching it with your children, especially younger ones, be ready for some tough moments at the end, both for your child and you. I remember seeing this movie when I was six or seven and it did traumatize me, I recall my mother just holding me as I sobbed. It was so haunting that well into adulthood I could not bear to watch the film again, until its most recent run which I captured on DVR while not watching it. It was a long debate, I finally watched it and not ashamed to admit I cried yet again. . .but saw as well now the different side of the story, a loving parent wishing for their child to hold to, as long as possible, the innocent beautiful joy of childhood and mingled in as well, one's own memories of that time. The final "dream" sequence is, without doubt, the most haunting moment ever put on film.
I finally decided to share the movie with my 13 year old daughter, forewarning her of what would happen. She is sensitive, has a deep love for animals (we live in the forest of the Smokey Mountains) and it was warming to share our tears together as we watched the film, though she opted to turn it off when Jodie must face his terrible moment of decision regarding Flag. I was touched by that as well, as if she was signalling that she herself wished to stay as Jodie, just a bit longer in her own life.
There are very few movies indeed, that can elicit such interaction between a parent and growing child, that can haunt as this one does. . .and yes, the lament of more than a few reviewers here. . .what has happened to our culture that such films are no longer made.
Movie Review: Learning To Live Again
Summary: 5 Stars
THE YEARLING, so beautifully shot and scored, is one of the very best postwar US films. It will have you welling up in tears, and the acting is awfully good. Some say that Claude Jarman, Jr didn't deserve that honorary Kid's Oscar he got for playing little Jody, but I think his performance was outstanding. When he's romping around with Flag, the young deer, you wonder how director Clarence Brown got him to be so natural in this, his first movie. I also liked him with Lassie and Jeanette MacDonald in THE SUN COMES UP and he was very believable as the young trouper torn between admiration for his dad (John Wayne) and devotion to his flamboyant mother (Maureen O'Hara). Jarman was one of the few child actors with the talent to make it into acting in adult parts, and yet for some reason he did not go on, and we will continue to remember himad Jody Baxter. In THE YEARLING his parents are in a similar situation to his parents in RIO GRANDE. Here they are not divorced or estranged, but the mother (Jane Wyman) seems locked in the past, unable to deal with the grief of multiple miscarriages and infant births, while Penny (Greg Peck) has to go on being both Mom and Dad to young Jody. That he does so without resentment is part of the reason that, for many of us, watching THE YEARLING is a lesson in growing up, from making the passage between boyhood and manhood. Peck is endearing, and I don't think that even Spencer Tracy, who originated the part in an earlier, scrapped MGM version of the novel, could have bettered the performance Peck offers up here. (Nor do I think Anne Revere could have come up to the level of emotion that Jane Wyman displays, for better or for worse, as the preoccupied mother who comes to understand, a little too late, that we should hold on to what we have instead of dreaming of lost yesterdays.
That's Margaret Wycherley in the small part of "Ma Forrester." Poor Margaret Wycherley was always playing "MA" in the movies, and here she was about a year before her ultimate role as "Ma Jarrett" the all-time strangest movie mom in WHITE HEAT with James Cagney. In THE YEARLING she's a little bit softer, with that backwoods accent she also used playing Gary Cooper's Mom, MA YORK, in SERGEANT YORK.
Movie Review: An Alabama Rednecks' Take on The Yearling
Summary: 5 Stars
After being asked to review this film, these are my thoughts.
The acting is fine, but there is little reality here. These
People live in a mansion! I can't see raising deer as pets,
We eat them down here. "Here Flag, here Flag". But I digress.
When that little dog ran away from the bear fight, I told maw,
"HooooooEeeeeee, look at that little dog EMOTE, he should
Have gotten an honorable mention at the very least. But it's
Not the first time an outstanding performance has been overlooked.
Maw says to talk about that black dress material the old girl
Got for her treat. I can't believe any but the suicidal would
Want to chore in south florida wearing black. And Peck talking
About digging a well "one day". In south florida your going to
Hit water so fast, he coulda dug that well during lunch.
All in all though, it was a fine piece of entertainment.
Furthermore, any of you fine people driving thru Hawk AL, please
Feel free to stop by for dinner. You kno what you like, so
Bring it with ya. There's 11 of us, bring enough for us all.
I want to take this opportunity to send a shout out to gramma.
She's doing 90 days in the county jail for flashing her ta-tas
Out by the road as the truckers go by. Hey Grandma! (Since
Poppys been gone she's been lonely. And a BIG thanks to
Whoever it is up there in the Amazon what asked me to review
This motion picture. "Many Thanks Amazon Person!". Y'all
Come.
Movie Review: Wonderful old-fashioned deeply human film
Summary: 5 Stars
I've heard about this film all my life but somehow never saw it. When I found it on the library shelf recently I took it, but then decided to return it unseen. I thought it would be a silly, overly sentimental kids' movie. I'm certainly glad that I gave it a chance.
At first I watched because the scenery was pretty but it didn't take long for me to get completely involved in the story. Gregory Peck plays the nicest man in the world (!) and he sure looks good, too. Over and over we are charmed and awed by his strength and goodness as he copes with a cold blooded wife and their sensitive young son. Jane Wyman is excellent as the wife who has closed her heart to all hope of happiness and joy after having lost three children. Claude Jarmen Jr. is amazing as Jody, the son and certainly deserved his special Oscar.
There is so much wisdom in the story as the family meets life raw and unprotected by the comforts we all enjoy. The boy, especially, must deal with the death of his only friend, (who is beautifully played by another superb child actor), the coldness of his mother, and by his deep love for his fawn, Flag. "Pa" has the wisdom of Buddha and the compassion of Christ as he shepherds his young son through the agonies of his growing-up year. The relationship of father and son is deeply touching.
It's not just a family film or a cute animal film--it's a classic, with depth enough for all ages.