Apr. 05, 2003 - 10:07 pm

cover
The Yearling (1946)

i can't remember what made me want to watch this. i guess it was all of that Oscar research before. and then the kid who played Jody, Claude Jarman Jr. who is now an old man, was on the Oscars a couple of weeks ago as being one of the past winners. he won the juvenile award (not used any more) for his acting in this film. this movie was also nominated for Best Picture and a few other things.

it's about a boy who's coming of age in the American west in the mid 1800s. he lives with his starry-eyed father, played by Gregory Peck, and his stern mother, played by Jane Wyman. all Jody wants is to have a pet. something to follow him around and that he can call his friend. an accident in the wild forces the family to consider taking care of a fawn whose mother they had to kill. Jody finally gets his pet, but the deer starts to cause him all sorts of trouble because it is wild and tears up their limited crops.

i enjoyed the movie fairly well, but again i was surprised about how mediocre Gregory Peck was. his performances in these last two films i've seen him in have been somewhat goofy. they're not completely solid. sometimes i find myself wondering how he even got a job as an actor. it's really weird after having seen his amazing performance in To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) over and over.

i still think that Clarence Brown used too many sets in his movies. it's really weird when you start mixing on location stuff with studio sets. especially watching these things today. it requires some major suspension of disbelief.