One
of the more popular Hollywood movies of 1954 was The Country Girl,
written and directed by George Seaton, adapted from a stage play by Clifford
Odets. The Academy liked it well enough to nominate it for Best Picture,
Director, Actor (Bing Crosby), Black and White Art Direction, and Black and
White Cinematography (John F. Warren). The movie won Oscars for Actress
(Grace Kelly) and for the Adapted Screenplay by Seaton.
The
Academy sure loves it when a beautiful actress dispenses with any hint of
glamour and presents herself in a dowdy, plain, or even “ugly†appearance. And
while Grace Kelly could never not be beautiful, her role as Georgie
Elgin is not known to emphasize her timeless attractiveness and sensuality.
Furthermore, she delivers an outstanding performance that was good enough to surpass
the likes of Judy Garland (A Star is Born), Dorothy Dandridge (Carmen
Jones), Audrey Hepburn (Sabrina), and Jane Wyman (Magnificent
Obsession). Whether or not Kelly deserved the awardr over these four equally
superb performances is one of those forever debatable Oscar quandaries.
Besides
Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, The Country Girl features a fine
performance by William Holden, who is really the protagonist of the film (oddly
placed at third billing). The movie is basically a triangle between the trio,
with Kelly’s Georgie as the object of both conflict and adoration between the
two men.
Bernie
Dodd (Holden) is a successful Broadway theater director, whose new musical, The
Land Around Us, has lost its leading man after one week of rehearsals.
Scrambling to replace him, Dodd wants Frank Elgin (Crosby), but producer Philip
Cook (Anthony Ross) objects. Elgin is allegedly a washed up alcoholic who could
no longer carry an entire production. Nevertheless, Dodd gets his way and Elgin
is hired. It soon becomes apparent that Elgin is completely dependent on his
younger wife, Georgie (Kelly), to give him moral support, prop him up, keep him
in line, and dictate what he should do or not do. Dodd interprets the couple’s
relationship as detrimental to Elgin, seeing Georgie as the reason for the
actor’s decline. Elgin presents a different position—that Georgie depends on him
and that he could never leave her. Thus, Georgie accompanies her husband to
rehearsals, interferes in production decisions, and annoys both the director
and producer in the process. Things come to a head when Elgin succumbs to the
pressure and starts to drink again. What happens next would spoil the story,
but suffice it to say there is much melodrama, a switcheroo of affections, and backstage
intrigue.
Oh—and
it wouldn’t be a Bing Crosby vehicle without some songs, so musical numbers
were added to the script by Ira Gershwin (lyrics) and Harold Arlen (music) to
accompany Victor Young’s somewhat overwrought score.
The
Country Girl is
pure melodrama, for sure, and all three actors give it their all. Crosby is
quite effective as the pathetic and insecure Elgin, Holden is dynamic and
forceful as Dodd, and, yes, Kelly is full of surprises as the dowdy woman who
in reality is stronger than either man. If anything, the picture is worth
seeing for the three actors that carry it.
While
any motion picture should be evaluated within the context of when it was made
and released, The Country Girl does suffer from being dated in its
sensibilities about marriage and the relationships between men and women. Audiences
today might cringe at the blatant misogyny, especially exuding from Holden’s
character. (In referring to wives, he says they “all start out as Juliets and
wind up as Lady Macbeths.â€) In short, the movie emphasizes the old adage that
“behind every man stands a (fill in the blank) woman.â€
Additionally,
there is a kiss—and subsequent confession of affection—that occurs at a crucial
point in the story that is so unexpected, out of the blue, and unbelievable,
that one wonders if some sort of foreshadowing or clue to this development was
missed. And therein lies the biggest flaw of the film.
Imprint’s
new 1080p high definition presentation in Blu-ray looks quite good, and
Warren’s cinematography wonderfully captures the light and dark of a Broadway
theater (Georgie: “There’s nothing quite so mysterious and silent as a dark
theater, a night without a star.â€) The feature comes with a new audio
commentary by professor and film scholar Jason A. Ney. A 1987 hour-long
documentary, Grace Kelly: An American Princess, is a welcome supplement,
along with a photo gallery and the theatrical trailer.
The
Country Girl is
for fans of Grace Kelly, for sure, as well as Bing Crosby and William Holden,
for fans of Broadway theater storylines, and of 1950s Hollywood melodramas.
