This is to some great degree a Scottish film, since most of the characters have Scottish names and even speak with a Scottish accent, and the location is Nova Scotia in Canada. Also the general mentality is more Scottish than anything else, and the environment could have been the Hebrides in the closeness of the ever present threats of the sea and the vast almost desolate grounds of the wild flat islands. But that is just the frame of the drama.
Many films have been made on the subject of the hardships of gravely handicapped or invalid people, preferably girls, like Arthur Penn's "The Miracle Worker" 1962, the film with Louis Jouvet on André Gide's best novel "The Pastoral Symphony", Siodmak's "The Spiral Staircase", "Mandy", "David and Lisa" - the list is endless, and it is practically without exceptions in the fathomless interest and high quality treatment of human vulnerability and sensitivity. Jean Negulesco's screening of "Johnny Belinda" is one of the very best examples.
There was a flood of Oscar nominations in 1948, but I don't think anyone would have disagreed with awarding that year's Oscar to Jane Wyman and the best film of the year. It is so startlingly real and convincing all the way, the realism is total, and the drama couldn't be more gripping.
A deaf and mute girl gets raped by a bully and gets pregnant by the way as the worst possible complication for a case like hers in a small village of provincial prejudice and gossips. Fortunately there is a gentleman doctor at hand, who with delicate diplomacy gets the better of the situation.
Lew Ayres didn't make many pictures, and he is almost only remembered for this one and "The Dark Mirror" two years previously with Olivia de Havilland as twin sisters, one of them psychotic, another tricky situation. Lew Ayres is such a winning and sympathetic character, that he could well have made another Ronald Colman, but these two great noir pictures he made was quite enough to establish his reputation for good.
Charles Bickford as the farmer and Agnes Moorehead as his wife add to the poignancy of the drama, both play characters with limitations, which serve only to enhance the power of their performance. Also the other villagers are quite convincing and real, and there is much in this film reminding of the Norwegian war drama "The Edge of Darkness" with Errol Flynn as another fisherman, although that's a completely different story, but the environment and mentality are the same.
In brief, this is a timeless drama of incapacity and weakness and the struggle to overcome the complications therein. Jean Negulesco directed many outstanding films, but this was maybe the very best one.
Many films have been made on the subject of the hardships of gravely handicapped or invalid people, preferably girls, like Arthur Penn's "The Miracle Worker" 1962, the film with Louis Jouvet on André Gide's best novel "The Pastoral Symphony", Siodmak's "The Spiral Staircase", "Mandy", "David and Lisa" - the list is endless, and it is practically without exceptions in the fathomless interest and high quality treatment of human vulnerability and sensitivity. Jean Negulesco's screening of "Johnny Belinda" is one of the very best examples.
There was a flood of Oscar nominations in 1948, but I don't think anyone would have disagreed with awarding that year's Oscar to Jane Wyman and the best film of the year. It is so startlingly real and convincing all the way, the realism is total, and the drama couldn't be more gripping.
A deaf and mute girl gets raped by a bully and gets pregnant by the way as the worst possible complication for a case like hers in a small village of provincial prejudice and gossips. Fortunately there is a gentleman doctor at hand, who with delicate diplomacy gets the better of the situation.
Lew Ayres didn't make many pictures, and he is almost only remembered for this one and "The Dark Mirror" two years previously with Olivia de Havilland as twin sisters, one of them psychotic, another tricky situation. Lew Ayres is such a winning and sympathetic character, that he could well have made another Ronald Colman, but these two great noir pictures he made was quite enough to establish his reputation for good.
Charles Bickford as the farmer and Agnes Moorehead as his wife add to the poignancy of the drama, both play characters with limitations, which serve only to enhance the power of their performance. Also the other villagers are quite convincing and real, and there is much in this film reminding of the Norwegian war drama "The Edge of Darkness" with Errol Flynn as another fisherman, although that's a completely different story, but the environment and mentality are the same.
In brief, this is a timeless drama of incapacity and weakness and the struggle to overcome the complications therein. Jean Negulesco directed many outstanding films, but this was maybe the very best one.