JOHNNY BELINDA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 537, 7 October 1949, Page 24

JOHNNY BELINDA

¢ Warner Bros.) S a general rule I find it difficult to take Hollywood’s Academy Awards seriously. Some, notably that made to

Ronald Colman for his acting in A Double Life, have left me mystified, and others have seemed more like long-ser-vice or good-conduct prizes than awards for merit. But I have no quarrel with the Oscar awarded to Jane Wyman, If The Window was a producer’s picture, Johnny Belinda belongs to the cast and there is no gainsaying the sensitivity and finish of the star’s performance, To poftray a deaf mute would be exacting enough in a minor role, but to make such an unfortunate the central character in a story, to demand of the actress not only the portrayal of all shades of emotion by means of facial expression and gesture, but the slow emergence of a human personality from complete intellectual isolation was a test of virtuosity from which few could have emerged with credit. Miss Wyman, however, not only brought the part to life, but invested it with warmth and tenderness and beauty. It was a skilful and restrained piece of acting-a sterling piece of work in fact, if one can say that of a hard-currency, production. In the supporting roles Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford and Agnes Moorehead all turned in satisfying performances, though I had occasional doubts about Lew Ayres. He is a smooth performer (and a nice young man, too), but he has played the young doctor so long that I can almost detect a trace of bedside manner in his style-a sort of occupational gentleness perhaps. For him Agnes Moorehead and Charles Bickford, as tough Cape Breton Islanders, proved admirable foils. I liked Miss Moorehead’s portrayal of Belinda’s aunt. She has good hands-exasperation almost crackles from her fingertips-and a fine face. But beyond the circle of the four central figures Johnny Belinda is rather conventional in its characterisations and in its direction, There are some attractive location-shots -- rockbound coasts and fishing-boats-but some of the interiors smack of the studio lot, there are traces of an antique pre-Freudian symbolism, and the dialogue is occasionally rather less moving than Jane Wyman’s: eloquent silences.