Tonight's movie was "Blossoms In The Dust"(1941), starring Greer Garson. It was part of the holiday bargain pack I recently bought from Amazon, and while it technically isn't a Christmas movie, you can count it as such because it does have two prominent Christmas Day scenes. Garson plays Edna Gladney, a real life woman from Wisconsin who later moved to Texas and became a champion for orphaned children. The story begins in 1906, in Green Bay. Garson is set to marry her long time beau, but as usual in Hollywood the long time beau is boring. In steps the estimable Walter Pidgeon as a bank teller who has the temerity to steal Garson away on the eve of her wedding. I must interject (as I've been doing a lot lately) to say that I didn't recognize Pidgeon because I'd only ever seen him as a very elderly man in TV roles in the 1960s and 70s. He was born in 1897, so he even looks old in this movie. 44 in 1941 looked like 54, or even 60. Everyone in those days smoked and drank, often to excess.
Garson is now set to marry Pidgeon, in a dual wedding that will also include Marsha Hunt and her fiancee. Longtime ingenue Hunt plays a foster teen who has lived with Garson's family all her life. Garson thinks of her as a sister, and so they are set for their twin nuptuals, however, something happens to derail this plan. Naturally I shant tell you what it is.
This happenstance sends Greer Garson into a tailspin, which for a while has her avoiding the problem by living life as a hostess for her husband's business parties, entertaining the hoi polloi of Fort Worth, where they have moved in order to run Pidgeon's flour mill. He and Garson soon have a child, a boy who she dotes on, but then something else happens, and this time you can guess what it is, because it causes Garson to begin looking into the predicament of orphans in early 20th century Texas.
According to a reviewer on IMDB, some of the plot devices of the film are fictional, but I can see why they were included, in order to pump up the drama. Garson happens one day to find herself sitting in on a hearing in Superior Court, about a placement of what was then called a "foundling", meaning a child whose parents are unknown. Think of the old cliche of a baby being left on the steps of a church, or orphanage, and really it's not a cliche at all because it still happens, and worse. Anyhow, being in the orphan's court on this occasion causes Garson to rethink her life. She gets an epiphany that leads, once again by montage, to her new calling. When we next see her she is the proprietor of a nursery, one of the first of it's kind in the country.
Her nursery is an immediate success. It begins as a day care center for working mothers, but then Garson branches out to accept orphans, whom she carefully places into good homes. However, once the blue nose ladies of Fort Worth get wind of Garson's policies, they attempt to shut her down. You see, she will accept any child, including "no names", meaning children who have been abandoned. The high toned ladies believe this is wrong, "because it encourages 'bad girls' to have babies". Meaning unwed mothers, or those with unplanned pregnancies. Of course, we know nowdays that such a stance is cruel and moronic, but back then there was a real stigma attached to "illegitimate" births (and unwed motherhood). Thank God Greer Garson stood up to those old battleaxes, way back in 1912! I will interject again to say that my own mother was a orphan, not quite illegitimate, but close. Her birth mother was very young, and married only briefly to a man who bailed on her when she got pregnant. She didn't have the means to provide for my Mom, so she gave her up for adoption. Mom was adopted at six months old by a very nice couple, who were my maternal grandparents, though I never met them because they died before I was born. Thus Mom was orphaned again at age 17. It's more correct to say she was left on her own, because at that age she was able to get a job and move in with a cousin, but anyway, I mention all of this because anyone who helps or adopts orphaned children is a hero in my book. My Mom turned out to be the best Mom in the world. I wouldn't be here without her, so take that!, blue nose ladies of Fort Worth. :)
But back to the movie, once the Blue Noses try to have her nursery shut down, Greer Garson goes into overdrive. She takes her case to the State Senate. Her goal is to do away with the very idea of illegitimacy. She believes that no child could possibly be "illegitimate" because we are all one big human family, and to label an abandoned child in that way could scar him or her for life. Garson makes an impassioned plea on the Senate floor, which may have earned her one of her six Oscar nominations, and the rest is history.
I won't reveal any more of the plot, except to say that she will face one last crisis, which will turn out to be the toughest of them all. But don't worry too much because, like "Mrs. Miniver" (Garson's signature role), she seems to be indomitable. And there's no way that MGM is gonna let you down hard, especially not in 1941.
While it has the feel of a biopic, and thus the march through Edna Gladney's life comes across a bit canned (like a "study" film), I nonetheless very much enjoyed "Blossoms In The Dust", mainly for the aforementioned reason of my own family history. Greer Garson gives one of her trademark performances, heavily dramatic and theatrical. Depending on how sentimental you are, you may have to be in the mood for a film specifically about orphan children. I didn't know the subject matter when I popped the disc into the player, and was expecting a Christmas Classic, as that was how the dvd set was promoted. And again, while it does indeed have important Christmas Day scenes, it is not strictly a holiday film. It is, however, a very good one, and it gets Two Big Thumbs Up from me.
This concludes our Christmas Movie Marathon, until next year when we will have even more Classics to enjoy, including a Charles Dickens miniseries. We missed our Dickens this year, but it won't happen again I assure you. :) /////
That's all for the moment. We had good singin' in church. I am gonna go for a walk and then head back to Pearl's. See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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