Friday, February 17, 2006
WEEPER
It is one damn thing after another in today's NYT Best 1176 Films:
I dreaded seeing this film. I saw it, improbably, when I was eleven years old.
What was my mother thinking? Or perhaps I had de-nested myself by that time. I managed to run away from home without leaving home.
In any case, deaf and dumb Jane Wyman gets a friend (good); her doctor (sorta good as he doesn't charge for house calls). He teaches her sign language and lip reading (good if improbable in the time given), then Jane gets raped by a local tough (very bad).
It takes a while for people, including Jane, to find out she is pregnant (bad).
After that, she is shunned from the small Cape Breton community (well not so bad as they are a bunch of gossiping assholes). The doctor, Lew Ayers, is also shunned because he is suspected of impregnating Jane Wyman.
Since he is the only doc in the village, this is pretty strong stuff for the villagers to do, shun him. What do they do if they get sick? (bad).
Jane's live-in aunt, Agnes Moorehead, becomes nice after the revelation of rape and pregnancy (good). I always liked Moorehead a lot.
Then, Charles Bickford (very good as always) finds out who really raped his daughter and there is all hell to pay. He goes after him and gets killed.(bad).
The town now decides that manless (the doctor had to leave for a practice in Toronto), Jane needs to give up the baby.
Of all the people to give the baby to, they choose the rapist and his new wife Jan Sterling (who I have always loved to see).
When they come to get the baby, Jan finds out that her new hubby raped Jane (bad, but eventually a good thing). He tells her to forget it and goes into the house to take his son (bad).
Jane shoots him (not so bad except she gets taken in for murder).
There is a trial scene where Jane's deaf and dumb condition makes things kinda bad (bad) on the witness stand until Lew comes to the front (good) to translate and Jan, who had a crush on Lew, fesses up that she knows what really happened (good).
Lew and Jane end up getting married and the few other survivors are happy.
It is well acted and surprisingly low on the melodrama. Keerist, the story is enough.
I endured. (good) But I didn't like it very much (bad).
It got a lot of Oscar noms (good) but only won one (bad).
I think that this is a 2 out of Netflix5. I didn't shed a tear (good and bad).
A final note. Jane Wyman lives in Palm Springs. She still has the doll face. She is a matron now and supports the local catholic church and such. She goes to fundraisers. What is more, she is able to hear and speak coherently (good).
