Johnny Belinda (1948) - Jean Negulesco

After years of dumb-blonde and best-friend roles, Jane Wyman proved her skills as a dramatic actress – and won an Academy Award in the bargain – in Johnny Belinda. Adapted from a stage play by Elmer Harris, the story takes place in Nova Scotia, where deaf-mute Belinda (Wyman) leads a lonely existence on the hardscrabble farm of her father Black Macdonald (Charles Bickford) and her aunt Aggie (Agnes Moorehead). Newly arrived doctor Robert Richardson (Lew Ayres) takes a special interest in Belinda, vowing to ease her road in life by teaching her sign language. Despite initial resistance from her father and aunt, Belinda quickly learns how to communicate with others, opening a whole, wonderful new world for her. But things take a sorry turn when local lout Locky (Stephan McNally) corners poor Belinda after a village dance and rapes her. If the ending seems a bit ambiguous, it is because director Jean Negulesco intended it that way, allowing the viewer to draw his or her own conclusion regarding Belinda's future relationship with her mentor Dr. Richardson. Upon accepting her Oscar, Jane Wyman commented on the fact that she accomplished this feat through the simple expedient of "keeping my mouth shut." But there is nothing simple or facile in Wyman's astonishing performance as Belinda, which far outclasses the actresses who repeated the role in the two TV remakes. Also worthy of praise is the lush musical score by Max Steiner, one of his best post-Casablanca efforts. (allmovie.com by Hal Erickson)

Review:
Johnny Belinda features a superb performance from Jane Wyman in the title role and a well-crafted story without the overtly happy ending common to this type of "personal triumph" drama. Filmed in effective black-and-white by Ted D. McCord, the studio recreation of a Nova Scotia fishing village is convincing, while director Jean Negulesco underplays many scenes, allowing the performances to resonate with the material. Ironically, Negulesco was fired late in the production of the film, when studio execs saw that he was avoiding the sort of tear-jerking sentimentality that they had expected. Because it would have been too expensive to re-shoot the entire picture, the studio reluctantly released it pretty much as Negulesco had wanted. The result was Warner Bros.' biggest hit of the year. This is another example of how films with strong, non-traditional women as the central character became more prominent in the post-WWII era. The film was nominated for a near-record twelve Academy Awards, though Wyman's Best Actress Oscar was the only category in which it won. (allmovie.com by Richard Gilliam)

Awards:
Jane Wyman won oscar Best Actress.
The movie was nominated for 10 oscars:
Best Picture
Best Director (Jean Negulesco)
Best Screenplay (Irma Von Cube, Allen Vincent)
Best Actor (Lew Ayres)
Best Supporting Actor (Charles Bickford)
Best Supporting Actress (Agnes Moorehead)
Best Black and White Cinematography (Ted D. McCord)
Best Black and White Art Direction (Robert M. Haas, William Wallace)
Best Editing (David Weisbart)
Best Drama or Comedy Score (Max Steiner).