Thursday 25 March 2021

The Yearling (1946 Clarence Brown)

That boy Claude Jarman Jr needs toughenin' up real good, if he's to survive in tharnt country, and no soppy deer ain't gonna do 'im no good neither.

Well, that's what his mother Jane Wyman (The Lost Weekend, Stage Fright, Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows) would have said; pappy Gregory Peck would have been more sympathetic (they were both Oscar nominated). He's almost the same character as Atticus Finch.

Paul Osborn adapted Marjorie Kinnnan Rawlings novel. Charles Rosher is the lead cameraman, with Leonard Smith and Arthur Arling - the tones are painterly. They won Oscars. Editor Harold Kress (nominated) reports finding the Mendelssohn scherzo from Midsummer Night's Dream, putting it over the forest scene with cavorting deer, and it worked perfectly - he didn't have to change a thing. Result: made producer Sidney Franklin and Margaret Booth cry at the screening.




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