Alexander Walker: "It is certainly Davis's intelligence which shines through The Corn Is Green. Directed by Irving Rapper, it was Casey Robinson's last screenplay for her [he wrote Now Voyager, Dark Victory, and The Old Maid]: no doubt about it, this Cornell graduate, who had entered silent films as a title writer in 1927, had the measure of Davis's emotional range better than any other scenarist at Warners, and constantly used what he knew she could do to extend her means to do what she wanted to do. He refined her talent in the writing so as to feed her mind as well. The studio may have hoped that the spark of learning which her didactic school-marm ignited in her Welsh scholarship boy [John Dall] could be fanned into something warmer. Davis would have none of it. Her dedication has just the right hint of fanaticism: it is as selfless a piece of work as any she did." Based on Emlyn Williams' hit play.
I liked the way she entices Nigel Bruce into doing her bidding; but against cunning bitch Joan Lorring (again) there's not a lot she can do. With Rhys Williams, Rosalind Ivan, Mildred Dunnock, Arthur Shields.
Music by Max Steiner, orchestrated by Hugo Friedhofer, shot by Sol Polito. Montages get a credit for James Leicester.
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