The Country Girl (1954)

"The Country Girl" throws Grace Kelly in as the overextended wife of an alcoholic theater has-been trying to get on track. Unfairly castigated for her youth and appearance here, Kelly delivers a satisfying emotional performance as Frankie Elgin's wife, frustrated, betrayed, angry and unable to overcome her husband's fatal weakness, the bottle. Bing Crosby stuns as the drunk theatre has-been, and it is telling when you see him sing off-key or poorly, only to follow it up with immersion into a declining man's psyche, blaming anyone but himself for his foibles. Holden is the hard-edged theatre director who knows he can draw a performance out of Elgin but fights against Elgin's habits and Elgin's wife, whom he sees as little more than a nuisance.Our drama is sourced back to an early performance by Frank where we see a recognizable Grace Kelly, dressed to the nines and watching with their son. Frank has to pose next to a poster and his son runs into traffic, to predictable results. Frank blames himself and drinks himself deep, attempting suicide and turning on his wife. When offered a part in a play, he makes it a two week stint, convincing himself he'll fail and he can walk out. Only Georgie's insistence that he carry it through seems him finally emerge somewhat whole in the end. It isn't without trouble, however, as he relapses several times and Holden moves onto Georgie after an animated discussion in their office.Much has been made about Grace Kelly's being too beautiful, refined, young for Georgie's role. Here, the viewer must simply suspend disbelief a little. Kelly was in her early 20's when she filmed this, but she has been married for 10 years in the film. We're meant to think she is in her mid-30s and she pulls this off to a good degree. Very dressed down, tired looking and frustrated, she personifies the harrowed wife of a man she loves but can't save. Grace no doubt drew from her own personal experience here from her early days in New York at the Barbizon, much to her credit she keeps her character real and her Oscar was well-deserved.A great film on the perils on alcoholism, its consequences and simply as a look into some different roles for Hollywood greats.

It's good enough when a movie can impress me with an excellent performance delivered from an actor whom I didn't think had the chops to do so, now multiply that by three and you've got The Country Girl.I had only previously seen Bing Crosby in several musicals and comedies. He's never struck me as an enigmatic screen presence but serviceable none the less. Thus surprise performance # 1 in The Country Girl. Why didn't Crosby do more dramatic roles in his career? This is one of most powerful performances I've ever seen as a washed up alcoholic performer who has hit rock bottom. Like Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend and Jack Lemon in Days of Wine and Roses, Crosby's performance has helped convince me never to start drinking (or at least that would be the case since I've never had any intention of starting). Yet I would still say he's outdone by William Holden, surprise performance #2. I've found Holden to be very hit or miss as an actor, possibly relying on great directors to get a good performance out of him otherwise he comes off to me as forgettable. The jury is still out on his abilities as an actor but never less after watching The Country Girl again I can say this is my favourite performance I've seen him deliver giving so much raw energy as a driven stage producer.Finally in the triangle of surprise is Grace Kelly. Prior to watching The Country Girl I was becoming increasingly anti-Grace Kelly, questioning if she was even a very good actress. Here in this dowdy, playing against type role, my opinion of her changed. I have a rule when it comes to reviewing not to talk about Oscars as I see complaining about awards to be futile and cliché. Yet this is one exception in which I'm forced to break it due to the controversy surrounding her win. Judy Garland's role in A Star Is Born is one of my favourite film performances of all time and should have won her the Oscar that year however if The Country Girl had been released most other years I would have been more than happy to see Grace Kelly get the Oscar. Without delving into a mindless praise fest I really was left flabbergasted by this trio of performers aided with the help of the film's unforgettable sense of atmosphere as Grace Kelly puts best herself: "There's nothing quite so mysterious and silent as a dark theatre, a night without a star."

The Country Girl is the movie for which plain, dowdy-looking Grace Kelly received an Oscar. Now wait just a minute. Plain, dowdy-looking Grace Kelly? Yes in that regard this is a movie which requires some serious suspension of disbelief. Aside from one brief flashback sequence in which she is seen in all her vibrant, ravishing glory this movie takes great pains to hide Kelly's beauty away under plenty of aging makeup and frumpy clothing. She's still the most beautiful plain-looking woman you've ever seen though. Anyhow Kelly and her two co-stars Bing Crosby and William Holden combine to produce a thoughtful, entertaining and enjoyable movie. It's three top stars in top form.While the film's title would seem to place the focus on Kelly's character it is really Crosby's role around which the plot is centered. He plays down-on-his-luck alcoholic stage actor Frank Elgin. He's a faded star who desperately needs a job but could he actually handle one? He's exceptionally fragile and almost totally unreliable. Yet when director Bernie Dodd, as played by Holden, needs an actor for the all-important lead role in his new musical production he insists that Frank Elgin is his man. Dodd's producer strenuously objects and Frank himself has serious doubts as to whether he can pull this off. But Frank gets the part. However Dodd will soon find that there is a big problem. If you get Frank you get his wife Georgie as part of the deal too. This cold, controlling woman has Frank under her thumb and as the production struggles and stumbles towards opening night she's going to make things difficult for everyone.In playing Georgie, a character so unlike those she would typically play, Kelly was given quite a unique opportunity and she certainly made the most of it. It's a powerful, emotionally charged performance. Georgie is a complex character, perhaps a misunderstood one. You may be asking yourself questions about the character. Who is she really? But no need to ask questions about the actress. Kelly is utterly convincing and terrific throughout. Crosby does very well with a very dramatic part. Yes he gets to croon a few tunes but they're not particularly memorable and that's not what the part is about. It's about all the insecurities that make Frank Elgin who he is. And Crosby captures the character's weak-minded personality beautifully. Whereas Kelly and Crosby have to venture far outside of their respective comfort zones Holden has what by comparison would seem an ordinary part to play. But he is notably excellent as well. He may not have had the same kind of challenges Kelly and Crosby did but he knew what he had to do and he did it very well. All in all it's a brilliantly acted film. The story takes a little while to get going but it's a smart tale, one with a few surprises along the way. Not all the surprises work perfectly. There's a shift in feelings for some of the characters near the end which comes out of nowhere and is not particularly believable. It threatens to erase much of the goodwill the film has built up. But things manage to get back on track leading up to a satisfying conclusion to a satisfying film. Three great stars, three great performances, hard to go wrong with that.

Well, it won Grace Kelly an Academy Award and it's easy to see why. She was delicious in a couple of earlier movies and positively supernal in "Rear Window." Here, too, she's playing against type -- not the glamorous, elegant blond but the beaten-down mousy wife in glasses, holding up her enfeebled alcoholic husband, Bing Crosby. But was she really actress enough for such a melodramatic role? Yes and no. She does okay, slumping her drab way through the role, radiating exhaustion. But when it comes to angry shouting she seems uncomfortable, as if in violation of the rules of the convent school in which she'd been educated.I don't know if that can be held against her. This is from a play by Clifford Odets and so all of the lines sound as if they were written for the stage. Nobody else sound especially natural either. Her worst moment is her most intense -- when the director, William Holden, who's trying to resurrect Crosby's career chews her out, blaming her for all of Crosby's weaknesses. She turns and slaps Holden hard across the face, then says with what intensity she can gather, "Did I forget to tell you I was proud?" That's pretty pompous stuff.With regard to that scene, it's a good illustration of the mediocre and middle-brow talent of the film's director, George Seaton. The pauses after the slap and after the devastating line are long. Very long. The camera lingers on the two figures in medium shot, waiting, one supposes, for the gasps to die down in the audience. You know, a good, efficient director of Grade B movies, which this is, at heart, would have given the audience credit enough to understand this is an important incident and would have edited his way quickly through it. Sam Fuller, nobody's idea of a self-important artist, would have introduced somehow a touch of irony.But director Seaton more or less stumbles through this stagy plot and exercises no discernible imagination in his staging. He's also responsible for the screenplay, which turns far too much time over to Bing Crosby singing vapid songs and cuts out what was one of the most important events in the play -- the scene in which the Holden character provokes the Crosby character into improvising a stunning angry speech in front of the producers. The power of that improvisation leaves the producers speechless and secures the job for Crosby.I remember that scene because many years ago I played Larry the Stage Manager in a college production of "The Country Girl." I was a far better Larry the Stage Manager than Gene Reynolds, who plays Larry the Stage Manager in the movie. I can prove I was better. I even got a fan letter. True, the letter was written by my girl friend, and, true, I had to threaten to pull her hair to get her to write it. But I'm morally certain when she thought about it later, she realized her accolade was justified. It's not a terrible movie, but it's not what it might have been. Holden is constantly on the edge of exploding. Crosby's performance belongs in a movie with Dorothy Lamour. And Kelly's exhaustion is exhausting. Most of the flaws I attribute to the director.