Olivia DeHavilland moons her way through the typical Oscar bait narrative in which a woman sacrifices her son (it's always a son, isn't it?) for the good of another woman and for the good of the child himself. This is so tiresome.
I must say I was a bit surprised that DeHavilland's goody-two-shoes reputation allowed her to play a woman who had a child without being married, but of course she doesn't even kiss the man onscreen so I guess she got away with it that way. What an eye-roll this whole business is. I can't believe I sat through it.
Funnily enough, I had actually been looking forward to this movie a lot. It's one of the few Best Actress winners I hadn't seen (La Ciociara and Anastasia are now the only two), and so when the film became available on the Cave of Forgotten Films website I jumped at the chance to see it. Alas, this film ought perhaps to have stayed forgotten.
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