Two Greer Garson Films

In continuing my quest for Greer Garson films, I obtained and viewed two more that I'd not yet seen, also starring Walter Pidgeon.

The first one is called Blossoms in the Dust (1941).  It was something of a tear jerker based on the life of Edna Gladney, a woman who fought against the stigma of illegitimacy in orphan adoption cases and other situations at the turn of the last century in Texas.  She eventually succeeded in getting a bill passed in Congress that removed such information from court records and allowed adopted children the same inheritance rights as biological children. 

 

Edna's husband is portrayed by Walter Pidgeon (their first film together), and througout the film she loses her husband, adopted sister, and her own son, leaving her to devote her life to children's aid advocacy.  This was the film that marked Greer Garson's rise to stardom, and it set the tone for many of her subsequent movies with Walter Pidgeon where they played respectable married couples often fighting against some kind of odds or for a cause.  Incidentally, Greer Garson did not like Blossoms in the Dust and stated in a quote in the New York Times that "the screen is neither a platform or a pulpit."  I found her performance to be touching and heartfelt, and I also enjoyed the lush technicolor photography. 

 

 

 

This week I also watched Julia Misbehaves (1948).  Garson and Pidgeon's fifth film together, it is the first and only comedy of their eight total pairings.  It strongly deviates from the typical pattern of their previous films, and Greer Garson plays a woman who, estranged from her husband and daughter, is returning for her daughter's wedding after twenty years.  Antics and hilarity ensue when it is discovered that her husband (they never actually divorced) and mother-in-law didn't actually invite her to the wedding.  The daughter is played by Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter Lawford and Nigel Bruce are also a part of the supporting cast.  The film was a flop with critics and audiences, in part because people had come to expect a certain moral character from Greer Garson, and a chorus girl who leaves her husband and daughter for twenty years just didn't fit the bill.  I found the movie to be quite entertaining and funny and was happy to add it to my collection. 

 

 

One more interesting tidbit:  All of the Greer Garson/Walter Pidgeon films were made at MGM, and Louis B. Mayer, so impressed with Greer Garson's manners and propriety, nicknamed her "Duchess."