I hadn’t seen this film in over 30 years; until I watched it again last night. It still retains the ability to unsettle the viewer. Jane Wyman;
who plays the role of Belinda; won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her
portrayal of a young woman whose mother died during her birth and was also left
“deaf and dumb”; which was the term at the time for being born with the
inability to speak or hear.
The film was originally a Broadway play of the same name in 1940
by Elmer Blaney Harris. It was rewritten; though not too much; for the screen
by Allen Vincent and Irma von CubeIn addition to the Ocsar for Best Actress
Award in the film version for Ms. Wyman, this film garnered 11 other Academy nominations;
including Best Actor and Actress Awards for all 3 of the co-stars, as well as
one for the Director Jean Negulesco.
The film was a groundbreaking one; one of the first to call
attention to not only rape, but to people born with disabilities and the
misunderstanding of those afflictions. Prior to this film these subjects had
been off limits to film makers since the 1930’s and the advent of the Motion
Picture Production Code, started by the industry to police itself in the wake
of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal.
The film stars Jane Wyman as Belinda McDonald; Charles
Bickford as her father, Black MacDonald, and Agnes Moorehead as his sister, Aggie MacDonald. Lew Ayres
plays Dr. Robert Richardson, a kindly physician who has had some heartbreak in
his life and comes to a small fishing village on Cape Breton Island off the
east coast of Canada to reassess his own life.
There he meets Black McDonald when he is summoned to the
farm to help with the birth of a calf. While there he meets Belinda and sees
that she is deaf and unable to speak. He approached her father about trying to
teach her but the old man can’t really see any purpose to it. But he does get
the old man’s permission to use the pond on the farm to fish as payment for
delivering the calf. This brings him into further contact with Belinda; whom
everyone calls “The Dummy.” He is determined to change that. Introducing
Belinda to sign language she is able to learn how to lip read. Her father is so
astonished that he agrees to let the Doctor continue with his efforts.
The doctor has an assistant in his office, Stella, who is in
love with the doctor, who is not interested in anything but being a doctor. She
is engaged to the town’s braggart, Locky McCormick; played by Stephen McNally. When
he sees the doctor teaching Belinda to dance he is aroused by her beauty; which
he has never noticed before. When the dance is over he sneaks back and rapes
her. She tells no one of the attack.
As her condition becomes obvious the townsfolk begin to
talk. When Belinda gives birth to a healthy boy she names Johnny, the town begins
to act on their suspicions and shun the doctor, who they believe to be the
father. The Doctor realizes the shame which will forever surround the girl and
her child and so he offers to marry her. Her father, thinking the offer is made
out of pity, declines to let him.
Locky goes to the farm to make a purchase of some grain and
Blacky hears him talking to the baby and admitting that he is the father. The
old man follows Locky off the farm with the intent of conflict and is killed by
the other man to hide the secret.
Shortly after the murder of Blacky; as the 2 women struggle
to keep the farm solvent; the local Morals Committee decides that Belinda and
Aggie are not fit to care for the child without Blacky around. Further, they
decide that the baby must be taken from Belinda, and then she is to be driven
from the town she has shamed. Stella and Locky; who have by this time married;
offer to adopt the baby and the Committee agree s to this.
It is while attempting to take the baby away from Belinda
that Stella realizes the immorality of separating a mother from her child. When
she tells Locky of her change of heart he admits to her that the child is his.
She is horrified but remains silent. When Locky goes back inside to take the
baby Belinda is waiting with a shotgun and kills him.
The ensuing trial pits the morality of the town against the
reality of the actions of Locky. When he attacked and raped Belinda he relinquished
the bonds which bound him to civilized society. The jury finds Belinda innocent
and she is given back her child.
One of the more interesting things about the film is that is
based on an actual case which took place by the author’s summer home in Fortune
Bridge, Prince Edward Island. The real life Belinda was a woman named life
Lydia Dingwell of Dingwells Mills, Prince Edward Island.
Whether your tastes run to drama, history, fiction, religion
or law; this film will rivet you to the screen as you watch it unfold. More
than that, you will find yourself thinking about Belinda; and the plight of
those like her; long after the last frame has shown on your screen. I think
that was the intent. This is a film with much to say.
