"Johnny Belinda" with Jane Wyman and Lew Ayres (1948)

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.

What is Ethics?

While reading “The Unarmed Truth” by John Dodson; a very good book by the way; I ran across the old question which is thrown out in classes on philosophy, religion, and even law enforcement. That is the age old question of just what comprises ethics?

The classic question usually goes something like this; “You are all alone in the car at night when you come to an intersection governed by a traffic light. It’s red. You stop and look around. The cross street allows you to see for miles and there are no cars coming. As a matter of fact, there aren't any buildings, or even people for as far as you can see. What do you do? Do you run the light, or wait for the green?”

The accompanying statement is usually along the lines of, “What you do when no one is looking; the decisions you make then; that’s ethics.” I couldn't disagree more strongly with that conclusion. As a matter of fact, I find the question irrelevant.

The converse side of this argument is often touted as, “Ethics is what you do when everyone around you is doing wrong; and you know it to be wrong. Do you go along to get along? What do you do when all eyes are upon you?” This is a bit closer, but still falls a bit short of the mark I set for myself.

Ethics is better defined as having the consistency to stick to a set of personal values which you have laid out for yourself so that you can look in the mirror each morning without averting your eyes. It’s about having the courage to stick to your convictions; whether others are looking or not. If you ask yourself how something affects those around you; as well as how it affects your moral compass; only then you can weigh whether or not your decision meets the definition of ethical behavior.

Some would argue that this method allows you to deviate from a rigid ethical position; but think about that for a moment. If you take an Occam ’s Razor approach to everything in life then you never allow for the different nuances inherent to any situation. Nothing is so simple that it can be decided in that manner. Life is not black and white. It is made up, instead, of many shades of black and white. Those are the grey areas, where most of life takes place.

I suppose that ethics can be more succinctly defined by the words of the Golden Rule; “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You.” If you stick with that, you can never really go wrong.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Let’s begin by saying that I am Pro-Choice on the Abortion Issue. My reasons for this are very simple. I don’t get pregnant, and I am not willing to adopt any of the millions of children who are already without homes, so I choose to not cast the first stone at those who are Pro-Choice. But, neither do I dismiss the concerns of those who are Anti-Choice. At the same time though, I am not for overturning the Roe vs. Wade ruling which made abortion legal.

Why am I even writing about this? Well, for some unknown reason I receive the e-mails from NARAL, which is some sort of Women’s Rights group. How or why I receive these e-mails is irrelevant; although I wish they would stop sending them as they tend to tick me off. Here’s why.

I just got this one a week or so ago. It concerns the “would be” Governor of Virginia who is Anti-Choice on Abortion. His reasons are that it is comparable to slavery and it is pushing this country towards Civil War. NARAL says you should be infuriated, and to prove it they want you to send them money to stop the plans of this fellow down in Virginia. But they need to bone up on their own history a bit first. 

For starters, they claim he’s nuts for comparing Abortion to Slavery; and I agree. But what they are missing is that Roe v. Wade, which legalized Abortion in America; from sea to shining sea; was decided on the 14^th Amendment, the very one which this fellow in Virginia is claiming as the basis for being Anti-Choice. So, the problem for NARAL is this; if the Court’s decision concerning Roe v. Wade relied on reference to the 14^th Amendment, how can they now be opposed to the very same Amendment?

In Roe v Wade, the justices found, by a vote of 7-2; Justices White and Rehnquist dissented; and the Court found for Roe and upheld her right to abortion in the first trimester (90 days). The Court stated that the 14th Amendment, in Section 1, contained three references to a “person.”

I thought the findings were correct, but have always believed the decision should have been based on Amendments 4, which gives you the right to freedom from undue search and seizure, and to be secure in your homes; and with the 9^th Amendment ceding all rights to you not denied by the Constitution; meaning that they are implied by omission.

So, the views of the “would be” Governor are that a Civil Rights issue; which Abortion is; could set off a conflict not unlike the Civil War, which was the very way in which we got Amendment 14 to begin with. And, if that’s not inconsistent enough for you, the NARAL group is now opposed to the very reasoning by which Roe v. Wade was decided in the first place.

I hope this is clear to you all. Inconsistency is the one thing I have come to expect from my Political leaders and Social advocates. With their minds so firmly set on “winning”, they have lost their intellectual capacity to reason in a consistent manner. And this, I believe, is the biggest threat of all.

"Song of the Birds" with Little Audrey (1949)

The Little Audrey series of cartoons were not really on my radar as a boy growing up. As a matter of fact, until recently, while searching for a cartoon I had never really even watched one all the way through. I suppose as a boy I considered them to be “girl’s cartoons”; the same way certain films are labeled to be “chick-flicks.” This type of thinking can cause a person to miss out on some really fine entertainment. “Fried Green Tomatoes” springs to mind immediately, as does the classic novel “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

In this 1949 cartoon, Little Audrey has a BB gun and; like all good children everywhere; she can hardly wait to shoot something with it. After a bit of practice on the cuckoo clock the family maid banishes her outdoors warning her of the trouble likely to come from Audrey’s BB gun. Although the maid may seem to be politically incorrect, she is always the smartest one in these cartoons, and you do have to wonder where the hell Audrey's parents are.

Audrey is nonplussed at being thrown out, and seeks to shoot the first thing which will stand still. The squirrel gets away after delivering a real tongue lashing at Audrey, who then proceeds to shoot at a baby bird who is just learning to fly. As the bird falls to the ground the mother is in anguish at the loss of her little one. And Little Audrey is grief stricken at what she has done.

The Weeping Willows weep, and the whole world of nature mourns the passing of the young bird as Audrey retreats to her house in shame and remorse. But sometimes miracles occur, and as the mother bird is burying her child a sudden storm breaks out, unleashing the rain which revives the fallen bird. As the animals rejoice Audrey hears the song of the birds and rushes outside in great relief, breaking her rifle in half to show that she has changed.

With a box of bird seed in hand she attempts to bring back the trust the birds once had in mankind, but that is easier said than done. As Audrey turns, forlorn and rejected, one brave little blue bird leaves the safety of the trees and lands on her shoulder. When the other birds see that no harm comes to the little blue bird they all come out and happiness is restored to the forest once again.

This cartoon is very reminiscent of the 1963 Andy Griffith Show episode in which Opie does the same thing as Little Audrey. The results are the same and Opie also learns the value of life by his mistake. You can view the first part of that episode here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhJeRaCwiNU

These old cartoons and television shows contain an awful lot of wisdom in them. In today’s world they may seem quaint and old fashioned, but the world was a seemingly less violent place just a few decades ago. In light of all the recent mass shootings I thought maybe a refresher course in responsibility was in order. And what better way to see things more clearly than through the eyes of a child.