#57 - The Yearling

This was dangerous territory here. The trepidation towards watching this movie was quite high. Why? Take a look at that picture. We are talking about a high potential for annoying child actor here. I flashed back, all the way to A Hole in the Head. I was certain that there wasn't going to be a crappy song in the middle of the movie, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to grind my teeth away listening to an annoying kid in a sappy movie. But that's not what we got. Believe it or not, the kid wasn't completely annoying. There were definitely times when he tried my patience. A few too many uses of the words "Pa" and "Gee", and not necessarily in that order.

This kid undertook an extremely hard task. He had an unbelievable range of emotion that he had to portray throughout the entire movie. I would imagine that going from youthful innocence to the harsh realities of life and death is a hard thing to express for anyone, much less someone so young. And he does it quite well. A little unbelievable at times, but he is committed to what he is doing which is admirable. And since he is the main character of the movie, you might think that he has the daunting task of carrying the whole thing. Oh, no. For that, we turn to the rock. The foundation. Gregory Peck. You probably already know this, but this guy is amazingly good at what he does. You see, I haven't seen to many of his films, so I just don't know. Blown away at his wisdom and stoicism in To Kill A Mockingbird, I was floored to see him be the foundation of a family yet again, but in a completely different way with a completely different character. And no less effective. And Jane Wyman was solid too with a mother dealing with the heartache of lost children and a hard life in general. This ain't Falcon Crest.

Let's talk visuals here. This movie was made in 1946 and the color is absolutely amazing. The lost art of film studio sky cyc's is on full display in this movie and they tremendously well done. And the nature shots are amazing. Particularly the scene with the running deer. It was beautiful and breathtaking. Check it out. You could be pleasantly surprised like I was.