Get out the bath towels for The Blue Veil. Jane Wyman will have you weeping before this film is halfway through.
Set over a 40 year period Jane Wyman gradually ages throughout the film, a tribute to the subtle yet effective makeup job done on her. When we first meet her she's a recent young widow who has just suffered a double tragedy. She lost her young baby in infancy and now has to survive. To fill a true ache in her heart Wyman takes the first of many jobs as nurse/ governess to the children of others. Sad to say though she sometimes lets the boundary lines erase between an employee and an actual parent.
One such time was with young Natalie Wood when she raises her literally in the absence of Wood's actress mother Joan Blondell. In this case Wyman recognizes the problem and voluntarily moves on.
This happens again, but the situation is truly forced upon her. When World War II starts, Audrey Totter follows her English husband back overseas and does war work there. She and husband Dan O'Herlihy leave their son Dee Pollock in Wyman's care. O'Herlihy is killed flying for the RAF and Totter is in service there. Eventually she marries Harry Morgan, but all that takes a number of years. Meanwhile Wyman is back on this side of the pond raising Pollock and who could blame her for thinking of him as her own.
District Attorney Everett Sloane does not want to prosecute Wyman either, but he works a way out to keep her out of jail for kidnapping. Still she has to give Pollock up. It's a gut wrenching scene.
Which sets up my favorite scene in the film. She takes a job as a cleaning lady in a public school and she tries to mother young Jimmy Hunt. The kid is suspicious, we know her motives, but he runs from her, leaving her with yet another ache.
Wyman was nominated deservedly for Best Actress losing to Vivien Leigh for Streetcar Named Desire. Joan Blondell got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress but she lost to Kim Hunter for again Streetcar Named Desire. In a fine cast that RKO and director Curtis Bernhardt assembled, Wyman really dominates this film.
Charles Laughton is in this film as well in a strangely brief role for an actor of his stature. He plays the widower father who first hires Wyman. It's a kindly role for Laughton with very little to work with to make him noticed. Cyril Cusack plays an iconoclastic owner of a toy and novelty shop who has a thing for Wyman, but Jane just wants to take care of children and fulfill her needs. He waits for years for her.
The Blue Veil is such a moving film that it will be impossible to view without a sense of poignancy. Some argue that this is even a better role for Jane Wyman than her Oscar winning Johnny Belinda and they may be right.
Set over a 40 year period Jane Wyman gradually ages throughout the film, a tribute to the subtle yet effective makeup job done on her. When we first meet her she's a recent young widow who has just suffered a double tragedy. She lost her young baby in infancy and now has to survive. To fill a true ache in her heart Wyman takes the first of many jobs as nurse/ governess to the children of others. Sad to say though she sometimes lets the boundary lines erase between an employee and an actual parent.
One such time was with young Natalie Wood when she raises her literally in the absence of Wood's actress mother Joan Blondell. In this case Wyman recognizes the problem and voluntarily moves on.
This happens again, but the situation is truly forced upon her. When World War II starts, Audrey Totter follows her English husband back overseas and does war work there. She and husband Dan O'Herlihy leave their son Dee Pollock in Wyman's care. O'Herlihy is killed flying for the RAF and Totter is in service there. Eventually she marries Harry Morgan, but all that takes a number of years. Meanwhile Wyman is back on this side of the pond raising Pollock and who could blame her for thinking of him as her own.
District Attorney Everett Sloane does not want to prosecute Wyman either, but he works a way out to keep her out of jail for kidnapping. Still she has to give Pollock up. It's a gut wrenching scene.
Which sets up my favorite scene in the film. She takes a job as a cleaning lady in a public school and she tries to mother young Jimmy Hunt. The kid is suspicious, we know her motives, but he runs from her, leaving her with yet another ache.
Wyman was nominated deservedly for Best Actress losing to Vivien Leigh for Streetcar Named Desire. Joan Blondell got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress but she lost to Kim Hunter for again Streetcar Named Desire. In a fine cast that RKO and director Curtis Bernhardt assembled, Wyman really dominates this film.
Charles Laughton is in this film as well in a strangely brief role for an actor of his stature. He plays the widower father who first hires Wyman. It's a kindly role for Laughton with very little to work with to make him noticed. Cyril Cusack plays an iconoclastic owner of a toy and novelty shop who has a thing for Wyman, but Jane just wants to take care of children and fulfill her needs. He waits for years for her.
The Blue Veil is such a moving film that it will be impossible to view without a sense of poignancy. Some argue that this is even a better role for Jane Wyman than her Oscar winning Johnny Belinda and they may be right.