The Country Girl (1954)

What a beautiful movie!

good back-story, and good acting

From my favorite movies..

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The main thing that one will notice about "The Country Girl" is the unusual roles given to Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. His Frank is a depressed alcoholic, her Georgie is the unglamorous wife (well, unglamorous by Grace Kelly's standards). And then there's William Holden's Bernie. He's the director of a musical production, convinced that Georgie is the reason for Frank's alcoholism, and intent on making her life a living hell.It was rare for a movie back then to focus on misogyny. I found the scenes in which Bernie berates Georgie to be the most effective in the movie. They were certainly intense. The musical scenes were corny, but the rest of the movie made up for those. As to the question of whether Grace Kelly's performance merited an Oscar win over Judy Garland's performance in "A Star Is Born", I actually found this to be the more important movie; it focuses on a more serious issue.So, it's not the greatest movie ever made but I still recommend it. Just remember that Crosby's and Kelly's roles are not like what we're used to.

Grace Kelly (in return for the great sacrifice of wearing dowdy clothes and glasses) got the Oscar, but it was Bing Crosby who deserved it for his portrayal of a man who lies as naturally and as often as breathing to preserve his image as a nice, sweet guy. His alcoholism seems a lesser flaw than his essential phoniness--he blames his wife for things she has not done so that everyone can admire how graciously he forgives her; he vilifies in private a fellow actor to whom he is charming in public. It was far more courageous of Bing to show what people might have conjectured, with some justice, was the dark side to his public happy-go-lucky persona than it was for Kelly to wear baggy cardigans. Anyone who has had one of these men in their lives will relish this characterisation, given tremendous force by its being done by such a beloved entertainer. The best performance, though, is William Holden's, and the only one with energy and sex appeal. (What do you say of a woman who makes a picture with William Holden and Bing Crosby and has an affair with...Bing Crosby?) Yet all of them are at the mercy of Clifford Odets's couch-bound drama--and that's the analyst's couch, not the casting one. This is a story in which characters who live a life of secrecy or lies, on being confronted with The Truth, suddenly exhibit a remarkable degree of honesty and self-knowledge and come out with an articulate expression of their psychology. And for all the self-consciously sophisticated dialogue, the instigation for Bing's alcoholism is a piece of Victorian sentimentality-- he stops holding the hand of his cutesy-wootsy little blonde son for one minute, and the kid rushes into traffic to get run over. Poor Bing also has to deliver one of the most tasteless lines in the history of cinema: "I gave that woman ten years of the worst kind of hell outside a concentration camp."The songs Bing is given, though they are by Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen, are limp and mediocre, and the ones he sings onstage, at his audition and as part of the musical in which he appears, are dire. In fact, the stage show is so awful it is hard to believe it was not written in a spirit of parody--it's a combination of the worst parts of Oklahoma! and Our Town; the sign on the hotel in the set even says Our Town Hotel, for God's sake! Everything we see is, like the audition song, stuff that would have been considered dull and corny 20 years earlier. The scenes backstage, however, are rich in amusing theatrical atmosphere.Odets was a notorious misogynist, a trait that he cannot keep from creeping into the movie. When Holden makes scathing remarks about Kelly, his ex-wife, or women in general, he sounds much more believable than when he has to express his love for Kelly in uninteresting, awkward dialogue. And though the music surges at the end to bless Kelly when she decides to reject Holden and return to Bing (and was there ever any question she wouldn't? come on, who has top billing?) I couldn't buy the tragic nobility. The alcoholic and his enabler, both characters who live by sucking the blood of other people, have done it again: they have leeched off the warm, impulsive Holden, screwed him up, and then tossed him aside, having gained the strength to go on. One can't help wondering--did Odets know this and cynically misrepresent it to his audience, or did he fool himself?

Musical stage star Bing Crosby (as Frank Elgin) is all washed-up in the theater; after the accidental death of his son, he seeks solace in alcohol. Mr. Crosby's dowdy wife of ten years, Grace Kelly (as Georgie Elgin), is both domineering and co-dependent. Ex-hat check boy, and Cosby fan, William Holden (as Bernie Dodd) becomes overly involved with the pair, while steering Cosby's boozy comeback. Mr. Holden is as dependable as always. Ms. Kelly is good, but sometimes too obvious in showing frumpiness. Surprisingly, Cosby, the least heralded dramatic actor of the threesome, outperforms his illustrious co-stars; he really crawls beneath the surface of his character, and manages to make an almost tuneless, lackluster story much more interesting.******* The Country Girl (12/15/54) George Seaton ~ Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, William Holden, Anthony Ross

This movie is utter torment for the modern viewer.Filming a play is difficult; to be true to the play and to the film medium is challenging. "Country Girl" is extremely two dimensional.The only lively scene is where Jacqueline Fontaine sings 'Love and Learn' with Bing.The acting is wooden. It would seem that Charlise Theron climbed onto the ugly-Oscar wagon, but Grace Kelly got there first. She is totally unconvincing as a housewife. Bing looks elderly and weary; the music is dull but he does his best with the material.The only acting strength comes from William Holden. His character learns and grows. The scene in which he kisses Grace, while somewhat unexpected, is powerful.Cliché is piled upon Cliché. At times tears are jerked; tears of fury and pain. The modern audience expects a little subtlety. And Bing's alcoholism seems to be a try-on by all parties; an excuse to behave very badly and add a few more clichés. The only cure for him in the context of the film would be shedding Grace - and maybe going after Jacqueline.Sure, there are good points. The audience disbelieves Grace and believes the charming Bing, but it is shown the truth in excellent filmic style, and swings just when Bill Holden does, into trusting Grace.And the almost-ending, where Bing releases Grace, is filmically sound. Bing is on one side of the room and the other two share a shot. That chunk of the script is good. Bing does 'noble' very well.Yet at the end Grace - lovely again - runs after Bing and good old Bill just watches from a window, giving a stylish long and elevated shot of Bing and Grace going home together. In real life she would have taken a break from both and ended up with Bill, or someone else.Was this an ending added after tryout? Grace states that she wants Bing to stand on his own feet and be a man again so that she can be free, yet she goes back to him. Tryouts? Codependance? Infuriating!Somehow the focus of this film was all wrong and the result was slow torture.Not recommended!!!