A Medal for Benny

Another Monterey Peninsula story from John Steinbeck (along with "Tortilla Flat" and "Cannery Row") to make it to the big screen. This WW II story is about the "Paisanos" (defined as ancestors of Indians and Spanish settlers) in a slum section of a small fishing village on Santa Cruz Bay. Their simple lives are changed when news spreads that one of their own, Benny Martin, has become a war hero.

Benny's girl friend (Dorothy Lamour) is being romanced by the town ne'er do well (Arturo de Cordova) who keeps coming up with get-rich-quick schemes. Benny's father (J. Carrol Naish in an Oscar-nominated performance) is a simple man who is bewildered by the world at large.

When news hist that Benny is being awarded a presidential medal, the "white fathers" decided to use the news as a publicity gimmick (shades of Peston Sturges) to put the town on the map. In a frenzy of activity, the town leaders coerce the father to leave his shack and move into a big new house. They also start a PR campaign to paint Benny and his family as a proud Spanish family with money. The hypocrisy of the town leaders is quite well done, especially after the father realizes the lie and moves back to his shack.

When an Army general shows up to award the posthumous medal, the town leaders are shocked when he decides to go to the father and take his entourage with him. The big military parade, shown against the shacks, is very powerful as is the father's final speech about his son.

Naish steals the show as the humble father, but Lamour is also excellent as the fiery Lolita, who has a sharp eye for the truth. De Cordova is OK. Others in the fine cast include Charles Dingle as the bank manager, Frank McHugh as the PR man, Douglas Dumbrille as the general, Grant Mitchell as the mayor, Mikhail Rasumny as Raphael, and Rosita Moreno as the trouble-making Toodles.

This is a terrific film filled with irony and bitterness and sadness about the world of war and those who are left behind.

In the Chicano slums of a small California town, Arturo de Córdova has one hare-brained scheme after another, and he always winds up involving J. Carrol Naish. He's in love with Dorothy Lamour, who's engaged to Naish's absent son, Benny. Eventually de Córdova wears down Miss Lamour's resistance, and she agrees to marry him. He turns over a new leaf. He comes up with enough money to pay off Naish. And then word comes that after Benny was run out of town as a wild boy, he joined the army and now has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Posthumously.

Even though this started out as a story co-written by John Steinbeck, it was embarrassing watching much of the first half of this movie. The characters seem too stereotypical, yet there is some subtlety in the writing as de Córdova and Miss Lamour grow in complexity, even even Naish's simple-minded fellow has a truly good heart. It's in the second half, when the people who run the town, Grant Mitchell and Charles Dingle and Frank McHugh show up, suddenly the Mexican-Americans seem fully formed human beings by contrast, while the important people are caricatures, seeing what a Medal-of-Honor winner can do for them, without considering how a father feels when he has lost his son. Every slight that the modern viewer will see towards the people who live in the slums will be as nothing to the contempt heaped upon the mighty.

The first twenty minutes are tough to get through. But they are amply rewarded by the end.

This is a strange film.It is a sort of "Hail The Conquering Hero" without the same incisive satire.It highlights the hypocrisy surrounding heroism in WW2.Benny is an outcast in life but a hero in death.In reality his father lives in the slums.However the town want to be shown in a good light so put him in a new home.He subsequently comes to realise that it is just a sham.J.Carroll Naish was nominated for an Oscar.He must have played more types and nationalities than anyone in his era.He is always watchable.In some ways his style of acting is old fashioned as he is rather hammy.It is his performance which which is the highlight along with a larger than usual role for Frank McHugh.

Although Dorothy Lamour and Mexican film star Arturo DeCordoba are first billed and Lamour's presence is to insure some box office, therral star of A Medal For Benny is J. Carrol Niash.

Was one of those incredibly versatile players who casts as just about any nationality or ethnic type called for. He reached the high point of his career with an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor playing a simple Mexican American fisherman whose son has gone off to war.

The girl he left behind is Dorothy Lamour but DeCordoba would like to get something going with her and does.

In the meantime Naish who can't get the right time of day from town elders becomes much in demand when it is learned that Benny the son has become a Sergeant York type hero in the war. Only it was at the cost of his life.

Of course the town elders want to exploit the town's new found fame to the max. What happens is for you to see the film for. But Naish while bewildered by all the attention gives everyone a lesson in dignity and pride.

A Medal For Benny also got an Oscar nomination for Best Original Story and one of its writers was John Steinbeck. Notice should be given to character actors Charles Dingle his usual pompous self as the mayor and Frank McHugh as a publicity agent.

Still this is Naish's picture, a real gem from Paramount's B picture unit.