To Each His Own

I caught this one on a late-night TV broadcast some years ago and was immediately hooked by Olivia's beautiful performance (plus being a sucker for tear-jerking stories with a flashback structure, I'm embarrassed to admit.) With Paramount's finest artisans and technicians in all departments to enhance her return to the screen, Olivia's Oscar was well-earned, indeed.

Other IMDb comments on this title are "on the money" (except for the one nay-sayer...Can't please everyone!) but no one mentioned John Lund's (as Gregory, Josephine Norris' long-lost son, rediscovered during his wartime London leave) constantly having to exclaim "Holy Canarsie!" before nearly every line of his dialog. After the first couple of times I wanted to scream at him, "Oh, stuff it!" But then, we're all guilty of overusing certain expressions, but THAT one was REALLY annoying. No wonder the script failed to win the Academy Award. So there!

The title of the movie was misleading,but as a huge fan of Ms. de Havilland, I watched this movie. It was a very tender story of the enduring and endearing love a mother had for her child.

It brought to mind the contrast of today's societal views of unwed mothers(as it were).

The story made me even more grateful to have 3 wonderful sons.

I would love watch this movie with my mom and my five sister,on the day before mothers' day. What a good way to have your 'tears jerked'! What a celebration of motherhood!

I will be happy when it is released on DVD. Hopefully very soon.

To Each His Own covers more than twenty years in the life of Josephine "Jody" Norris (Olivia DeHavilland), a successful American-born businesswoman now working in London as an air raid warden. Jody thinks back to an earlier time in her life when she had fallen in love with a handsome WWI fighter pilot named Bart Cosgrove (John Lund, in his motion picture debut). Shortly after she becomes pregnant by Cosgrove, Jody learns he has been killed in action. To avoid public scandal, she concocts a scheme to keep her child, but it backfires. Her son, who becomes a fighter pilot like his late father, doesn't know who his real mother is. But Jody's confidante, Lord Desham (Roland Culver, in a wonderfully understated performance), does, and he believes it's his duty to right the situation. A superior soap opera, the film is deftly directed by Mitchell Leisen and features restrained, impressive performances by the entire cast. For her efforts as Jody, deHavilland won the 1946 Oscar for Best Actress. Victor Young's music is never overbearing, and Charles Brackett and Jacques Thery's screenplay is wise and intelligently written.

After winning her two-year court battle with Warner Bros., OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND became a free-lancer and got her big chance when Paramount offered her TO EACH HIS OWN, a script that had already been turned down by Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rogers. Everyone shines in this movie, from the leads (OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND and JOHN LUND) to the smallest bit players.

De Havilland was perfect as Jody Norris, realistically portraying a young girl of seventeen and then various stages of maturity, ending as a brusque, middle-aged business woman in war-torn London of 1944. Her range as an actress is fully demonstrated and she does a remarkable job of playing the heroine at various stages of development.

John Lund is excellent too in a dual role (her lover and later her grown son), Bill Goodwin as a good-hearted pal, Philip Terry as another suitor who still loves her after marrying her friend (Mary Anderson). Anderson never had a better role than she does as the jealous, neurotic wife unwilling to let Jody have her own child back.

An intelligent script, detailed period direction by Mitch Leisen, fine background score by Victor Young and memorable moments from every player in the large cast. This is one Madame X kind of story that still holds up today. Probably the best soap-opera of the '40s, played to the hilt by a wonderful cast.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Roland Culver as Lord Desham. Brilliant performance. And on top of all the drama, there's a lot of humor and touches of real Americana, especially in the early scenes depicting Jody's small-town life.

Summing up: This was a huge box-office hit in the summer of '46 and re-ignited Olivia's career after a three year absence from the screen.

Although I don't think To Each His Own is as good as Olivia DeHavilland's other Oscar winner The Heiress or as good as the film she lost for in between these two, The Snake Pit, To Each His Own was the film that Olivia finally came into her own as an actress. She also showed Jack Warner a thing or two about type casting.

The story of To Each His Own is very much like something that Olivia's friend from Warner Brothers, Bette Davis, might have done. Bette won and was nominated multiple times for films like these and it's the stuff that Olivia badly wanted to do and was thwarted by Jack Warner who could only see her as the clinging leading lady to some dashing hero like Errol Flynn.

This film is all Olivia and she's the right age to do it. She was 30 at the time she made To Each His Own and the part called for her to age from her Twneties to her Forties. When we first meet her she's a a rather unhappy middle aged spinster doing duty as an air raid warden in wartime London. She's an American expatriate who is a cosmetics queen though her factory has now been converted to war use. She meets up with dashing Roland Culver who's a titled earl doing the same work and her thoughts go back to her years as a kid during that first World War.

A romance with a dashing flier played by John Lund and she's left pregnant and no chance of married when he's killed in action. Illegitimate birth was a horrible situation back in the day, so Olivia gives up the child to friends Philip Terry and Mary Anderson. Still the maternal instincts can't be snuffed out and she intrudes in their lives as well as a friend of the family her own child refers to as an 'aunt'.

Of course the whole thing becomes impossible and Olivia eventually moves to London when her factory becomes British based. Still she never stops thinking about the child someone else is raising.

Playing Josephine Norris as a young girl was no stretch because that's what she was playing all those years at Warner Brothers. But the more difficult challenge and what got her the Oscar for Best Actress was the way Mitchell Leisen guided her through the many stages of life. That called for Olivia to draw from the wellsprings of talent and ability that she knew she had and couldn't convince Jack Warner of the same.

The film was aided at the box office by the popularity of the song To Each His Own. You will not hear a note of it in the film, but The Ink Spots and Tony Martin had best selling records that year, The Ink Spots version going to number one on that Hit Parade that Lucky Strike sponsored. In fact I'm sure the popularity of the song and the film aided each other.

To Each His Own also earned an Academy Award nomination for Charles Brackett for Best Original Story.

You watch this film and you wonder just what Jack Warner must have been thinking when Olivia DeHavilland's name was announced on Oscar night.