Our Very Own

This movie was made in 1949, just 4 years after the end of World War 2. It was a time when the average American family got to enjoy the post-war USA: Having Dad at home and not fighting a war , Mom at home instead of working in a factory making bombs , being able to buy gas anytime you wanted and having the thrill of seeing the what everyone wanted: a TV set in their home. It is with this backdrop, that one of the smaller studios, RKO, produced this wonderful and warm-hearted story of a young woman who discovers a secret kept from her since birth. It is not a typical story for it's time and that what makes it so different. It was written and directed with much care while dealing with a very sensitive subject. The major Hollywood Studios like MGM, Paramount, Warners, etc, still made all of the big-budget films, but RKO turned out some real good ones and Our Very Own is at the top of the list.

Our Very Own starts out presenting the average American family picture that folks would later come to expect on such shows as Leave It To Beaver and The Donna Reed Show. Parents Jane Wyatt and Donald Cook have three beautiful daughters, Ann Blyth, Joan Evans, and Natalie Wood in descending order. It's a red letter day in the family with Ann's impending graduation from high school.

The girls have their usual teen problems including a nice little rivalry between Blyth and Evans for Farley Granger. But when Evans while looking for her own birth certificate finds Blyth's adoption papers, she uses them without measuring the consequences.

The film is nice family entertainment for the time and I have to say the sentiment is kept in check for this type of film. Our Very Own got an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Recording.

But the young leads Granger and Blyth are too old and look it to be playing teens. Granger was 25 and Blyth 22. On the other hand Joan Evans was 16 and Martin Milner 19 and the script has them a year younger than Granger and Blyth. There's also a great performance by Ann Dvorak as Blyth's birth mother.

Still Ann delivers a nice performance and it really would have been nice had they given her a song to sing, maybe at the climax which is the graduation.

Bustling upper-middle-class suburban family attempts to deal with the new tension which has descended into the household after one of the daughters discovers her older sister is adopted--and lets her know it for the first time after throwing herself at her sister's boyfriend. What begins as a light domestic drama takes a sharp left turn midway, nearly becoming a soapy stew. Thankfully, screenwriter F. Hugh Herbert keeps his story on track emotionally for much of the way, resulting in a fascinating saga about parental responsibility, petty behavior between siblings, secrets and lies between loved ones. Some of the situations are dramatically heady; credit director David Miller with carefully maneuvering the piece from one episode to the next--also the cast for nimbly keeping their balance. Perhaps in an attempt to smooth out the ruffled feathers, the finale at graduation is topped off with too many happy ribbons. Still, this is an absorbing, unusual, enjoyable film, with good work from Ann Blyth, Jane Wyatt, Donald Cook and Natalie Wood; excellent support from Ann Dvorak as Blyth's 'real' mother. **1/2 from ****

It's 1949 and adoption is a stigma—at least in some people's eyes. Anyway, the Goldwyn studios continue their saga of America's middle class (e.g. The Best Years of Our Lives {1946}) by building a screenplay around this social theme. Of course, the Macaulay family are a highly idealized version of the real middle class. For example, note how unfailingly courteous and civilized family members are despite surging emotions. Sure, daughter Joan's hormones get the best of her and she behaves badly, but in a way that's still refined. And note Mom's unfailingly wise council and forbearance in Jane Wyatt's early version of Mother Knows Best.

Despite obvious sincerity, the film's Hollywood treatment guarantees a predictable ending from the very start. I just wish the screenplay had dealt with the more difficult aspect of adoption—namely, the factor of an unknown genetic inheritance among those contemplating marriage and who care about such things. And that could well apply to an upwardly mobile neighborhood such as the Macaulay's. But including a genetic factor would have resulted in a much more difficult and darker film.

Still, it's an entertaining movie despite the compromises. That opening sequence is a gem of youthful high-spirits and frustration thanks to Natalie Wood and Gus Schilling even if he is doing schtick (as one reviewer noted). The scene is not just a good one, but also aims to persuade us that the Macaulay's are a real family like anyone else's. Anyway, I agree with those reviewers who find Blythe and Granger a little long-in-the-tooth to be playing teenagers, though it's one of the movie's lesser compromises. Yes, Ann Dvorak is good as the self-conscious birth mother. But I really like Joan Evans' turn as the jealous sister. Catch her subtle facial expressions as she goes through any one of her many emotional conflicts— a fine, unheralded young actress. Also standout is young Martin Milner. His totally unaffected teenager seems light years from his high school peer, the maturely sophisticated Blythe.

And speaking of Milner's gawky teen, I can't help noticing the chuckles we get from his rather callous treatment of pudgy, plain-Jane Gwendolyn (Rita Hamilton). For a film otherwise sensitive within its limits, that same concern apparently doesn't extend to an unattractive girl made the butt of mood lightening gags in a seemingly guilt-free manner. I'm not sure what the moral is, but I don't think it's a good one. Anyway, the movie remains an interesting, if idealized, time capsule of a period when apparently every teenage boy owned a hotrod.

Behind the well-woven plot of a budding high school graduate's family problems is an earthy, though somewhat stereotypical examination of a Caucasion based, middle class existence in suburban America of 1949. Ann Blyth earnestly portrays the vicissitudinous impact of a revelation about her character's childhood. The storyline backdrop comes complete with proper but sincerely well meaning parents and a beloved, part-of-the-family, African-American housekeeper and cook (portrayed with gentility and grace by Jessica Grayson in her final film role) without whose valuable, understated contributions the family's daily routine would be reduced to chaos. Finally, of course, there's the obligatory family dog, playfully short-circuiting the household.

As depicted in this typical period film people dressed more formally, even in hot weather (for whatever reasons!), with air conditioning yet to permeate even modern, well equipped homes. As a rule, practical personal dress comfort didn't prevail over formality until the 1960's.

The prolonged initial sequence showcases a wonderful nuisance of a girl (scene-stealing Natalie Wood) "helping" with the installation of a new television, the up and coming electronic marvel of the day (whose commercial success was on the verge of becoming reality, thanks in part to some price breaking discoveries that soon rendered TV sets sufficiently affordable for the masses). Boys and girls were portraying themselves while being quietly groomed for achieving good citizenship standards as defined by the generally conservative post-war period.

In "Our Very Own" personal relationships expressed themselves in ways that depicted subtle, yet significant differences from those of years to come, revealing an overall interesting and introspective perspective of the fairly tranquil, but brief period between World War II and the Korean War. The latter event broke shortly before the public release of this film in 1950. Meanwhile, as the storyline reveals, the "cold war" had already begun and, for many people, nuclear experimentation was beginning to command a scary center stage presence. Other "hot" issues of the day include McCarthy type anti-Communism (or Anti-Americanism as it was in actuality!), racial and ethnic equality and mixed sexual attitudes; but in "Our Very Own" we are deliberately steered inward, into family and personal matters, with the broad and burgeoning concerns of the day kept at bay...almost. Issues such as those mentioned above are not directly infiltrating any aspect of daily life in the treatment offered here, except for occasional inference. The period feel is thereby enhanced.

As "Our Very Own" grapples its way toward the emerging central theme of adoption, its still subtle stigmas of the times permeate the otherwise gentile facade of the featured suburbanite family. Ann Dvorak, in character, offers a fine portrayal as a birth mother as opposed to a rearing one. Her persona is carved from the "other side of the tracks" folks, but a sensitive manner prevails. She exudes pathos, yet maintains dignity for all concerned.

Now, some sixty years hence, we are treated to a time capsule view of an earlier, mostly bygone, America complete with some focal points of its day plus those things eternal that seem to pass through generations, oblivious to time and technology. The story line may be unremarkable (although it maintains interest) but the real and stylized adaptations of Middle American life at the time are enhanced by fine performances that lend a glimpse into aspects of our culture that were probably at least partly present at mid-century past.

One acoustic footnote: "Our Very Own" also concentrates on excellent sound and sensitive background music. An Oscar nomination was achieved for Best Sound Recording.