The Corn Is Green

I usually hate remakes...particularly of movies that were well done in the first place. This is why I resisted watching the 1979 version of "The Corn is Green" for many years. After all, the Bette Davis version is terrific. However, in hindsight, I am thrilled I saw both films...and both are about equally exceptional.

Lilly Moffat (Hepburn) has just inherited her uncle's home in rural Wales. After witnessing the hard life of a typical resident, she feels a burning passion to educate these illiterate folk. So, she turns her home into a school and soon kids come flooding to the school. However, she soon meets an adult who, despite no formal schooling, shows lots of promise.

The rest of the story is about their relationship and her drive to get Morgan to strive for something more out of life.

The acting is THE major reason to see this film. Like Bette Davis, Hepburn is a treasure to watch and the lovely Welsh countryside (something not in the original film) is a major plus. Well worth seeing and a truly unique story that is really something special.

One of the great Kate's best performances of her later years. I liked the Bette Davis version very much, but Hepburn does so much more in the character. The story is hopeful and the ending not "pat". The characters are fleshed out nicely and the direction is truly fine. I am a big fan of Katherine Hepburn and she truly comes alive in this character. The supporting cast manage not to be overwhelmed by their leading lady's performance and round out their characters as I believe the author intended them to evolve. I find it sad that really good made for television movies are dismissed out of hand and forgotten so easily, there are so very FEW of them, but the GOOD ones deserve a place in film history. This is one of the best I have ever seen! I beg the powers that be to release it on DVD!

The Corn Is Green seems to be a play for acting legends only. In America it debuted on Broadway in 1940 with Ethel Barrymore starring as Miss Moffat. Then Warner Brothers bought this property for Bette Davis who delivered a powerful performance and yet free from all the shtick that we've come to know from Bette Davis. Strangely enough she did not get one of her 10 Oscar nominations for it. Finally we have this version that stars Katharine Hepburn done in 1979 when she was close to the age of Ethel Barrymore.

I was not around when Barrymore did The Corn Is Green on Broadway and I would love to have seen what she did with it. I do love what Bette Davis invested in Miss Moffat and I would be hard pressed to say whether Davis or Hepburn, which was the better.

I think those two buddies from Boston, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, might have seen The Corn Is Green and might have come up with Good Will Hunting. Hepburn has been left a nice large house in the Welsh coal mining district and being a person of social conscience she opens a school for the kids who usually go into the mines at the same time they hit puberty. She spots her Good Will Hunting in the person of Ian Saynor and she resolves to make him realize his potential.

It's an uphill battle against cultural conditioning and Saynor's own doubts and fears. And some very human emotions throw up a big roadblock just as he's realizing a scholarship to Oxford.

The Corn Is Green marked the end of a collaboration between actress Hepburn and director George Cukor which began with her big screen debut in A Bill Of Divorcement. For a film director Cukor was far less successful in eliminating the stage origins of the play than Warner Brothers was with Bette Davis. But he and Hepburn after almost 40 years of collaboration were perfectly in tune in her performance.

The Corn Is Green is an autobiographical work from author Emlyn Williams who did lift himself from the Welsh coal mines and gave the world some wonderful writing and acting. It's a timeless story that begs for another remake. I hope Meryl Streep reads this and considers doing yet another revival.

As an Englishman who lived and worked in Wales for a decade, I was attracted to this period TV movie, showing on cable TV 33 years after it was made. I haven't seen, or heard of the Bette Davis original, from 1947 and now wish I could see it at some point.

Undoubtedly, it is Katherine Hepburn's spirited and strong-willed performance that makes it so watchable and entertaining. Along with the genuine Welsh locations, nicely filmed and assuredly directed by veteran George Cukor (he was 80). The production values are far above of the typical TV movie of its period, with good colour and brightness.

Hepburn herself was 72 and can hardly conceal her impending Parkinsons disease but despite that, we are reminded of her classic performance in The African Queen as a noble stoic and stubborn woman in the face of ignorance and pettiness. As a head teacher, here she's up against the local gentry and squire as well as the villager's in-bred feelings that the local colliery is the only future for its youngsters.

She takes great pride in nurturing one young man and as such pushes him far beyond what both he and the village ever thought he could attain - but one that his teacher knew he would achieve.

If you've seen the 1945 version of The Corn is Green, you haven't really seen it in its full potential. Bette Davis can play a spinster extremely well, but she can't get enthused like Katharine Hepburn can. In Emlyn Williams's story, a strong woman sets up a school in a Welsh mining town. She finds potential in one particular young boy and hopes an education will give him a chance at a different life. When Katharine Hepburn encourages her student, she raises her fists in the air and grins triumphantly. It's a much more understandable interpretation of her character; the woman obviously has passion enough to educate lost-cause mining children, so she should show her passion in her delivery and mannerisms. Kate was nominated for an Emmy that year, but was ironically beat out by Bette Davis for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and a Daughter.

In his first film, Ian Saynor gives a wonderfully emotive performance as the conflicted student. From start to finish, the audience sees his growth and maturity, and we learn to put as much faith and hope in his character as Kate does.

While David Walker's costumes are beautiful, John Barry's music cheapens the quality of the film, making it obvious that it was made for television. If you can get past the soundtrack, though, you're in for a very well-acted and interesting story.