Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1946

The Contenders:

Fredric March: The Best Years of Our Lives (winner)
Laurence Olivier: Henry V
James Stewart: It’s a Wonderful Life
Larry Parks: The Jolson Story
Gregory Peck: The Yearling

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1946

The Contenders:

Celia Johnson: Brief Encounter
Jennifer Jones: Duel in the Sun
Rosalind Russell: Sister Kenny
Oliva de Havilland: To Each His Own (winner)
Jane Wyman: The Yearling

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1946

The Contenders:

The Best Years of Our Lives (winner)
Henry V
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Razor’s Edge
The Yearling

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1946

The Contenders:

William Wyler: The Best Years of Our Lives (winner)
David Lean: Brief Encounter
Frank Capra: It’s a Wonderful Life
Robert Siodmak: The Killers
Clarence Brown: The Yearling

Oh, Deer

Film: The Yearling
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

The Yearling is a coming of age story about a young boy living in the Florida wilderness with his parents. Pretty much since this blog has started, I’ve made the observation that coming of age stories come in only two varieties. When it’s a story about a girl, the coming of age happens specifically when she gets introduced to sex, often at the hands of an older man, and sometimes against her will. For girls, it’s all about procreation. When it’s a story about a boy, coming of age happens when the boy in question faces up to his own mortality. This means something has to die before the film ends. Since The Yearling is about the boy adopting a young fawn, it’s not difficult to figure out what’s going to happen.

Okay, that’s a spoiler, but only if you’ve never seen a movie before. Make a movie about a young boy becoming attached to an animal, and there’s pretty much only one place to go. What’s different here is that in The Yearling, the animal in question doesn’t show up for the first hour of the film. Instead, the first hour is more or less set up, bringing us into the world of the Baxter family. The Baxters are headed by Civil War veteran Ezra (Gregory Peck), who is nicknamed Penny. He is married to Orry (Jane Wyman), and the two are the parents of Jody (Claude Jarman Jr.). Penny and Jody are good friends, but Orry is distant, especially to Jody. It comes out in the first hour that Orry’s emotional distance is likely caused by the deaths of three of her four children. It’s her assumption that if she stays distant with Jody, either he won’t die or that if he does, she won’t be affected by it.