Our Very Own (1950) Though we pride ourselves on our cinema smarts, we freely admit to never having heard of this film until we came across it a few days ago.......
Produced independently by the Samuel Goldwyn company, it was a homespun, heartfelt slice of early 50's Americana, engineered to evoke sighs and tears from its audience.
Its focus on a teenage girl as the dramatic centerpiece took us by surprise, since Hollywood didn't start actively identifying and courting teens as a demographic group until later in the decade.......(and it wasn't even the big studios who did that anyway, cultivating the teen audience fell into the hands of the fast-buck shlockmeisters at American International.)
'Our Very Own' populated with the brightest young stars of the post-war era ,plays like a pre-cursor of all the Young Adult books, films and TV streaming series that currently inundate today's pop culture landscape.
There's multiple ironies we spotted in the film's extended opening sequence, which deals with the excitement and hubbub at the house of a lovable upper middle class family.......generated by the arrival and installation of one of those amazing, new-fangled television sets!
The first irony - the kind of extended Americana family depicted here would soon decrease their movie theater attendance to stay at home at watch the tube........
Everyone joins in the fun......the chirpy, chatty kid sister (9 year old Natalie Wood) who torments the weary installer technician, the warm, calm, wise mom and dad (Jane Wyatt, Donald Cook) and the the squabbling teen sisters, (Ann Blythe, Joan Evans).
Blythe, the eldest deeply resents Evans the middle sister, when she catches her actively flirting with her very own serious boyfriend (Farley Granger) who's up on the roof putting in the TV antenna.
We smiled to ourselves at the presentation of this large, bustling typical American family since such a family became a staple of television situation comedies that stretch from the 1950's to today. (And Jane Wyatt, the mom here, would go on to play her same role in the prime example of such shows, "Father Knows Best")
After the big event of the TV arrival, the film moves on to its true main event.......the upheaval in Blythe's perfect teen life when the capricious, jealous Evans blurts out a truth she stumbled upon - that Blythe was adopted into the family as a baby.
With her well ordered, Norman Rockwell painting world turned upside down, poor Blythe turns distraught at the momentous news, despite all of her family's fervent reassurances that she's always been as beloved and cherished as a blood relative.
Her identity crisis leads her seek out her biological birth mother (Ann Dvorak), a weary, wan woman living a shabby lower middle class life with a loutish husband snapping orders at her to bring him beer for his poker game. (Blythe being the result of a careless fling unbeknownst to Dvorak's husband.....or as she puts it, "Just one of those things")
Blythe's meeting with Dvorak (in the middle of the husband's crowded poker bash proves disastrously awkward and embarrassing for both women, leaving Blythe even more unsettled and adrift.
Yes, it's the kind of teen angst that now fuels thousands of Young Adult books and movies, but fear not, folks......this all transpires at the start of the fabulous 50's. So you know that all will end well, 'cause everybody in the movie is simply too damn cute 'n cuddly for anything otherwise.
Blythe comes to realize that no matter where or who she comes from, her family's (and Farley Granger's) love is unconditional......which leads to a joyful hugs 'n kisses reunion at her high school graduation ceremony.
Dated, corny, obvious and predictable? Sure. But we found it a comforting sentimental journey to a past that maybe never existed outside of Hollywood sound stage, but was fun to stop in and visit.....like a store filled with Christmas snow globes. 3 stars (***)
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