Young Widow

Let's get the easy part of the way. When reviewing/criticizing female actors, I do my best to avoid any sort of criticism of their looks because 1. It sounds sexist, and 2. Unless the actresses' physical appearance is key to the movie, it sounds stupid in the context of a review. That being said...I love Jane Russell.  The Hollywood starlet recently died in February at the age of 90, but in her heyday she was drop dead gorgeous. I'd never heard of her until the last two or three years, but now I'll basically watch anything with her starring in it, like 1946's Young Widow.

Just a week or so ago, I reviewed 'Till the End of Time,' the story of World War II veterans returning home at the end of the war, struggling to adjust to the lives they had left behind years before. Like so many pieces of history, there is so much more going on than we can ever know. It's the little things you just never think of, or at least I don't. The soldiers returned, but what about those who didn't, buried in hundreds and thousands of graves all over the Pacific and Europe? What about the loved ones they left behind? How did they move on? Did they move on? While the storytelling is all over the place in this movie, the premise is interesting if nothing else.

After her husband is killed in an aerial reconnaissance mission over Berlin, young and recently widowed Joan Kenwood (Russell) returns to the United States after living in England. She returns to her family home in the south, but quickly finds out that everything reminds her of her recently deceased husband. Instead, Joan heads to New York where she rooms with an old friend, Peg (Penny Singleton), who is waiting for her husband -- a submariner -- to return home too. Her boss, Peter Waring (Kent Taylor), offers her the same job she left at a NYC newspaper, but Joan just can't cope yet as she struggles to move on from her husband's death. Making her transition tougher? An Air Force pilot, Lt. Jim Cameron (Louis Hayward), is aggressively pursuing her through all her rejections, unwilling to take 'no' for an answer. 

Though she had made the then-scandalous but now tame The Outlaw in 1943, Young Widow was more than likely most moviegoers introduction to Jane Russell.  Thanks to the controversy over her outfits (or lack of), The Outlaw was in and out of theaters due to censorship issues.  The performance is pretty impressive on its own even if she'd done the part 10 years later or so. But for a girl basically picked up off the street with little acting background to do a role like this is that much more impressive. Like so many good-looking actresses -- and actors too I suppose -- her looks sometimes overshadowed her actual acting ability. Like my recent reviews of Audie Murphy pointed out, I think Russell was best when she was in her comfort zone. She could do drama, but she was best at comedy. If there was any question that she could do drama though, this movie should put them to rest.

What will separate Russell's acting here from most is that she underplays it. Emotionally, she's destroyed, torn up, a wreck because the person she loved most in the world is gone. Maybe it's the character, maybe it's Russell's acting style (up to you to decide), but she's not theatrically over the top. Joan doesn't throw things across rooms and scream and cry hysterically. Instead she buries the pain and broods on it which ends up biting her in the backside anyway.  I think it's a great performance overall, understated in its effectiveness without playing to obvious cliches. For anyone who hasn't seen Russell in a dramatic role, this would be an appropriate introduction.

The problem is that beyond Russell's performance, the movie is really odd in terms of pacing and tone. It is a drama, but there are random moments of comedy thrown in. One of Peg's other roommates, Mac (Marie Wilson), is a dimwitted blonde who always has a gaggle of soldiers following her. These soldiers (including Norman Lloyd, Steve Brodie and Robert Holton) have these weirdly comedic scenes that present them as some out of place vaudeville team. Joan's trip back home makes Song of the South seem politically correct too with two Odd Couple aunts (one a belle, the other a tomboy) and two inexplicable black kids hanging around. A late scene has Joan and Jim on a date having to trick a motorcycle cop. I suppose its meant to show their chemistry, their budding relationship, but it would have been more appropriate in a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby comedy, not here. If the movie was handled as a drama throughout, it would certainly have been a better movie.

With a chance to make and develop a truly heartfelt relationship, 'Young' instead goes down a different route. A guy refusing to accept that a girl is not interested in him is one thing, even in a movie. But the way Lt. Cameron goes about it borders on stalker-behavior, following her home and basically badgering Joan into submission. Finally she not so pleasantly caves and goes out with him. How does she end up falling for him? He rescues a woman in a subway who has fainted onto the tracks as a train speeds toward them. So it's nothing about his personality or who he is as a person, just that he reacted in that situation. Thankfully after that the relationship grows in a genuine fashion, putting that scene far behind.

A decent movie that is hamstrung by some truly bad choices in film-making. Mostly worth watch for Jane Russell's performance which carries the movie. And even in a dramatic story about a war widow, producers still found a way to get Ms. Russell into a swimsuit...several times.  You know, just because you can. As you can see by the poster above, the advertisers clearly played up the sex kitten vibe...of which the movie has none. Go figure.

Young Widow (1946): **/****