Amazing film.
David Swift's script is beautifully proportioned and structured; it gives EXACTLY the right amount of time to each of the characters and their interactions with Pollyanna. Because of this superb layout and pacing of the plot, the final scenes are utterly, totally convincing and "weighted" in their sincere, profound, and overwhelming emotion. I was blown away (at age 69) as I watched it for the first time (on the 60th anniversary of its release).
What's more, the characters are all 3-dimensional-- like REAL people. I feared that Jane Wyman's Aunt Polly would be a fearsome, tyrannical, miscreant that would beat the young girl and send her to bed hungry for her mis-steps; but no, she was a real, multi-dimensional person, with all of the assets and flaws that you would expect in real life. Her romantic association with Richard Egan was underplayed, very nicely controlled. In fact, like most everything in the film, it was BEAUTIFULLY rendered.
The Agnes Moorehead and Karl Malden characters DID get a tad too caricatured at times-- but minimally so. And there's no way a 13-year old girl could have survived a three-story fall onto a hard road surface....but, we have to forgive the director one little oversight.
Subtle, Natural, charming, effervescent.....doesn't BEGIN to describe the superbly talented Hayley Mills; she's astounding to watch. So many amazingly deft details to her performance-- check the scene in the field where she tries to read her locket to Karl Malden and does the brief "cross-eye" take. It is SO delectably funny and realistic---and this scene was filmed on her very first day of shooting-- thrust right into the middle of a major American production with an all-star cast. She is not to be believed.
Great to see late-career appearances by Adolphe Menjou and Donald Crisp, two legendary actors from Hollywood's Golden Days.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this film is the TOTAL TECHNICAL COMMAND of David Swift, who both wrote the excellent screenplay AND directed the film. His accomplishment is all the more impressive since his experience up to this time was pretty unremarkable, with no big-screen directing to his credit. How fortunate for all of us that Walt Disney saw something in the guy's work that gave him the confidence to turn the reins of this major production over to a relative novice.
LOVELY FILM in every respect; too bad there's not a soundtrack of Paul Smith's charming, ebullient score available. It's just one more aspect of "Pollyanna" that will keep me a regular viewer of this truly GREAT movie. LR
David Swift's script is beautifully proportioned and structured; it gives EXACTLY the right amount of time to each of the characters and their interactions with Pollyanna. Because of this superb layout and pacing of the plot, the final scenes are utterly, totally convincing and "weighted" in their sincere, profound, and overwhelming emotion. I was blown away (at age 69) as I watched it for the first time (on the 60th anniversary of its release).
What's more, the characters are all 3-dimensional-- like REAL people. I feared that Jane Wyman's Aunt Polly would be a fearsome, tyrannical, miscreant that would beat the young girl and send her to bed hungry for her mis-steps; but no, she was a real, multi-dimensional person, with all of the assets and flaws that you would expect in real life. Her romantic association with Richard Egan was underplayed, very nicely controlled. In fact, like most everything in the film, it was BEAUTIFULLY rendered.
The Agnes Moorehead and Karl Malden characters DID get a tad too caricatured at times-- but minimally so. And there's no way a 13-year old girl could have survived a three-story fall onto a hard road surface....but, we have to forgive the director one little oversight.
Subtle, Natural, charming, effervescent.....doesn't BEGIN to describe the superbly talented Hayley Mills; she's astounding to watch. So many amazingly deft details to her performance-- check the scene in the field where she tries to read her locket to Karl Malden and does the brief "cross-eye" take. It is SO delectably funny and realistic---and this scene was filmed on her very first day of shooting-- thrust right into the middle of a major American production with an all-star cast. She is not to be believed.
Great to see late-career appearances by Adolphe Menjou and Donald Crisp, two legendary actors from Hollywood's Golden Days.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this film is the TOTAL TECHNICAL COMMAND of David Swift, who both wrote the excellent screenplay AND directed the film. His accomplishment is all the more impressive since his experience up to this time was pretty unremarkable, with no big-screen directing to his credit. How fortunate for all of us that Walt Disney saw something in the guy's work that gave him the confidence to turn the reins of this major production over to a relative novice.
LOVELY FILM in every respect; too bad there's not a soundtrack of Paul Smith's charming, ebullient score available. It's just one more aspect of "Pollyanna" that will keep me a regular viewer of this truly GREAT movie. LR