This week, I was a guest on The Lone Acting Nominees podcast. Every episode, the show considers a different film whose only Oscar nomination was for one of the four acting categories, going over the individual performance, the picture overall, and the awards season they found themselves within. For my first appearance, Gordon McNulty and I talked about George Cukor's Edward, My Son, a stage-to-screen adaptation from 1949 that earned Deborah Kerr her first Academy Award nomination. Of course, as we all know, she lost to Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress in what was to be one of six defeats in the race for gold. Not that Kerr's record-setting losses are widely mourned. She was never recognized for her best and riskier works, her Oscar sextet making for a terrible introduction to her talent. Still, you have to admire Kerr's big swings in Edward, My Son…
Originally written as a play by Oscar-nominated actor Robert Morley, Edward, My Son tells the story of Lord Boulton, a man of humble origins in 20th-century England whose fortunes grow over the decades until he becomes a powerful tycoon with a noble title to match. But such social ascendancy doesn't come from virtue, nor does it guarantee happiness at the end of the road. Working as a character study, the drama dissects Boulton's moral failures, his evil doings, and inevitable comeuppance. Only, this study is done through oblique avenues, using two other figures to reflect Boulton's interior rot. The first is the titular Edward, an offscreen hell spawn whose misbehavior reveals his father's cruelty. And then there's Evelyn, Lady Boulton, a woman broken by her husband, ruination painted all over her face like a portrait of the man's true character.
The play was adapted to the screen by Donald Odgen Stewart whose collaboration with director George Cukor includes such titles as Holiday, The Women, and The Philadelphia Story. That said, as much as one might like to invoke the memory of those masterpieces, one shouldn't expect a film of similar quality from Edward, My Son. Humor has no place here, nor does wit or any especially probing observation. It's a social critique of immense shallowness, vague to a detrimental degree, and unable to say anything of substance. It could be an entertaining tragedy, but that would require a compelling figure at the center of the storm. Spencer Tracy, whose inability to do an accent forced the filmmakers to turn the character Canadian, wasn't the right man for the job.
According to legend, Cukor was known to say that "no film can survive a crippling error in the casting." And what an error Tracy was. Even the actor thought so, dismissing this MGM Silver Anniversary picture as a failure to be forgotten. He and Cukor did Adam's Rib the very same year, so this sentiment is understandable. Better focus on the good and forget the bad – which is why some audiences might find themselves wanting to release Edward, My Son from their memory once the "end" title card hits. And yet, it's not a film without merit. Take the cinematography, for example, where future Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago DP Freddie Young follows Cukor's directive for long takes, theatrical devices that highlight the modest mastery of the filmmakers at hand.
Some sequences are truly impressive in their commitment to not cutting, merely blocking and staging actors to move through different compositions as the scene unfolds. At a certain point, there's a "chain gang" at a stuffy English school, where children walk in a circle as penitence for their wrongdoings. Shot on location, outside the sound stage boundaries, the scene uses natural light and works with the swift movement of a circular tracking shot before inverting its motion once Tracy's Lord Boulton is done interrogating a youth. It feels awfully modern within such a stylistically conservative milieu, as if anticipating what would become of mainstream filmmaking in the coming decades.
But the good doesn't stop at camerawork. Alfred Junge's set designs deserve applause, moving from the humble abode of a commonplace Edwardian couple to the gargantuan might of a mansion, so luxurious it feels oppressive, silk-papered walls caving in with the weight of portraiture in gilded frames, staircases into a shadowy infinity. The costumes are similarly impressive, though their creator goes uncredited, and so is the makeup. The movie's leading lady is asked to age a great deal between chapters. One moment, she's a wealthy socialite in 1930 finery. Jump nine years into the future, and the erstwhile lady of means has become a drunken mess, forlornly looking into the mirror as a hairdresser piles ashen curls atop her head like some fright crown befit a ghost queen.
Oh yes, Deborah Kerr goes through it as Evelyn Boulton, culminating in some of the loudest drunk acting you've ever seen in prestige moviedom. Sure, sometimes watching that soft-serve hairdo collapse is more compelling than the acting itself, but there's plenty to talk about. And so that's what Gordon McNulty and I did. We even found occasion to praise Kerr, whose earlier scenes are full of hidden treasures and whose full potential was evident even in as misguided a project as Edward, My Son. To learn more about this performance and the Oscar race that saw it ascend to the honor of probably runner-up, you'll have to listen to the episode. If I may say so, it was a fun one to record, and I can only hope it's an entertaining listen. Give it a go, and you might find a new podcast to follow.
As some post-podcast last notes, pardon for confusing Colin Farrell with Colin Firth for a minute there, and let me share my own Oscar ballot for Best Actress 1949. In the episode, I mention I wouldn't include Kerr but don't say who my alternate picks would be. They are:
Joan Bennett, THE RECKLESS MOMENT
Olivia de Havilland, THE HEIRESS *winner*
Jennifer Jones, MADAME BOVARY
Ann Sothern, A LETTER TO THREE WIVES
Ginger Rogers, THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY
What would your Best Actress ballot for 1949 look like? Any overlap? Does Kerr make an appearance?