Good Morning, Miss Dove

"Good morning, Miss Dove" was a major and pleasant surprise to me. I expected an over- sentimental, although well-made, movie. On the contrary, I discovered that there is a subtext of sense of humor, and the many psychological subtleties and finesses are even more relevant than sentimentalism. Of course, I do not deny that I was deeply touched by this extraordinary, wonderful woman, Miss Dove.

Miss Dove is the essence of the movie, and even the sense of humor is based on her. Her pride, her aloofness, her deep conviction to be always right, her refined, elegant and slightly ironic way of talking that never weavers, not even in dire straits, make Miss Dove a comic character, in some sense. And we see that she looks at her own over-the-top strictness with a dose of self-irony.

Miss Dove's mission as a teacher is based on a steel principle: all her pupils are equal. Any partiality is just inconceivable. Actually, she cannot help to have a particular love for some of them, especially for Bill. When, after his service in the Marine Corps, the grown-up Bill says to Miss Dove that he wants to use his saved money to complete his studies, she plainly hides her inner joy. Why? Clear: to show joy, even much time after the school-years, would mean to be partial toward her "William" (a delightful, even poetic subtlety is that Miss Dove never calls the kids by nick-name). However, at the hospital she finally affords herself to show a preference. She asks all her flowers to be distributed to the other patients, and she just takes in her room the flowers sent by her beloved, favorite "son" Bill.

Miss Dove is a genius of psychology. The equal-for-all discipline is the canvas where she paints with masterly touches. She never preaches, her own behavior shows the right way. When she sees that the little Jewish Maurice is ill-used by the other kids, she doesn't utter a (probably useless) sermon on xenophobia. She just asks Maurice to accompany her, helping to bring her books, thus showing to everybody how much she cares for the little stranger. Then it's up to the kids to understand the lesson. This episode is related to a beautiful finesse of the movie. We see Mr. Levine, Maurice's father, terribly upset and worried at Miss Dove's illness. Thus we get that, less fortunate than his son, Mr. Levine has long experimented the horrors of anti-Semitism in Europe. So he is fully aware of and grateful for Miss Dove's precious job, even more than his son.

Another great psychological job is the way Miss Dove, talking with Bill, praises Billie Jean's skills and humanity as a nurse. That's enough for Bill to learn the lesson, that is to overcome his prejudices (which coincide with her own prejudices; so, after all, even Miss Dove has something to learn). Particularly poignant is the shy, humble admiration and love paid by Billie Jean to her former teacher. That is mirrored by the nurse's naive attempts to imitate Miss Dove's elegant talk and perfect poise, which give rise both to fun and to emotion.

Some characters are conventional, others are not fully convincing, like that of the gangster Makepeace. However, this guy is instrumental in showing that Miss Dove never condemns the human being. The film is permeated with positive messages: patriotism, dignity, respect, honor, love for learning, sense of community, gratitude. I will be the very last to be displeased by that. Sometimes the sentimentalism is far-fetched. I consider it a minor fault of the movie.

Jennifer Jones as Miss Dove is just sensational. The remainder of the cast works very well, especially Peggy Knudsen as Billie Jean, in my opinion.

Let me conclude remarking a great poetic image. The little girl, from the top of the tree she has climbed (a wonderful symbol of innocence and freedom), stares with a stunned look at Miss Dove carried away by the priest and the doctor. What's up? The indestructible teacher has something wrong? Impossible...

Like the people of Liberty Hill, we all love Miss Dove, this wonderful woman, this mother of one thousand children. To enjoy this extraordinary character, I strongly recommend "Good morning, Miss Dove".

A well-known schoolteacher in a little American town is taken ill, and this causes her to reflect on her life. This unabashed 'weepie' from 20th Century Fox will catch you out unless you have a crisply-laundered hankie pinned to your lapel!

Nine years after her sex-kitten role in "Lust In The Dust", Jennifer Jones pulls off a tour de force as the prim Miss Dove. Henry Koster's direction plays it straight down the middle in this simple yarn of small town life.

Liberty Hill, we hear, is a typical American town. There are a hundred like it, in which "a sense of life's continuity hangs in the air". It is not clear whether the narrator is describing Liberty Hill as 'snug' or 'smug', but it doesn't matter - both adjectives apply. In Cedar Grove School a graduation ceremony is attended by parents who were themselves pupils here. This is the deep complacent sleep of Eisenhower's America, a world in which everybody has a pre-ordained place and the doctor, the policeman and the pastor are all ex-pupils of Miss Dove.

It is seemingly a day like any other. Miss Dove is enforcing classroom discipline when she starts to fall ill. Typically, she instructs a child, "I am indisposed. Mention this to no-one."

The stricken teacher looks back on her life in a series of reveries, starting with her happy youth in the 1920's. We see her as a beautiful, vivacious young woman who shares her father's passion for geography. The two plan an overseas vacation together, ensconced in their improbably lavish parlour which is only slightly smaller than the Houston Astrodome. It seems odd that Miss Dove's father should command such opulence, and after his death certain banking irregularities come to light. To prevent a slur on her father's memory, Miss Dove undertakes to work to pay back the 'debt'.

Miss Dove places duty before personal happiness, declining Wolf Pendleton's offers of marriage and an expedition to the Himalayas, because she must teach here in Liberty Hill. The stiff, correct character of Miss Dove is illustrated by the way she remains formal until Wolf has left, then collapses in grief, and coming out of her daydream, composes herself as Doctor Tom Baker arrives. Public displays of weakness just won't do. "It is not my custom to wobble."

Tom Baker (Robert Stack) is, of course, an alumnus of Miss Dove. The classroom undergoes minor changes over the years, but the American kids keep being churned out like little Ford Thunderbirds. China was coloured orange on the wall map ten years ago, now it's purple (the communist bloodbath?) and Eisenhower's portrait has replaced Truman's. But Miss Dove never alters. She enumerates her symptoms to Doc Baker like a talking medical textbook and as she is carried to hospital she assures him, "You have defined my responsibility. I shall keep my spine rigid." No-one doubts that.

We meet various ex-pupils who have thrived under Miss Dove's tutelary genius. Bill Holloway (Chuck Connors) was an impoverished kid whose true worth was recognised by Miss Dove - " a child in whom the ethical instinct was as innate as breathing". He adores his former teacher. He is now a police officer. Virginia was a pretty but confused youngster until a year ago, when under Miss Dove's guidance she met and fell for Doc Baker. She has found her vocation in motherhood.

Maurice Levine and Fred Makepeace turn up. Fred is now a gangster, but he's an OK kind of guy. He breaks out of prison to be with his teacher in her hour of need. Thanks to Miss Dove, his American morality is pristine: "When I hear some commie jerk belittling this country ..." Maurice first comes to Cedar Grove in the 1930's (the wall portrait is Roosevelt). He is a jewish child, freshly escaped from Hitler's Germany, and speaking no English. Miss Dove protects him from Liberty Hill's ingrained xenophobia and nurtures his literary talent. Single-handedly, she cures her class of antisemitism, and Maurice goes on to become a Broadway playwright.

This lady's influence reaches beyond the school gates. Mr. Porter was the incoming Bank President who handled Miss Dove's father's indiscretion so unsympathetically. Now he visits her in hospital, an older, humbler man. "She's always been a stiff-necked termagant," he says, but confesses that he owes everything to her. In the Depression, she acted with courage and authority and averted a run on the Liberty Hill Bank.

As for the film's weaknesses, the script is cast in a quaint literary style which grates. Nurse Green shows the cop into the room, announcing "Police Officer Holloway begs to intrude." The sentimentality is laid on too thickly. Doc Baker recounts how he survived shipwreck and thirst thanks to a shining vision of Miss Dove - "She was right there with me all the time!" The hushed crowds on the hospital steps are 'over the top'.

The establishing shot of the colonial church's spire, repeated as the hours pass, reinforces the film's themes of parochialism and continuity. Ex-pupils donate blood, symbolising their ties to Miss Dove and the reciprocity of the relationship.

The sick woman contemplates death and concludes that, whatever people may think, her life has been happy. The dreams of world travel were never realised, but she knows the world through study. Learning has compensated her for lost opportunities. This is a metaphor for her having sacrificed love and a family. Yet in the last 30 years, every child in Liberty Hill has been 'hers'. She has touched every young life. "Kids?" says Officer Holloway, "She has a thousand of 'em!"

Good Morning, Miss Dove is a property that I'm surprised Frank Capra didn't think to direct. It's entirely possible that Capra was a male chauvinist who only thought in terms of men who sacrifice like George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life. In many ways Jennifer Jones is the superior of Capra's George Bailey.

Jennifer's crisis comes real early in the beginning, she's the daughter of a well bred and prominent family whose father has just died. She thinks she's come into it, but she finds she's inherited debts beyond belief because dad was borrowing and living well beyond his means. To keep his good name, she gives up the life she expected like George Bailey and in the process becomes the moral center of her small town.

Her road was much harder than Jimmy Stewart's because Miss Dove never married, she instead devoted her life to teaching history and geography and never getting to see the faraway places with strange sounding names that she only read about. That song could have been written for her. George Bailey did have Mary Bailey and the kids, that was denied to Miss Dove.

That's just one of the flashbacks in a film that has many. In fact the current story is the fact this rock of the community is undergoing a health crisis and is admitted to the hospital. As she deals with her health issues and the many people who wish her well, her mind reflects on just how much influence she's had on generations of kids passing through her class.

She's a severe woman Ms. Dove, having denied herself a personal life. But she's also a kind and caring one and that comes through with all the people we see her interact with.

Despite a fine cast of players, Jennifer Jones dominates this film in a fine portrayal of what is essentially an unglamorous part. It's the kind of role you might see someone like Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn do, but Jones is just fine in it.

If you're not a fan of Jennifer Jones, you will be after seeing Good Morning, Miss Dove.

This wonderful film contains a warm, nostalgic look back at the life of an ailing school teacher. As time and her illness progresses, Miss Dove, best known to the small town as a rigid and stiff disciplinarian, realizes the positive effects she has had on the people around her, and their love for her. Never married, childless Miss Dove finds purpose and contentment in her duty -- to repay her father's debt and thereby avoid a scandal, by working as a teacher, instead of marrying the man she loved.

The film has especially fine direction, performances, and an intelligent, multi-layered script. While Miss Dove appears a one-dimensional, humorless snob at the beginning of the film, the many layers of her story and personality are revealed throughout the course of the film. By the end, you realize why everyone is so fond of her.

Thinking back over this film, I was struck by the image in my mind of an America that seems to no longer exist. Healthy, proud, and affluent small towns, the belief in following one's duty in life instead of whims, and the sense of personal responsibility among these characters are so unusual to see in a modern film -- or modern life. There was a scene in which Miss Dove helped a bank avoid closing, a selfless, altruistic act that seemed so different than anything that could have occurred in the recent banking crisis.

Growing up in the 1980s, I think I was seeing the last of this generation fade away. Perhaps I still am. I remember writing a fan letter to Jennifer Jones years ago. I loved her then as I still do. I never considered it odd that she did not reply. She was a symbol of the grace and dignity of a long gone era. Noticing that she just passed away, I can't help but feel she passed away with the unfortunate changing of our culture, to the violent, seedy, and irresponsible. But what an enduring, magical film legacy she left behind.

I only discovered this movie about 18 months ago when I saw it on TV. I really enjoyed it and have seen it a couple of times since. it is sentimental and very simple in its construction. That is not to say it is not emotionally effective. I am an ex-teacher who always had a good relationship with the kids I taught (though not as authoritarian as the Miss Dove of the title. Each time I see it I find myself more affected than the last time, to the extent of blubbing like a baby at every emotional scene!! It is a very dated movie and the performances, though honest and direct, are not Oscar-winning. I was surprised to see Chuck Connors do justice to his part as a hardworking cop who dragged himself up from poverty-stricken childhood to upstanding adulthood. Jennifer Jones, as the star of this film acquits herself well as Miss Dove, a fearsome and legendary primary school teacher. She is respected and loved by the people of the town (as she has taught most of them or their children). She is taken ill and through flashbacks we learn about her life, career and relationships. Movie-making as it used to be- not a blockbuster but a solid story well told.