The Country Girl

Adapted from the stage play of the same name, the narrative follows fading star Frank Elgin (Bing Crosby) whose drinking and shunning of any responsibility over the years has completely taken a toll on his relationship with his rather worn-out wife Georgie (Grace Kelly). He gets a chance at redemption when Bernie Dodd (William Holden) recruits him to star in a stage play.

Frank had been a big musical and theatrical hit at one time, but now he's eking out a living singing for commercials and living in a shabby apartment. Frank tends to be a shape-shifter. He badly wants to be liked, so when he hears Dodd talk about his bad marriage, he makes up a story about Georgie that paints her as a hopeless alcoholic who has had multiple suicide attempts and tries to live her life through controlling his. Dodd believes this story because he WANTS to believe this story -it rather mirrors the story of his own failed marriage. In fact it is Georgie propping up alcoholic Frank, not vice-versa. I'm not spoiling anything here, because all of this is clearly shown. How does this work out? Watch and find out.

This is passable enough entertainment, but it seems like a stage play that is filmed, just like every stage play that Mervin LeRoy ever directed as a film. In fact, after I saw this, I went to look up the director, thinking it might be LeRoy - it was not. As for Grace Kelly, I couldn't see how she could have won the Best Actress Oscar for this. She's not bad or unauthentic, but she doesn't come close to knocking it out of the park like she did in "High Noon" where she wasn't even nominated. I can only explain it by Kelly daring to look drab throughout the proceedings and 1954 being a weak year for performances by an actress.

Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and William Holden star in "The Country Girl," a 1954 film written and directed by George Seaton, based on the play by Clifford Odets. Crosby plays Frank Elgin, a former Broadway star who hit the skids after the death of his son ten years earlier. Kelly is his wife, Georgie, and Holden is Bernie Dodd, the director of a musical that he has determined will be Frank's comeback. I think it was asking a lot of any performer, no matter how great, to make this Oklahoma rip-off a hit, but Dodd thinks Frank is his man. Dodd takes an immediate dislike to Georgie, who reminds him of his ex-wife. He believes that Frank's dependence on her and helplessness was encouraged by her. Little does he know, Frank puts on a happy face, but in reality, he's lying to Dodd about his true relationship with Georgie and the reason for his fall from grace.

The very strong script is brilliantly acted by its three stars, and for each actor, it was probably their best role. Crosby is not only terrific, but he's a revelation as the alcoholic, weak Frank; Holden pulls out all the stops as the uptight Bernie Dodd; and Kelly is excellent as Georgie. There is still much controversy about whether or not she should have won the Oscar over Judy Garland in "A Star is Born," but anyone who has studied the Oscars knows one thing - whether Kelly deserved the award or not, every time a beautiful woman dresses down and makes herself look plain, she wins an Oscar - Elizabeth Taylor, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron - the list is endless. It's sure fire. Personally, I think Kelly is great in this, and they should have done without the glasses - the fact that she and Frank were too poor for her to afford nice clothes or hair dye would have been enough. Beauty is beauty, and you can't hide it behind a pair of glasses. And what was wrong with Frank being married to a beautiful woman? In one flashback, we're allowed to see her as she was. I'll go out on a limb and say that as much as I loved Judy in "A Star is Born," Georgie Elgin was a real stretch for Kelly.

Beautifully directed by Seaton, "The Country Girl" has a real feel of the theater, of internal fights between producer and director, of dressing rooms and hotels on the road.

An excellent movie all around.

Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, & William Holden all give what I consider to be their best performances. Crosby plays a neurotic drunk, and is just unbelievable. Or should I say is quite believable. I didn't know he could act, but can he ever. Grace Kelly is his frumpy wife. Not her usual type-cast character, either. Even though it's pretty much a forgotten film, a must-see for classic movie fans.

It has long been assumed that, had the music been eliminated from "The Country Girl" and, in the process, taking emphasis off Bing Crosby's singing and more on his acting, he would have certainly beaten Marlon Brando for the Oscar of 1954. Crosby is extraordinary in this film, playing an alcoholic, washed-up actor/singer with few if any redeemable qualities. William Holden, as the director of a new Broadway musical, insists that Bing be cast in the lead role, even though he is painfully aware of the actor's history. Grace Kelly is Bing's misunderstood wife. While all three performances are first rate, it is Crosby who stands so far above the others, especially considering Hollywood's idea of realism in 1954. Kelly, on the other hand, who DID win an Oscar as best actress, seems workmanlike but not of that acting calibur. Miss Kelly was such a glamorous "star" that simply putting her in a frumpy housedress does not a plain and ordinary housewife make! Her last scene, in which she appears in a very elegant evening gown (but with glasses to downplay her beauty) is completely unconvincing. But, taken as a whole, "The Country Girl" is great video viewing!

More backstage melodrama than morality tale on the perils of drink, "The Country Girl" is watchable but only occasionally gripping entertainment, perhaps because it lacks the perfect casting that made the James Mason / Judy Garland "A Star Is Born" such a superior film. For me casting one of the leads against type can be considered daring but two seems reckless and for all that it was Crosby and Kelly who got the main acting plaudits, it's William Holden's ever reliable character-work which for me centres and grounds the film, if not quite catapulting it into the "classic" firmament for which it so earnestly strives.

For one thing I couldn't believe Kelly as the downtrodden frump she appears to be here and for another Crosby, while you can see him really trying (part of the problem) never convinced me at any time that he was a drunk in the way that Ray Milland did so well in "The Lost Weekend".

I found the plot unconvincing too, with the melodramatic motive for Crosby's actions overplayed, the triangular affair when Holden falls for Kelly seemingly coming out of nowhere, while the musical interludes by the celebrated Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin sound some way off their best work, unlike some of the great songs in the aforementioned Garland movie.

All the same, as you'd expect from award-winning playwright Clifford Odets, there are some telling lines amongst all the exchanges (this is a very talky film), I liked the way Crosby's significant flashback was delayed until over 30 minutes into the film and the long cutaway shot at the conclusion makes for an effective finish. In the end though, this country girl needed a bit more air to really come alive, although some tribute is due to the producers for tackling a largely taboo subject in Hollywood.