Review of Johnny Belinda (1948) by Nik B — 20 Jun 2009

Jane Wyman is Belinda, but everyone calls her "dummy". And not just because she's a woman. She's also deaf and it's 1948 in rural Canada. The new doc comes to town and teaches her sign language.

This opens up a lot of happy doors for Belinda and she does great until an incident. In an first for the Oscar best picture nominees up to this point, we see a rape. Deaf girl rape. Of course, we don't actually *see* the act.

We pull away once drunk guy forces her into a corner. When baby comes, the farmer family tries to keep it on the DL, but when baby-daddy feels like comin' back around, things get ugly. Nothing here really blew me away, and it kind of annoys me when villages like this are portrayed with absolutely no common sense.

I assume the Oscar night highlight reel included the sign language version of the Lord's Prayer, which is the only reason I can think of to have this included as a nominee at all.