CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Irie212 The performances by the principle actors-- Jane Wyman as deaf mute Belinda, Charles Bickford as her father, and Lew Ayres as the doctor-- are flawless, and the writing of their characters raises this film above the level of melodrama-- or, rather, almost does."JOHNNY BELINDA" is based on a true and tragic story that took place in on Prince Edward Island, back before the automobile. The movie (and the original stage play) radically fictionalizes one episode in the life of Lydia Dingwell-- rape and subsequent pregnancy--using it to make points about morality. The screenplay ends well before the rest of Lydia's story is told: she died in poverty, and is buried in an unmarked grave near a lot of other Dingwells in a cemetery in Bay Fortune, PEI.Those details do not matter to the film, of course, which is fiction. No such harsh reality flavors the screenplay, but an understanding of hardship does. It is expressed, unfortunately, only by those three characters. All the rest of cast -- even Agnes Moorehead as Belinda's spinster aunt-- are reduced to playing stereotypes of the shallowest order. I want to forgive it, because the movie was not an easy one to get through Hollywood's rose-colored lenses. No doubt the writers had to wrap the story of rape and murder in the most simplistic black-and- white terms possible, and the most pious. At one point, Wyman actually delivers the entire Lord's Prayer in sign language, surrounded by mourners, at her father's deathbed. Even her Oscar-winning performance could not lift that prolonged scene above the level of tedium.Such compromises, of course, inevitably compromise the overall quality of the film. What could have been a great movie-- it rises to greatness because of Wyman in particular, and elements of the screenplay-- is more like an historic artifact of Hollywood as it struggles out of the censorship of the Hayes era. But "Johnny Belinda" is only step in the right direction-- a baby step following a rape.

jeffhaller125 It is a good movie. The photography is beautiful and the performances are all quite good, though Jane is all wide-eyed and demure. Not a lot of variety there. The courtroom scene at the end is just not dramatic and that is the film's weakest part.But the thing that will always hurt this film now is that by 2012 we learned that it is not possible for a woman to become pregnant because of rape so the dramatic edge is gone. It seems like a more innocent world today. Think, back then a woman not only had to feel the humiliation and anger from rape but had the fear of being pregnant. Such an easier world we live in now that that can no longer happen.

DKosty123 This film has great black & white cinematography which reminds the viewer why black & white can look as great as color. The cast is superb with kudos to Wyman & the doctor. So why is it a near miss as a classic? The script seems a bit contrived. Rather than challenging the viewer by keeping the rapist a mystery, it pretty much tips the hand who the rapist is going to be well before the rape. Even though the film does not have the rape happen at the beginning of the film which departs from the often formula for this plot, it takes a ponderously slow time building up to it.The towns folks are gossiping about the baby & the person they think is the father. But there is little depth to the towns people. They appear to be crass for no good reason. The ending is too feel good Hollywood with a character suddenly developing a conscience at the trial to reveal the truth about who the father of the child is.While he film has outstanding elements, it does not measure up to the rest of it's parts with this script.

kenjha Wyman has the role of her career as a naive, deaf-mute young woman in a small Canadian town in the 19th century who is raped by a local hoodlum. She won an Oscar for her word-less performance, beating out Olivia De Havilland for "The Snake Pit." There are also fine performances from Ayers as a kindly doctor who takes interest in Wyman, Bickford as her tough father, and Moorehead as her aunt. The location cinematography is beautiful and it is sensitively directed by Negulesco. Other than a somewhat melodramatic courtroom scene, it is quite understated and surprisingly mature in handling a controversial subject, given the era in which it was made.