The Deborah Kerr Blogathon – Edward, My Son (1949)

This is a post dedicated to The Deborah Kerr Blogathon being held over at Maddy Loves Her Classic Films.

Tnx Maddy for letting me take part!

“That’s where you differ from me. In my business, I never admit failure.” – Arnold Boult

Number of Times Seen – 1 (28 Sep 2018)

Brief Synopsis – A man does all he can to protect his son even if he must commit crimes in order to do so even if his wife doesn’t approve at all.

My Take on it – This is a film that I hope would be much better than the premise makes it out to be largely due to the great lead actors of Spencer Tracy and Deborah Kerr.

Unfortunately, neither of hem could help make this more interesting than it is.

Tracy is miscast in the lead since its hard to imagine him playing such a greedy and nefarious character.

The kind of crimes that he commits are all done in the hope of helping his family and more importantly his young son and he is willing to bulldoze over anyone (friend or foe) in order to achieve these goals.

I think this film would have been received much better had it focused more on a good man committing these acts out of compassion for his son, but since the main character is far from being good, it doesn’t allow for the viewer to sympathize with him or even care what happens to him.

Kerr stands out in this film as his wife who does all she can to stand in his way until he also discredits her.  She plays the character quite well despite it all and was nominated for both an Oscar and Globe for Best Actress for this role.

Bottom Line – Interesting premise that just doesn’t work very well at all. Tracy is completely miscast in the title role and its hard to imagine him as this kind of character. The crimes he commits over the years are all in the name of his son and he bulldozes anyone who tries to stop him. This could have been a much better story if it focused more on how a good man would be affected by these tings but since the character doesn’t seem to have an ounce of good in him, that’s pretty impossible. Kerr stands out as his wife who does all she can to try and protect those around her from her husband yet is helpless in her endeavors. Kerr was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role in this film and she remains the best part of it all.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia –  This film did very poorly at the box office for MGM, resulting in a loss of $1,159,000 ($11.73M in 2017) according to studio records. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)

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