Johnny Belinda

Set in an island fishing village off the coast of Nova Scotia, Jean Negulesco’s Johnny Belinda stars Jane Wyman as the deaf, mute farm girl Belinda McDonald, called “the dummy” by townsfolk, who, thanks to the kindness of Dr. Richardson (Lew Ayres), learns how to connect with other human beings using sign language. While this setup may promise a quaint melodrama (which the film does, in part, deliver), the story drifts into metaphorical dark alleys, including rape, two murders, and even baby snatching. Amidst the pastoral farmland stunningly shot by McCord, the noir menace is embodied primarily in Locky McCormick (Stephen McNally), the brutish fisherman whose drunken desire for Belinda one night culminates in rape and produces a baby. While the Irish Catholic town views the child as a disgrace (“It’s a good thing she can’t think or feel”), Locky conceals his crime of paternity at all costs, even to the point of killing, while Locky’s new wife Stella (Jan Sterling) resents the child for an altogether different reason. Known for his expressionistic tendencies, Negulesco creates a rural, semi-Gothic world in which evil deeds may not be common but are presented with dramatic gusto: the foggy fistfight on the cliff, the sexual assault in the barn preceded by wild scraping of Locky’s violin bow. Considered the first Hollywood feature film to deal (relatively) openly with the subject of rape, Wyman’s wonderfully expressive silence (note, for example, her signing of the Lord’s Prayer at her father’s bedside) won her the Academy Award for best actress.