OVP: Come to the Stable (1949)

Film: Come to the Stable (1949)
Stars: Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez
Director: Henry Koster
Oscar History: 7 nominations (Actress-Loretta Young, Supporting Actress-Elsa Lanchester, Supporting Actress-Celeste Holm, Cinematography, Art Direction, Original Song-"Through a Long and Sleepless Night," Motion Picture Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

As we've been taking this journey through Oscar's many, many decades of film, we've come across stars that stood the test of time (your Crawford's, your Garbo's), and yet more often than not, we spend time with the stars that highlighted a certain era with a stunning brightness, then slowly flickered out of the big screen and out of memory.  Since this is our first visit to 1949 (certainly not our last-I've got a load of missing films this particular year), that may explain why this is our first introduction to the lovely and talented and very sweet Loretta Young, and no review of Come to the Stable would be complete without first talking about Loretta.

For those unfamiliar, and I must say that I'm not an expert, having only seen this and her Oscar-winning work two years earlier in The Farmer's Daughter, I'm trying to find a modern-day counterpart, but am at a loss, as there's really nothing super modern about Loretta Young.  Yes, she's incredibly beautiful (those eyes, my god!), and yes, she's got acting chops, but her general calling card is that she's largely playing a saint, both on screen and off, in almost every role that she tackles.  With that, you know what you're expecting when you see her on-screen-altruism and truth, but with a spine of steel to go with it.  This authenticity might make her seem a bit pious and dated, but it also lends itself well to certain roles, in particular her work here.

Come to the Stable is the story of two nuns (Young and a woefully miscast Celeste Holm, but I'll get there in a second) who come from France to create a hospital for children in the middle of New England, but run into a bevy of problems, primarily that they have no money or land to speak of to create the hospital.  The film occasionally winks at this problem, particularly in the naivete of the nuns when they venture into New York City to secure the land or their frequent run-ins with the always welcome Dooley Wilson (though, being that he's there and that a beautiful piano-ready ballad features heavily in a subplot, Henry Koster missed a huge opportunity by not putting the two together). However, the occasional depths into slapstick, while fun, don't aid the fact that the plot is incredibly thin-come on, you know those nuns are going to overcome every obstacle to get the hospital made, particularly when everyone seems to bend over backward after admiring the glistening halo the cinematographer seems to perch over Loretta Young's head, so awash in light is she throughout the film.

The problem, and I'm sorry to say this, may have been just as much the casting director's fault as it is Koster's.  Young, it seems, is the only actor that doesn't seem out-of-place within the film.  This makes sense, as this was her big vehicle and she was a huge box office draw at the time, but that doesn't excuse, say, the many teeterings and totterings of Hugh Marlowe's character, not sure if he's a villain or just annoyed, and since his character arch is so crucial to the film, it seems weird that he's missing for half of it.  Additionally, there's Elsa Lanchester, as the doddering Ms. Potts, who can't decide if she's kooky or meek or just in awe of the crazy antics of the nuns, but she spends a lot of time with her mouth gaping open.  And then, of course, is the very talented Celeste Holm, who dons a "now you hear it, now you don't" French accent and her job description seems merely to agree with whatever Young's character says.  This is fine, were it not for the facts that Holm got an Oscar nomination for this one-note role, that Holm is a superb actress who can do great things given the opportunity, and that Holm and Hugh Marlowe would just one year later have bitingly good chemistry in one of the great films, All About Eve.

Come to the Stable received seven Academy Award nominations, and like I said previously, the Holm and Lanchester ones in particular are hard to swallow.  I'm also not a huge fan of Young's nomination, though it is understandable considering she does saintly well, though she can't compete with ultimate winner Olivia de Havilland in her march toward bitterness in The Heiress.  I'm still waiting to see Pinky from 1949, which also featured three nominated women, and am hoping I will respond better to that film.  As for the techs, the art direction nomination seems generous considering the limited sets and how little interaction the cast has with the interchangeable New England cottages, but the Cinematography is strong and the original song, so lush and torchlit, may be unnecessary to the plot, but is probably the best of the Academy-recognized attributes.

What about you-are you a fan of this film, or Young's in particular?  Do you think that any of the three ladies deserved mention against the competition in 1949 (or that the film deserved a win for its rather high nomination count, which featured no victories)?  And is there a modern day equivalent of Young that I'm not thinking of?