OVP: Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

Film: Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, Terry Moore, Richard Jaeckel
Director: Daniel Mann
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Shirley Booth*, Supporting Actress-Terry Moore, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Because of the advent of "method" acting in the early 1950's, it's sometimes hard to judge performances.  We take this advantage today when "realism" is valued above else, and it's easy to judge films from the 1930's and 40's, when a star persona needed to always be cultivated, but the early 1950's were when those two styles merged, and as a result, you occasionally get something like Come Back, Little Sheba.  The film, with a weird title that premiered in 1952, starred Shirley Booth, a stage actress who was making her film debut.  Unlike a lot of stage performers of the era (think Jessica Tandy or Mary Martin), this role, which was a smash on Broadway, was not filled with a film actress with more cache above-the-title (a Bette Davis or Kate Hepburn, perhaps), but instead Booth was able to translate the role onto film.  This leaves us with an actress who was doing her film debut, in a movie that largely becomes a staged play, including the theatricality that comes with it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about the troubled marriage of Lola (Booth) and Doc (Lancaster), a childless couple who are celebrating one year of Doc being sober.  Lola longs for her dog Little Sheba, who ran away months earlier, and still looks for him even though there's no indication that he's still alive (he shows up in her dreams).  They take on a pretty young tenant, Marie (Moore), whom they treat like a surrogate daughter even though she views them more as simply two older adults to be amused by.  She's juggling a long-distance boyfriend and an infatuation with a hot local athlete named Turk (Jaeckel), who desperately wants to have sex with her.  As the film goes, it's clear that Lola is miserable, and has internalized years of Doc's abusive alcoholism to a point where she sees no value in herself.  She had married him as a teenager because she was pregnant (but lost the baby through what appeared to be a miscarriage, though of course they never say the word), and had once been young-and-beautiful like Marie, desired by men; there's a strong indication that Doc doesn't think that the baby was even his, but he married Lola anyway.  The film's climax occurs when Doc decides to go back to drinking, and threatens Lola with her life.  Afterward, he apologizes, and Lola admits that she's given up on Little Sheba coming back, and the two decide to be enough for each other.

A lot of your opinion of the film is going to rely upon your interpretation of the ending.  For much of the film, Lancaster's character has been obsessed with Marie.  Initially you kind of assume it's a sexual frustration-that he wants to have sex with this pretty young woman, but as the film progresses you learn that's not it.  Instead, Lancaster is pining for his own lost youth, the lost opportunities that he missed when he married the "pretty young girl" because he had to, giving up his opportunity to be a medical doctor (he's a chiropractor), and have children & a family.  Instead, he has a dependency on alcohol and a wife whom he sees as a joke, and someone that he can put all of his blame on.

Which makes the ending kind of harrowing if you don't look at it as an ending, but as the middle.  Hollywood wants you to believe that Lola & Doc live happily ever after, that with Marie moved out of their house, Doc won't be sexually frustrated and constantly regretful, but that's not really how it reads to a modern audience.  We know that Doc hasn't really addressed his anger and drug problems, and that Lola will continue to bear the brunt of it the next time he slips.  Instead, how it reads is that Lola is the one whose safety net has left.  She no longer has the potential respite of Little Sheba, someone who loves her unconditionally, and after talking to her mother, she realizes she can't go home.  There's a harrowing scene toward the end where, before she takes Doc back, she calls her mother seeing if she can move home, but her father, still betrayed by the pregnancy that Lola had as a youth out of wedlock, won't take her back.  Lola realizes that her only choices are taking her chances with Doc, or risk entering an unknown future, and unknowns have not been good to Lola.  If you take Come Back, Little Sheba by its surface-level finish, it's kind of a disappointment after posing interesting questions.  If you assume that this is the terrifying calm-of-the-storm, it has a more meaningful and darker ending, which is how I interpret it.

The film was nominated for three Oscars, and this is where I get back to the "acting styles" conversation from the beginning of this review.  I personally adored Shirley Booth in this role.  There are times this part might be over-played, and her stage roots show, but she inhabits Lola so fully and completely, especially in ensuring we have the opportunity for a "double meaning" in the ending, that it's easy to forgive.  She makes this woman feel authentic, even if she's the sort of well-meaning person you might avoid at the supermarket because she talks too much.  Moore's nomination is a bit more perplexing.  She has one good scene where her constant flirtation with Turk comes to a head, and Marie stops playing a part and we get to see the true frightened girl under the bravado, and I liked the way she seemed to have a different persona depending on who was in the room, confident in her beauty & youth winning over any situation, but it's not a particularly impressive piece of work.  The script calls for her simply to be pretty, which she is, but only the aforementioned moments feel like she's rising above the script.  The editing being cited is unusual-it's not a "Best Picture demands to be included" sort of nomination that you'd expect, and there's nothing particularly noteworthy here in the editing-it's basically a filmed play-so I'm not sure why it is we're seeing this nominated other than perhaps the final fight scene?  Either way, this is a worthwhile and curious little movie that I'm glad I finally caught.