Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 111: Doing it For the Kids

There are some films on this list that I read the plot of and I instantly want to watch others I have to force myself and Blossoms in the Dust does definitely fall into the latter category. The film is based around the true story of Greer Garson's Edna and how she overcomes tragedy after tragedy to set up a successful home for orphans until they are rehoused into loving families. The story starts with Edna due to be married to the boorish Damon only for Walter Pidgeon's bank clerk Sam to whisk her off her feet. Meanwhile Edna's adopted sister Charlotte is due to marry her fiancée Allen but is stopped when it turns out that Charlotte was adopted by Edna's parents. Unable to marry the man of her dreams Charlotte commits suicide but that's not the end of Edna's worries. She barely survives giving birth to her daughter only for that daughter to wind up dying about five years later on. After finding out she can no longer have children Edna and Walter set up a home for rehousing orphans which is shut down after Edna upsets one of the more important ladies of the town and the couple up roots and move. Soon Walter takes ill and dies leaving Edna to fight her own battles including one with a lowlife man who wants to get some money from the wealthy couple who adopted his son and Edna also battles to remove the stigma from those children who get adopted so they can live a normal life and not end up like Charlotte. The film ends with Edna successful in her quest but still feeling lonely in life unable to form attachments to any of the children as she knows she won't be around all their lives. Her only constant throughout the film is Max, a doctor who befriends the couple and who is Edna's confidant after Sam dies.

There's really only so much one woman can go through and blimey did Edna go through it all - the death of her friend, her child and her husband not to mention not being able to have children again and being chased out of town. This was one hell of a woman and its nice for her to be recognised but at the same time I feel like the film was just too overly melodramatic for my liking. I do like Greer Garson as an actress, especially in Random Harvest a film she was not Oscar nominated for, but here she fights an uphill battle portraying a character who demands sympathy in every scene and can't seem to catch a break. Walter Pidgeon is fine as the charming caddish Sam but once he starts to get ill he also turns into a bit of wimp and starts talking in wistful terms. In fact my favourite characters in the film were Max the doctor and Zeke the couple's loveable servant who follows them all over the country. Unfortunately if this were released today I still reckon it would get its Oscar nomination because it's one of those dreary heartfelt dramas that Oscar love to acknowledge.