Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

GOOD MORNING, MISS DOVE

Prune-face: Jennifer Jones as Miss Dove
GOOD-MORNING, MISS DOVE (1955). Director: Henry Koster.

55-year-old geography teacher Miss Dove (Jennifer Jones) has to go into the hospital for tests, and uses the time to reflect upon her life and her influence upon her students. Known as "the terrible Miss Dove" by certain townspeople, she is a rather grim and completely humorless, outwardly unemotional old maid, but despite her demeanor she can be kind to her pupils, especially a young boy named William who grows up to become a cop (Chuck Connors). Both her nurse (Peggy Knudsen) and doctor (Robert Stack) and his wife (Kipp Hamilton of War of the Gargantuas), as well as the town priest (Biff Elliot) are also former students.

Chuck Connors with Jones
There are several moving sequences in Good Morning, Miss Dove, but while I generally admire sentiment in old movies, this picture becomes a bit too unrealistic. With her unpleasant personality it's hard to believe that that many townspeople would care that much about this persnickety, disapproving and prune-faced spinster, giving this an ending that is pure Hollywood. Jones, who realistically ages from about twenty to middle-age, gives a very good performance, but there are huge gaps that fail to explain exactly why she's become the way she is. An early sequence shows her regretfully turning down a suitor's (Marshall Thompson) proposal as she has a family obligation that forces her to work and repay a debt, but we never learn why there were apparently no other suitors during her youth. There is also some bad sitcom-like nonsense about a student who grows up to become a petty crook and escapes from jail.

Priest and doctor: Biff Elliot and Robert Stack

In addition to Jones, most of the cast members (including some marvelous child actors) acquit themselves nicely, with Thompson notable in his one sequence with Jones, and there's also good work from Connors [South Sea Woman] , Stack, etc. and especially Peggy Knudsen [Hilda Crane] as the nurse Billie Jean, who had a child out of wedlock. Leigh Harline has contributed a pleasant and soapy score that is effective for the picture. Good Morning, Miss Dove is quite similar to the 1941 movie Cheers for Miss Bishop, which also examines a small town and the life of a teacher, but is a much, much better movie.

Verdict: Good night, Miss Dove. **1/2. 

2 comments:

angelman66 said...

Have never seen this one; I am a fan of Martha Scott in Cheers for Miss Bishop. But as I get older, I appreciate the odd charm of Jennifer Jones more and more. She certainly was a unique actress; my favorite role of hers is as the eldest daughter in Since You Went Away (when Selznick fell in love with her.) If Miss Dove comes on TCM, I will give it a look.
-Chris

William said...

Jones, like Norma Shearer, was often devalued as an actress because her husband was a powerful man in the motion picture business. But as people often remarked, "he couldn't get up there on the screen and act for her."

Oddly, Jones and Shearer both starred in different versions of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," and both were very good.