Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Forgotten Movies: TO EACH HIS OWN



If I had to choose a movie that made me cry as a kid, this would top the list. Olivia plays a woman who must give her illegitimate child up during war time. She follows him from afar and near, trying time and again to figure out a way to let him know their real relationship. None of it works. And it is not until another war that a friend finds the way to tell her son that she is is real mother. This one practically bust my gut. DeHavilland won an Oscar for this part.Was there ever a better actress at playing suffering in silence parts?

What is your favorite tear jerker?

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, this is a film I hadn't heard of before, Patti. Thanks. Certainly DeHavilland was a fine actress in that sort of role.

George said...

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT had me sobbing.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Jackie agrees with you, George. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT gets her vote.

Jeff M.

Anonymous said...

Mark S. says,
The final 15 minutes of the 1959 version of "Imitation of Life" always chokes me up. The tears start flowing as soon as Mahalia Jackson starts singing.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Oh, God yes. Loved that film. What ever happened to Susan Kohner. So sad.

Graham Powell said...

This may sound a little offbeat, but EDWARD SCISSORHANDS had me in tears in the theater. My wife showed it to my kids (without letting me warn them first); my 11-year-old was practically in hysterics at the end.

Charles Gramlich said...

Wrath of Khan makes me cry. When Spock dies

Jeff Meyerson said...

Of course, most guys tear up near the end of FIELD OF DREAMS. And then there is OLD YELLER....

Jeff M.

Deb said...

STELLA DALLAS (which sounds remarkably like this movie) with Barbara Stanwyck.

Not sure about Susan Kohner, but her sons, Chris and Pete Weitz, produced the movies AMERICAN PIE and ABOUT A BOY.

Anonymous said...

Miss De Havilland lives quietly in Paris. She was born in 1916, and is the last of the major stars of Hollywood's golden era; the last from GWTW.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Always admired her, Richard.
Susan seemed to have a short career.

Yvette said...

OLD YELLER. THE YEARLING. Though my tears were enhanced (?) by outrage and anger which always makes me cry even harder. I never forgave Gregory Peck (as the father in THE YEARLING).

I also sobbed at the end of THE BLACK STALLION. Why? Because the sheer beauty of the end credits made me feel inadequate. You know? How something can be too beautiful?

Todd Mason said...

PONETTE. FORBIDDEN GAMES. Clearly French films about orphaned children can do it. (I saw FB when not too much older than the primary cast, in the New Hampshire PBS Janus Film Collection package.) As I've mentioned before, PONETTE made me angrier than sad at first, but it's hard not to feel for the protagonist, even if the filmmakers seem to be having too much fun with her misery at first. Certainly films about gross injustice can get in there, as well...MISSING, as flawed as it was, such even more flawed films as BEYOND RANGOON or HOTEL RWANDA or BROKEDOWN PALACE. Beyond the bitter laughter, PATHS OF GLORY; sometimes I don't let something get to me, consciously, so it doesn't hit me, as PRIEST didn't, till I turned to Alice and saw how it was affecting her. And then there's the episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER where the primary characters are afflicted with their greatest fears, and early in that, Buffy has a long-awaited reunion with her estranged father, who lets her know in explicit detail what a complete disappointment she has been, and how she was the primary source of her parents' divorce. Even more powerful in its elegance than THE SOPRANOS episode wherein the young stripper who reminds Tony of his better self in some ways is brutally murdered by Joe Pantoliano's character, in part because of her aspirations and spirit, though that one ranks, too.
THE L-SHAPED ROOM.

Todd Mason said...

THE 400 BLOWS and the not so very different THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE, even given the latter is a suspense film usually misclassed as a potboiler.

Rick Robinson said...

OLD YELLER, the one time I watched it. The end of TALE OF TWO CITIES. CHARLEY.

Jeff Meyerson said...

BRIAN'S SONG (original version)


Jeff M.

Todd Mason said...

I see I cited a bunch which made me memorably puddle up. Favorite among them...PATHS OF GLORY or MISSING, probably the former.

Cap'n Bob said...

Nothing. I'm no goddamn sob sister.

J F Norris said...

Too much manipulative sentimental heart tugging in the movies (especially movies about terminal illness - notice how many have been cited here) has sort of left me inured. I can still get misty eyed depending on the context of some scenes (usually loss/end of a friendship), but I'm not a crier any more. Last time I got a bit teary eyed was watching HER w/ Joaquin Phoenix but I didn't really cry.

The only instances of real crying I remember:

SOPHIE'S CHOICE - the train scene where she makes the choice between her children. There's no way a dying a dog can top that scene for crying at the movies.

DANCES WITH WOLVES - As John Dunbar is leaving the tribe Wind in His Hair shouts from the cliff in a Sioux language: "Dances with Wolves. I am Wind in His Hair. I am your friend. Can you see that I will always be your friend?" I was watching the movie alone only a few months after a very hard relationship break-up. Hearing those words hit me like a ton of bricks and I was bawling like I've never cried in a movie theater before.