Hey everyone! Welcome back to Tired Old Queen at
the Movies. we have some exciting news Steve is hosting a classic movie cruise that will go from
New York to Bermuda from May 25th to June 1st of 2025 more info below now let's go see the tTired
Old Queen at the Movies, Steve Hayes! Johnny, you know what I thought for a change of pace
that we would do a political comedy and so I chose HC Potter's THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER from
1947 starring Loretta Young, Joseph Cotton, Ethel Barrymore Charles Bi
ckford, and Rose Hobart.
Now this movie was originally bought by David O. Selznick as a project for Ingrid Bergman and
she took a look at the script and said oh I don't really want to play a farmer girl Norwegian
I don't want to to do that so he in turn sold it to Dore Schary and when Dore Schary bought it
O. Selznick said to him you know I got I got a tip for you if you're going to cast this you
ought to take a look at Loretta Young because Loretta Young is the most underrated actress
in
Hollywood and if I could work the day out for you I could work any place Loretta came from
a a family of four sisters was Sally Blaine who had a career on her own in movies there was
Pollyanne and there was Georgiana who was the youngest one who later married Ricardo Montalbán
how go figure out that they had a long marriage anyway A call came in for Sally Blaine one
day to do a job and she wasn't available and Loretta said well uh you know I'm an actress
she was like 14 or something I can c
ome down and do that part she went down she got the
part and off she went to the races she was in movies she was signed with 20th Century Fox which
she never really got along with Darryl F. Zanuck very well because she thought he didn't appreciate
her you know he put her opposite Tyrone Power a lot because they were both so pretty he was really
pushing Tyrone Power and not so much Loretta Young she left 20th and they paired with Alan Ladd and
then this role came and she knew this was a real
ly good part she went to work with a dialect coach
to get the Norwegian accent down to Perfection she's really good at it papa says we must stand
on our own two feet and Dore Schary pulled Joseph Cotton from his own Troop and then they put in
Ethel Barrymore and Charles Bickford now Ethel Barrymore had just won an Oscar for NONE BUT THE
LONELY HEART she had done Broadway for years and had one movie that she had done RASPUTIN AND THE
EMPRESS with her Brothers Lionel and John in the 30s and t
hen she decided movies aren't for me but
after she did the stage version of THE CORN IS GREEN they convinced her to come out and then she
was on a rooll for the next 10 years she got like four more nominations and she had a really good
reputation and she had that wonderful Barrymore voice that deep voice you know and those piercing
eyes you know with my regards to the governor as sort of a comic foil for her they cast Charles
Bickford now Charlie Bickford was an erasable sort of Guy what's
the matter what's the matter
what's the matter he came up them silent movies through things see his career was almost ruined
because he punched Louis B Mayer in the face Louis Mayer criticized him once and and Bickford
was a tough guy he'd work the boards he you know he had had a tough left he let him have it so he
didn't he he wasn't really popular for a long time but gradually he sort of worked his way up he was
Greta Garbo's first leading man in ANNA CHRISTIE years before and in 1944 he
got the role of the
kindly priest in the SONG OF BERNADETTE and he got an Oscar nomination and that sort of set him
up for the remainder of his career he plays in this movie The Butler now the basic plot of this
movie is that she plays Katrin Holstrom and she's from a Norwegian family she wants to make good she
has three gorgeous older brothers James Arness, Keith Andes, and Lex Barker why leave home anyway
she leaves home and she goes to the Capitol City to make some money and she's picked
up by this
painter who gives her a lift basically it's the Old Farmer's Daughter joke you know he picks her
up and he's going to have a thing with her and she just won't have it you know so he leaves her
there and he's got all of her money he takes all of her money so she hitchhikes into Capitol City
she finds the guy she throws a pitcherof water on him he spent all of her money so she goes to
the Morleys, Mrs Morley is Ethel Barrymore her husband was the great senator of the state she
ha
s a lot a lot of power and her son is Joseph Cotton h m Where Have You Been L headquarters
my little man Charles Bickford is the butler you you who yourself I understand that you need
help he goes yes can you fit into her apron well Loretta was such a little thing you know she
wraps it twice around her and she goes Lena's a very big lady she says can you make coffee oh
yeah a real coffee yeah oh you bet so they have a political meeting that day and they're always
talking about Mr Clancy tha
t's Charles bickard how awful Mr Clancy's coffee is and they're
all having all these politicals they go it's Mr Clancy's coffee you better have some Brandy
so Joseph caught and taste the coffee goes what who made this coffee and everybody's going wow
this is great good coffee you B he's instantly Smit cuz she's so beautiful you were saying
Glenn oh oh yes and they interview her and they they it's a really wonderful thing they go
Katie and Katie can you tell us what you do she goes oh yeah I
work uh at the farm every single
day I kill all the pigs and chickens at Harvest I plant the crops I do all the washing with Mama
and all the ironing for my brothers my father myself and my mama and I make plug you do yeah at
Christmas time with a hot poke she's just adorable so she moves in of course Joseph cotton falls in
love with her your concern wouldn't be because you're in love with her would it of course not
it's just that she's a very very sweet girl and uh fair play and there's t
his other woman Rose
Hobart who's a columnist and she's a political gal she's really kind of Savvy and Chic and
she's got her eye on him you're in love with a guy everybody knows but Glenn and once he sees
Loretta Young he can't see anything from bug dust and he starts falling all over himself for at one
point she goes ice skating for my exercise on my day off I go skating he goes oh well I'll I'll
skate with you I I was on the team at Yale I won the winning skating team at Yale Charles bfo
rd
goes yeah that was years ago and eth Barry Mar goes he's he's going through the ice no he won't
well he went through the ice there last year he couldn't be such a dumb hit 5 to one chills out
and they bet they're watching out the window and cotton gets down the ice and he's skating around
and skating around and he goes right through the ice Falls right on his and she goes Joseph he
drops the money thank you Joseph she comes in the other room like that he catches cold at
night he's got t
o go to Europe on a political trip so she goes Katie says I know that you need
you need a good massage I'll give it to you she gets on him and she does this brutal brutal
massage she's P know who can give us Swedish this is one of the great political comedies too
local congressman dies they have to elect somebody good so they get this guy Andrew J Finley to
run my platforms my record and I stand on my record and he's a crooked he's a crooked
politician from the word go but he's the only cho
ice that they have right this one actor
gets up and speaks complete gibberish can I tell you in every summer vault in the Paso you'll find
a his last your rest about elction Charles bigford is sitting with Loretta Young And he says they'll
cheer at anything she goes oh no you're kidding me he goes oh no no this audience there hundreds
of people in he goes they'll cheer at [Music] anything it's so great it's so great it's it's
got a lot to say about American politics at the time and K raises
her hand and she stands up in
the crowd young lady you have a question yeah why are you running he goes why am I running yeah
they all go boo boo she goes no wait a minute wait a minute I'd like to know how you with your
record can ask these people to vote for you I am from up there you were our representative and
you are not good you are not a good man and you know the farmers need someone to speak for
the people what would you like I I would like someone who talks for the people who spea
ks well
for the people meanwhile the opposition is sitting right behind her and they go this girl's got
something here so they call her in and they go who would you like she says well I'd like to see
someone who represents all the people not just the political people all the people listens to what
they have to say you run of course me yes so she has to run against Anders Finley and she goes to
Mrs Morley she loves Mrs Morley and she says Mrs Morley they want me to run and bar go well Katie
that's the American way it's the United States if you want to run for Congress I don't think
you have a ghost of a chance I don't think you the least qualified to run I mean to use every
device in my power to defeat you yes Mrs Morty by that time cotton is furious he's just cuz she's
leaving and he hasn't really told her he loves her and everybody else around knows it you know she
starts to run for Congress and he goes to visit her and he hears her giving a speech and she goes
you've got t
o R what you have to listen to what the people want you're the government he goes in
and the three brothers are there and they know who he is they go do something with her talk to her
talk to she's got a speech coach and they throw the speech coach out and they bring it in and he
just sits down and he says Katie do you remember how you talked to me and talk to everybody about
what you thought the people needed well don't try to yell at them like that just talk naturally just
talk to them th
ey're good people that's what they want to hear that's what you're representing she
was yeah okay that's what I do and then he finds out that there's a real big smear campaign because
they found the painter that she that brought her in and took her money and that he's going to
try to spread that old thing of The Farmer's Daughter all around about her that he's going to
really ruin a reputation and Joseph cotton is not GNA stand for that and Etha Barrymore does this
wonderful thing with Andr
ew Finley where she sits her Anders Finley down because she want to get
the low down and she starts serving him drinks he says you know I think I've got great plans for
this state you know I've got an organization have you oh yeah filled with the right kind of people
mhm mm 100% American is white right no foreign born right the right kind of religion oh Mr Finley
I'm afraid I'm going to have to throw you out she gets Charles Baker to pick up the guy and to
pick up the guy and throw him you
forgot your hood and then it just it comes down to the
election and what's going to happen this movie is so lovingly delightful and lorett young ended
up winning the Academy Award for the farmer's daughter she was up against stiff competition
she was up against Dorothy Maguire in Gentleman's Agreement Susan Hayward in Smash Up the story of
a woman Joan Crawford in Possessed and her best friend rosin Russell in the film adaptation of
Eugene O'Neal's Morning Becomes Electro who they thought w
as the odds on favorite and the night of
the Oscars RZ was so convinced she was going to win she was halfway out of the seat and they said
the winner is Loretta Young and it was the biggest upset win in the history of the Academy Award and
Loretta had gotten Adrien the great MGM designer to design this dress this green taida dress with
pett coats that was so big she knocked people out sitting down and getting up off the thing people
were falling over right and left she couldn't get to the s
tage there were so many pett coats when
she finally got to the stage she held it up she said you know for many years the Academy Award has
been basically a spectator sport but as you can see I dressed for the occasion she had a really
good career and then all of a sudden she saw those film things lining out and she was smart enough to
get into [Music] television and she would Swirl at the doors and come in with this gown and she'd
go hello I'm Loretta Young and tonight I play a Chinese peas
ant woman you know and you oh great
you know but it got to show how versatile she was she was really really versatile and she was like
the queen of Television but this movie will just Delight you the the byplay between Ethel Barrymore
and Bickford the love angle between Loretta and Joseph cotton and it's a perfect way to jump
into the spring with a lovely lovely romantic comedy and I think you're going to love Loretta
Young Joseph cotton Ethel Barrymore Rose Hobart and Charles Bickford and
HC Potters the farmer's
[Music] daughter she was so religious that marri said once every time she sin she build us a church
that's why there's so many cathedrals in Hollywood delicious popcorn can't be beat
Comments
I used to see Miss Young at Mass on Sunday and at Chasen's. She always looked perfect and was so gracious and lovely.
Joseph Cotten was so handsome and talented. To this day, I'm still unnerved by his performance in Shadow Of A Doubt. Thank you Steve and Jonny!
I confess my favorite is Ethyl B. She always has that wicked sense of humor bubbling just beneath the surface. 🎥 🎞️
Sail on Silver Boy! If I were ever to set sail, I would look around first for Steve Hayes before leaving land. ⛵⛵⛵
With brothers as handsome as those three, I'd have stayed home. Another great job, Steve.
"You forgot your hood!" Pretty daring line for that time. Thanks Steve!
I love that film, they are all great (and oh so fetching!) in it: Loretta, Joseph Cotten (who does not get the credit he most certainly deserves nowadays), and goddess Ethel Barrymore together with stupendous and totally forgotten Charles Bickford. Wonderful and utterly charming comedy, not without bite. Mr Hayes, you did an excellent Loretta- Katie accent! And that " Loretta comes in a gown and announces she is going to play a Chinese peasant woman this week" had me in stitches.
She began to hit her stride in the early 1940's and was looking for roles that would provide interesting and perhaps slightly off beat roles: The Lady From Cheyenne (1941, Universal), a Wyoming school teacher who fights for women's rights, and in Ladies Courageous (1944, Universal), she ferries bombers overseas during World War II. She's a heroic savior of Chinese War orphans in the film China (1943, Paramount Pictures), and as a deaf woman bravely facing experimental surgery in the soap opera And Now Tomorrow (1944, Paramount Pictures). By the late 1940's Young was looking everywhere for a certain role that would bring her the recognition by her peers, which meant the film would have to be Academy Award worthy and be successful at the box-office. That role was in The Farmer's Daughter (1947, RKO) Young's performance is droll, but charmingly so, and Young is lovely and completely in control of her performance as Karin Holstrom, Young did not treat this film to be walked through, but she studied hard for her part, which required a Swedish accent. No one imagined that Loretta Young would win an Academy Award for The Farmer's Daughter even the nomination was a shock. That year's competition was stiff with Young's good friend Rosalind Russell as the expected winner for her courage in doing Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (1947, RKO). Thus, it was a stunned audience that watched an equally stunned Loretta Young mount the stage to accept the award. Her acceptance speech managed to be both graceful and flustered, "The Academy Awards has always been a spectator sport for me, but tonight" - here she referred to her magnificently green ruffled taffeta showstopper gown (designed especially for her by Adrian) - "I dressed for the stage, just in case." In 1949 Loretta Young would again be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for her performance as Sister Margaret in the light-hearted Come To The Stable (1949, 20th Century-Fox) this film was Loretta Young's personal favorite. Young's costar was Celeste Holm here playing Sister Scholastica who's past life is revealed that she was a famous tennis player who played at Wenbleton before the war. By 1953 Young saw the hand writing on the wall when her last featured film It Happens Every Thursday premiered to luke-warm reviews. Wasting no time, she immediately began her amazingly successful television career. And it was television that made her even more famous then she was. She liked the new medium of television where she would be welcomed into many living rooms. Loretta Young always presented herself as herself, twirling through French doors to greet her audience by saying "I'm a classy lady." Little did people know that behind the scenes she was working her tail off by producing, by casting, by editing, and by taking the rolls of film to the Los Angeles Airport making sure the film would arrive in New York safely and on time. When Loretta was making the transition from big screen to small screen Louis B. Mayer head of production at MGM warned her that television was the enemy and you'll never make another big screen film again. However Young not only saved her career but extended and increased her visibility overall. Loretta Young never gave up. She had real show business gumption. She fought, kept going, worked hard, she had a strong religious belief and a close knit family. She was well grounded. As she aged she never lost her beauty. As a young women she was all eyes and prominent cheekbones, she was always smiling. As an older woman she was exactly the same. Loretta's last official photo was for a story that was in Vanity Fair magazine in 1999. She was 86 and she stared directly into the camera in a close-up that was as close as you can get. Loretta Young remained a star because she was willing to work very hard. No matter what happened, she stayed in the game. In the end Loretta Young out smarted the Studio System. She died at the home of her sister Georgiana Montalban and her husband, actor Ricardo Montalban, in the early morning of August 12, 2000 at the age of 87 from ovarian cancer in Los Angeles, California.
Well Steve, sorry I can't make it, but have a happy summer cruise to Bermuda. Checked in to say that THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER is my favorite Loretta Young movie along with RACHEL AND THE STRANGER. She had a nice set of brothers in this movie for sure!
SOLD! All it took to hook me was the Steve Hayes Touch. Going on my Must Watch list! Thanks as always and Happy Easter - Johnny too!!
Joseph Cotten was such a funny man. I need to see this! Thanks, Steve.
Always great to see you, Steve (and Ooooh, Johnny!) Woe! That Adrian gown was... an eyeful. Especially those shoulders, she could have put somebody's eye out with them! Dressing for the occasion, indeed! All the best, keep well and keep 'em coming!
Loretta young was gorgeous ❤
That green dress would make a good inflatable raft on the cruise. I wonder if Debbie Reynolds ended up owning it.
Thanks Steve...great review...I recall a parody of the opening of The Loretta Young Show where an actress in a huge swirling gown swirls out of the door and closing the door her dress gets caught in the door...hilarious memory
Steve, great review. You sold me... never wanted to see this film but now I must watch this. Thanks!
I have a lot of fun with this sweet, fun movie with a cast that i love. Your videos always making my day. Loretta was and is underrated, she was not only gorgeous but a very good actress. Thank you & happy easter for your guys!
Dear Steve, thank you so much for this blissful review of a film I absolutely love. The script is brilliant, the actors are perfectly cast, and Loretta Young is a total delight. For once she is good without being goody goody - in fact what I love best are some of her pithy political comments, and when you see her whole family you fall in love with all of them too. Loretta Young was incredibly lovely - a terrible old film named "Eternally Yours" turned up on television here recently and she was ravishing even in that. Honestly I'm not surprised she won an Oscar for this, (even with such competition) because she was so credible in it, and it's what we'd all like to happen in politics (here too, believe me) if only ... The dress she wore when she collected the Oscar was indeed dramatic, but it looks as though it's swallowing her, as well as anyone in her way! I do envy anyone able to go on one of the cruises you plan - how lovely for them - but I'm very glad that you still give us treats of reviews like these. Just to add a word about my mother, having mentioned her previously, she lost her beloved father in World War I, won a scholarship to Art school but had to work sewing instead, was staggeringly broad minded, brought me up surrounded by books (lost my father in World War II) used to repair our TV set in a storm of blue flashes because she wasn't afraid of electricity (!), loved humorous writing, had humorous bits published in newspapers and got to know editors, had to cope with me writing on her kitchen table when I fled from my husband, and she'd have adored your reviews as much as I do. I think you'd have liked her too. Happy Easter and very best wishes, Alida
A terrific movie, full of FAB performances and a great review, Steve! Thank you!
🎼🎶It's SPRINGTIME - FOR STEVEN - AND AT THE MOVIES🎶 🤗💕🐣🌹🐇🌷🎶