The Actress *** (1953, Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright, Anthony Perkins) – Classic Movie Review 7142

Actress Ruth Gordon turned her early life as a stage-struck Massachusetts teenager into a Broadway play, Years Ago, and now into a film, director George Cukor’s 1953 The Actress, for which she writes the screenplay. It is a fascinating case of life as art.

Jean Simmons stars as Ruth Gordon Jones, who persists in her ambition to have an acting career, even though her working-class parents (Spencer Tracy and Teresa Wright) think that she should have a safe job and marry nice a boy, Fred Whitmarsh (Anthony Perkins), who is finding that she rejects his advances.

The Actress is colourful and compelling, though the dialogue and acting, maybe appropriately for the subject, have to carry the entire film, which runs quite undramatically. It would have been better if it were more revealing and passionate, and if certain important episodes took centre stage, yet it is still pleasant.

Tracy is especially good value as the eccentric and unyielding old sea dog of a father, former seaman Clinton Jones. Indeed, Tracy won a Golden Globe as Best Actor – Drama. Wright is just right as the patient mother, and, though Simmons is good too, she makes ambition seem quite unappealing. It is Perkins’s promising film début, aged just 21, giving a a pleasing performance as Ruth’s gauche callow suitor.

Also in the cast are Ian Wolfe, Mary Wickes, Kay Williams, Norma Jean Nilsson and Dawn Bender.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7142

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