The Member of the Wedding (1952)

If nobody here has seen this one I can't say I'm surprised. It's a hard to find movie on video and as far as I know has NOT been released on DVD and Turner Classic Movies only shows it once or twice a year I think. But I loved this movie. Nobody else does though, it's a 'weird' movie, Julie Harris was 27, playing 12 year old Frankie, during her 'coming of age' summer that was the precursor to the phrase 'a roller coaster ride with Sybil at the switch'.

What I find odd is that as a teenager I could relate so much to Frankie, even though she was raised without a mother and I wasn't, and at 12 I wasn't worried about belonging with a group of people like she was. All the same I could relate to her explosions at her little cousin John Henry and the housekeeper Berenice. When Berenice tells her 'You're too mean to live' and she screams in response 'I KNOW IT!', yeah, I had my share of those days as a teenager.

A lot of people complain that Julie Harris did not look like a 12 year old girl, well 47 year old Mary Martin didn't look like a little boy either, but it still worked. What they don't realize is that's the point, that's how Frankie came to get mixed up with a solider on leave because he would never hit on a girl who looked like all 12 of her years.

They tried doing a TV remake in the 90s with that girl from Fly Away Home, that was a disaster, her acting, her accent, and all, but including the fact that she looked closer to 12 than Julie Harris did. Though I'll admit, when I first came across the movie and saw Frankie in the kitchen in her slip and bra, I didn't know at first whether she was a boy or a girl and when I realized she was a girl I figured she had to be about 13 or maybe 15 at the very most.

Another thing I find interesting is that Julie Harris and James Dean starred together in East of Eden and James Dean is credited for being the first onscreen rebel teenager character, the spokesman for the misunderstood juvenile delinquents of the post-war era. But 3 years before Rebel Without a Cause, Julie Harris did a good job herself in what I think was one of the first portrayals of the misunderstood adolescent in general, that no matter how hard she tries she can't get anybody to realize what she's trying to say or what she's going through. So to pair them up in East of Eden, even though she was so much older than he was, I think it worked perfectly because they both did the role of troubled youth so well in their own rights.

Anyway, long story short, not an easy movie to come by and by no means popular, but if you have the chance to see it, I definitely recommend it.

I actually own a copy of this movie. It's one of those movies I remember watching as an adolescent that always "stuck" in my memory, and then one day about 3 years ago I thought I'd check Amazon.

I still love the movie. My husband's big complaint about it is the acting style. Well, yes, it's very dramatic ~ definitely not how a 12-year-old would talk then or now. But acting methods were different back then and I don't think it was any worse or better. (And I prefer old movies.)

I was also an Ethel Waters fan as a kid.

Supernova, if Netflix has it, try renting "The Boy with the Green Hair". It starts Dean Stockwell as a little boy and it, too, is another one that stayed with me through life. And I own a copy of that one, too.

I actually have The Boy with Green Hair on tape, I've just never gotten around to seeing it yet.

1952? Too old for my movie tastes.

No.

I actually saw this movie quite awhile ago, I remembered Julie Harris was in it but can't remember what it was about.