The Yearling

I know it’s hard to believe, but up until this morning, I had never seen a single frame of The Yearling nor did I know much about it. As I loaded it up on HBO Max, my wife saw the poster and said, “I’ve seen this one.” It’s rare that she knows more about a movie than I do. Undeterred, I started watching it alongside the rest of my family, most of whom gradually lost interest and left the room, leaving me to wonder what about this seemingly simple story about farmers in Florida was deemed Best Picture material. And then I got to the last half hour or so, and I understood exactly why. I was also reminded of another film that played the emotion card in much the same way, Old Yeller. 

What we are seeing is a hard life lesson learned by a young boy who begins the film as an innocent, more prone to playing than helping his father on the farm. Throughout the course of the film, he will learn about hardship and death. By the end, while he isn’t much older physically, he is far more old in the ways of the world. It is a harsh reality that he has woken up to, and one that young kids watching may not be quite ready for. 

The film began life as a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1938 novel by American author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. This novel was soon optioned to MGM Studios with the idea that it would be a vehicle for Spencer Tracy. But difficult filming conditions, shot on location in Florida, led to the cast walking out on the production and halting any further filming for several more years. By the time production resumed, Tracy was no longer attached to star in it, and the whole project was recast, this time with Gregory Peck in the lead. Newly discovered for this film was Claude Jarman Jr., a young boy who managed to charm the producers with his naivety and earnestness.  Clarence Brown was hired as the new director, replacing Victor Fleming, and production got underway again.

The shoot was grueling and long, thanks to the locale and Brown’s strive for perfection, resulting in an excessive number of takes for every scene. The final results speak for themselves, though, with some impressive imagery and a slew of acting Academy Award nominations, including Gregory Peck’s second of an eventual five over the course of his long career. Jarman would be honored with a juvenile Oscar, too, showcasing the easy talent this young man had. 

The story follows the Baxter family: Ezra “Penny” Baxter (Gregory Peck), his wife Ora (Jane Wyman), and their son Jody (Claude Jarman Jr.). They are pioneer farmers near Lake George, Florida, in the late 1800s, and, despite being the only one of seven children to survive childbirth, Jody has a strained relationship with his mother, who is haunted by the deaths of the other children. Jody and his father, however, have a good relationship despite Jody’s penchant for playing rather than working. She fears that if she shows love for the boy, he will end up dying, too, and thus he is growing up feeling that she is unloving and overly harsh with him. 

While out in the wilderness one day, Penny is bitten by a rattlesnake. He kills a doe and uses her liver to draw out the venom, leaving behind an orphaned fawn. Jody, who has always wanted a pet but has been denied by Ora because of the expense, begs his father to let him have the fawn. Penny agrees on the condition that when the fawn grows, Jody must turn him loose. Jody and the fawn become fast friends and are virtually inseparable. But as the fawn grows, problems arise. Weather destroys the family crops. Then, when they plant a new batch, the fawn destroys them, feasting on the young plants. After attempts to keep the fawn out fail, it becomes obvious that something far more drastic will have to be done. 

Steps were made to make this fawn, named Flag by Jody’s friend Fodderwing, as cute as possible to really drive home just how tragic everything is here. We are to understand all the reasons why it has to end the way that it does while at the same time not wanting it to go down that road. The end of this film is hard to watch and more than a few young kids will find it traumatic, but it is also a final life lesson learned the hard way by a boy who was blissfully ignorant up to that point. 

A mother’s love can be complicated, too. Ora’s losses have her fearing growing too close to her surviving son. At first, we aren’t to understand just why she is so hard on him. That changes when we see her weeping at the side of a line of tombstones representing all those lost children. Her fear has kept her from showing genuine affection for her child despite her feeling that love deep in her soul. When Jody runs away and nearly dies, she fears that her treatment of the boy, and how she handled Flag, may have cost her her only remaining child. Their reconciliation represents a new chapter in their relationship, one that we believe will be more warm than what has led up to it. 

Jody learns a few hard lessons over the course of this film. He learns the value of hard work after his father is injured, and he has to step up his responsibilities. His love for Flag drives this, as it becomes clear that either he pulls things together and becomes the man of the house and the farm, or Flag has to go. This motivates him to set aside childish things and do some hard labor. When all that work proves naught, he is tasked with the most dreaded task a young boy can have: take Flag out into the woods, stake him up so he cannot flee, and shoot him. Jody, who has only recently lost his friend, Fodderwing, to illness, is not prepared to commit such an act of violence to what he sees as an innocent deer and his only remaining friend. Penny, who is still laid up from his injury, perhaps believes that if he has Ora do this task, it will cause a permanent wedge between the two and instead orders Jody to do the task. Whatever the reasoning behind it, it backfires and nearly does cause a permanent rift between them. 

When Jody runs away, he is still thinking like a child, upset over the loss of his pet, but when he returns, he is changed. His father quotes the Bible: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) Growing up can be hard, and there are many life lessons that come with it. We are seeing that through the eyes of a child, innocent at first but losing that innocence in the end. It’s a harsh reality but one that all of us have to confront as we leave behind childish things and enter adulthood. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Motion Picture: Sydney Franklin

Best Director: Clarence Brown

Best Actor: Gregory Peck

Best Actress: Jane Wyman

Best Art Direction - Color: Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, and Edwin B. Willis (won)

Best Cinematography - Color: Charles Rosher, Leonard Smith, and Arthur Arling: (won)

Best Film Editing: Harold F. Kress

Academy Juvenile Award: Claude Jarman Jr. (won)

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Release Date: December 18, 1946

Running Time: 128 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, and Claude Jarman Jr.

Directed by: Clarence Brown