Journey for Margaret 1942 DvdRip Avi Lee1001

Journey for Margaret 1942 DvdRip Avi Lee1001



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034923/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_for_Margaret



Journey for Margaret is an American war film first released in 1942, directed by W.S. Van Dyke and Herbert Kline. The film is based on a play by David Hertz and William Ludwig and stars Robert Young, Laraine Day, Fay Bainter and Nigel Bruce and Margaret O'Brien. It is a Loew’s production, produced by B.P. Fineman.





December 18, 1942

When the big bombers come, little children do not count for much. They are part of the jetsam, living and dead, that is lifted from the ruins and rubble that once were homes. But what can happen to childhood in that horror is the substance of one of the year's rare and shining achievements from Hollywood. In "Journey for Margaret," the new film at the Capitol, David Hertz and William Ludwig have adapted, and W. S. Van Dyke 2d directed a drama to stand beside the few unballyhooed classics of the screen. By the slightest and simplest of means they have created a picture of tortured childhood that will not soon be forgotten by any one who has ever loved a child. Not in recent experience has Broadway seen a film so fervent, so tender or so perceptive and true.





For once, Hollywood has given us something to be grateful for—grateful that it has taken W. L. White's fine story of the waifs of war and retold it honestly and without pretense; grateful that it has shown us these lost and lonely faces staring fearfully at the sky out of an unknown habit, these wide-eyed 4-year-olds in the London air raid shelters repeating "Now I lay me down to sleep"—when the Heinkels come down, these little children clinging desperately to a toy as the only connection with a past that was secure. They are the haunting and heartbreaking images of "Journey for Margaret," the children in whom childhood is dead.





These are the children who cluster about John Davis, a world-weary newspaper correspondent who comes with his pregnant wife from tottering France to London. There a bombing accident during the blitz makes it impossible for the wife to bear any children. But in the dead emotional aftermath, Davis, on a chance assignment, wanders into an orphan's nursery superintended by a knowing refugee woman. Among these stricken faces he is at once "adopted" equally by a little girl and a 3-year-old boy. After an agonizing interval in which it seems impossible to take them both, he brings the two to America by plane.



"Oh God, give me the wisdom, give me the strength to stay mad," Davis had said after seeing a mother stare with incredible eyes at her dead child in London's flaming streets. One could add as well the wish that Hollywood will always be so wise as when it shows little Peter, who thought he was going to be left behind, toddle without speaking up the steps into the strange and frightening home of another family that wishes to adopt him. We hope that Holly-wood will always be perceptive enough to see the cruel comedy of the fearful children clinging tightly to the stumbling legs of the one friend they trust and are afraid to lose. Director Van Dyke and his authors have made a film of childhood as if they knew that all the heartbreak lay in childhood's dumb inability to speak and tell its wounds.



Of little Margaret O'Brien, herself a wartime migrant, who plays the title role, one can hardly say that she gives a performance—it is too taut and true for that. William Severn as Peter is the very symbol of gauche and inarticulate helplessness. The children are so moving that one is almost apt to overlook the really fine performance of Robert Young in one of the most unpretentious and sensitive portraits he has given. Laraine Day as the wife, after an unsteady moment or two, does well as the wife suffering from emotional shock, and Fay Bainter and Nigel Bruce handle supporting roles admirably.



"Journey for Margaret" has its occasional lapses into postured sentimentality, but in a picture so fine one forgives its faults freely. For there is a hurt in "Journey for Margaret," a hurt that will remain long after these desperate years and until these children have learned again to trust the sky and more—to trust human beings. It is going to take more than victory alone to dry these tears. But the compassion that marks "Journey for Margaret" will go far to help them.



JOURNEY FOR MARGARET; screen play by David Hertz and William Ludwig; based on the book by William L. White; directed by Major W. S. Van Dyke 2d; produced by B. P. Fineman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.



MGM's weepy follow-up to the hugely successful hands-across-the sea Anglophilia of Mrs Miniver, this time featuring a nice, average American couple who adopt two orphaned (and disturbed, oh yes indeed) children during the Battle of Britain. Awesomely glutinous, but the fascinating thing about Margaret O'Brien is that, even at the age of five and in only her second film, she was already an accomplished actress rather than a cute personality.

It's a real tearjerker and is rated 4 handkerchiefs.

VIDEO

Size.... 1.12gb

Duration.... 01:21:22

Codec.... XviD

Frame Width.... 640

Frame Height.... 480

Data Rate.... 1853kbps

Frame Rate.... 23 F/S

AUDIO

Bit Rate.... 128kbps.... MP3

2 Channel Stereo

Audio Sample Rate.... 48KHz

Bits Per Sample 16 Bit/Sample