CYNTHIA

US, 1947, 98 minutes. Black and white.
Elizabeth Taylor, George Murphy, Mary Astor, S.Z. Sakall, Gene Lockhart, Spring Byington, Jimmy Lydon, Scotty Beckett.
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard.

Cynthia was a star vehicle for Elizabeth Taylor as she moved from child actress to adult actress. It was made at the same time as she appeared with Jane Powell with A Date With Judy.

The film is a small film, in black and white. Elizabeth Taylor is the sickly daughter of George Murphy and Mary Astor. Murphy gives a sympathetic performance as a good man who takes advice from everyone else and doesn’t assert himself (until the end of the film). Mary Astor is once again a sympathetic mother but also has a stubborn streak. The supporting cast includes S.Z. Sakall as the music professor at the high school. Jimmy Lydon (the Henry Aldrich films) is Elizabeth Taylor’s boyfriend.

The story is conventional enough. It opens with the romance of George Murphy and Mary Astor, moves to the birth of Elizabeth Taylor and then her growing up. She is protected because of suspected illness, especially from her uncle played by Gene Lockhart, the local doctor, a snobbish man who has an impossible daughter played by Carol Brannon.

Elizabeth Taylor looks beautiful, was only fifteen at the time of making the film. She is wilful and stubborn, determined to have an ordinary adolescent life – which she achieves with the help of her mother and her father finally standing up to people who put him down.

The film was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, director of many films at MGM including The Great Ziegfeld and Pride and Prejudice.

1. An appealing film of the 1940s? 1940s plots and interest?

2. Small town America, the town itself, homes, stores, the school? The black and white photography? The musical score – and Elizabeth Taylor singing?

3. The prologue, Larry and Louise, Louise telling the story, studying together, their ambitions, music, medicine? Their marriage? Having to move to the small town and living there? Louise as a housewife? Larry subservient in the store with the tyrannical boss?

4. Cynthia, her age, her illness? Her parents looking after her? Uncle Fred and his visits, his prescriptions for Cynthia? Carrie and her snobbishness? Doni and her relationship with her cousin, the rivalry?

5. Cynthia alone, feeling lonely, pampered, beginning to resent people’s concern about her health? Her meeting with Ricky? His walking her home, her defying the weather, getting the flu? The issue of the audition, her singing, the professor supporting her, her being unwell? Her gradually recovering, listening to the musical on the radio but turning it off? Her mother’s concern, being her daughter’s confidante? Her father always obeying the doctor? Her mother’s plan for the prom, the dress, going out, urging Larry to go out to his meeting? Cynthia at the dance, Ricky and his escorting her, the flowers, the dancing? Doni’s accident? With Will Parker and the awkwardness? Doni complaining that Cynthia had done this? Going on after the dance? At home with her mother, the wet clothes, sleeping in? Her exuberance? Getting better? The possibility of moving away from the town, her wanting to stay, going steady with Ricky? The happy resolutions of all the problems?

6. Louise, her life, at home, sympathetic? Caring for her daughter? Larry, his work, being put upon at work, his boss? His finally deciding to tell his boss off? The tensions with Louise about Cynthia? The boss coming hat in hand to ask him to come back? Standing up to Fred?

7. The professor, sympathetic, the musical, the singing, his praise of Cynthia, his visits?

8. Fred and his wife, the weekly visits, the meals, snobbery? Doni, her making mischief, arranging the partners for the prom? Her comeuppance with the collapse?

9. Ricky, sympathetic, the boy next door? Will Parker and his helping out?

10. The supporting characters, at school, the Jannings’ nurse, the English teacher, the principal of the school? A piece of small town Americana?