BLOSSOMS IN THE DUST

US, 1941, 95 minutes, Colour.
Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Marsha Hunt.
Directed by Mervyn Le Roy.

Blossoms in the Dust is one of the classic Greer Garson- Walter Pidgeon films. It was made at the time of their greatest success, Mrs. Miniver. The film is full of emotion and sentiment. Those who dislike American sentiment might find Greer too noble and the film too sentimental.

However, it is a noble-minded film, with something to say about the plight of orphans and the stigma of illegitimacy. It is well worth discussing even though it is from the early 1940s and deals with a period thirty years before that.

1. What was the significance of the title?

2. How moving is this film decades after its release? Why?

3. What was the message of the film? Was it effectively communicated?

4. Was the film sentimental or genuinely moving?

5. How important was Greer Garson's 'typically noble' performance for the impact of the film?

6. How happy was the opening of the film? How was this achieved? Did the happiness and the audience interest in marriage make Charlotte's tragedy more moving? Why?

7. Why did Charlotte shoot herself? Is it possible for a modern audience to appreciate such feelings about illegitimacy? Which characters were to blame for the death?

8. What effects did Charlotte's death have on Edna and Sam?

9. How well did Edna and Sam love each other? Comment on the film's techniques for building up their relationship.

10. Were you expecting the death of their son? What effect did the death of the son have ? especially in relation to the difficulty of his birth and Edna's inability to have another child?

11. Did Sam and the doctor have the right to get Edna to come out of her superficial social life trying to forget?

12. How did Edna change because of her involvement with the children?

13. Was the effect of Edna's kindness convincingly drawn?

14. How moving was Sam's bankruptcy? How did Edna support him? Was she right in taking in the orphans? Why were people against her?

15. How did the particular episodes help the audience understand her work and its importance ? the couples who came to adopt children, the severe woman who wanted a child, the gangster?

16. How important was Tony, especially after Sam's death? How did her parting with him form a crisis and a victory for her selflessness?

17. Why did she campaign so vigorously about legal illegitimacy? What were her reasons and principles? Was she right? why was she so vigorously opposed? How important was her victory?

18. What kind of woman did Edna emerge as by the end of the film? How heroic, admirable, worthy of imitation? Why?

19. What did the film say about marriage and love and service for a woman apart from marriage?

20. What would be the lasting effects of a film like this?