Main Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Laraine Day, Robert Young, Fay Bainter, Nigel Bruce
Release Year: 1942
Country: US
Run Time: 81 minutes
Plot
This wartime weeper could just as well have been titled Stardom for Margaret, inasmuch as it solidified the popularity of that remarkable child actress Margaret O'Brien. While visiting London, American married couple Robert Young and Laraine Day are caught in the middle of the 1940 blitz. Losing her unborn child during the bombing, Day sadly heads back to the U.S., while her journalist husband stays behind to cover late-breaking events. Young makes the acquaintance of O'Brien and Clifford Severn, children orphaned by the blitz. After pulling the shell-shocked O'Brien out of her near-catatonic state, Young decides to adopt both children and take them back to his wife in the States. There are some tense moments as Young tilts at the stepped-up immigration restrictions, but he is finally able to bring his new family home. Journey for Margaret stars Robert Young and Margaret O'Brien would be reunited two decades later on an episode of Young's TV series Marcus Welby MD, in which Ms. O'Brien played a patient suffering from obesity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Journey for Margaret is a much better picture than one might think. Yes, it's an unashamed tearjerker, one which is not above a bit of audience manipulation as it searches for ways to get those tear ducts flowing. But it DOES bring forth tears in most people, and while some of it is undeserved dramatically, much more of it comes about because the story Journey tells is indeed an emotionally harrowing one. Dealing as it does with orphaned children during wartime, Journey can't help but melt the heart, and it's to its credit that it doesn't go too far overboard and become the kind of cloying, overly sentimental weepie that it easily could have been. The screenplay deserves some credit for this, but it's the director and cast that really give Journey its glow. Margaret O'Brien, of course, became a star as a result of Journey, and it's easy to see why. Though occasionally mannered, hers is a remarkable performance for someone so very young, and she really plays her scenes for all they're worth. William Severn is perhaps not quite as accomplished as an actor, but as an appealing and heartbreaking child, he's first rate. And Robert Young, in what could have been a thankless part, makes sure that he's not just there as something for the kids to hang onto. He makes sure that his character is every bit as important as the children, and his chemistry with the younger ones is crucial to Journey's success. Young's lovely, sensitive turn, and the performances of all the cast, were undoubtedly aided by W.S. Van Dyke's attentive, caring direction. Journey holds up quite well, unlike other "weepies" from the era which are often a laugh fest for modern audiences. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Cedric Gibbons - Art Director, Richard A. Pefferle - Art Director, Edwin B. Willis - Art Director, Wade B. Rubottom - Art Director, Robert Kalloch - Costume Designer, W.S. Van Dyke - Director, George White - Editor, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco - Composer (Music Score), Sol Kaplan - Composer (Music Score), Franz Waxman - Composer (Music Score), Ray June - Cinematographer, B.F. Fineman - Producer, B.P. Fineman - Producer, Richard A. Pefferle - Set Designer, Edwin B. Willis - Set Designer, David Hertz - Screenwriter, William Ludwig - Screenwriter, William L. White - Book Author
John Davis is a correspondent in England during World War II before the US gets into the war. He and his wife Nora are expecting their first child, but she loses the baby in an air raid and the doctor has to perform a hysterectomy, so she can have no more children. She returns to the US and John gets involved with orphan children Peter and Margaret by chance. The movie highlights the horrors of war as seen through the eyes of the children. John writes a story about Margaret and Peter and eventually takes them to America, where he and Nora adopt them.
