A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
Dir. Elia Kazan
Throughout his career Elia Kazan would shake the cinema to its very foundations with powerful dramas that forever changed the landscape of Hollywood acting. His preference for working with relative unknown method actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean and for examining hot-button social issues resulted in one of the most influential cinematic careers in American history. His first feature-length film A Tree Grows in Brooklyn announced his presence like a gunshot. Based on the 1943 novel of the same name by Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn examines the coming-of-age of Francie Nolan (Peggy Ann Garner), an impoverished young girl living in a Brooklyn tenement in the early 20th century. She struggles to survive along with her younger brother Neely (Ted Donaldson), her hard-working and ruthlessly pragmatic mother Katie (Dorothy McGuire), and her well-meaning, big-dreaming father Johnny (James Dunn) who constantly battles with alcoholism. The film concerns itself with the Nolan family’s efforts to make good despite living in near desperate poverty. At the film’s core is a concern with the practicality of dreams. Francie desires to get a good education at a nearby school despite the expenses and illegality of her enrollment. Katie initially refuses saying that she must stay at home and help her make enough money to survive. When she is asked why she doesn’t keep the young Johnny (who has no interest in education) at home instead, Katie responds that it’s so Francie can learn to abandon such fanciful, idealistic notions. Johnny dreams of becoming a popular singer and making enough money to help them all escape the tenements, but Katie consistently neuters those ambitions, forcing him back to merciless reality. But when a marriage, a pregnancy, and a death disrupts their lives, the Nolan family is thrust into chaos. And in the middle? Little Francie, so young and wise. I have to point out, though, that Garner’s performance is the film’s only sore spot. It’s not a bad performance…it’s just a little mature for her years. Despite the reputation Kazan would develop for coaxing naturalistic performances from his actors, Garner’s performance is painfully reminiscent of classic Hollywood children’s acting, i.e. wide-eyed, theatrical line deliveries and dialogue peppered with unnecessarily infantilized phrases. Hearing a young girl say “Oh, Papa” over and over again like a 30-year-old Broadway actress is quite distracting when juxtaposed with the more naturalistic performances of the older actors. But despite this, Garner remains a likeable protagonist and an agreeable host to a world now lost to the a
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