The Country Girl

A stage director (William Holden) hires of a one-time star (Bing Crosby) with a drinking problem only to butt heads with his wife (Grace Kelly).

The Country Girl is a prime example of what a daytime soap would look like with a bigger budget and quality performers.

Littered with orchestra swells and stilted dialog, the script by director George Seaton is full of overwrought melodrama, so much so that the film’s good lines, such as William Holden’s “they all start out as Juliets but end up as Lady MacBeths,” get lost. Of course, Seaton won an Oscar for his script.

Compounding things is the delivery. Seaton packs the film with clichés, from Holden constantly grabbing Grace Kelly to spin her around to face him, to Kelly’s lost stare into space as she relates her character’s troubled past. Then there’s Bing Crosby. You’ve never seen Crosby try so hard, and he almost pulls it off. There are moments, here and there, that are genius, such as Crosby’s duplicity in his public versus private personas, but these are lost amid a sea of tepid dramatic scenes that feel hollow. Crosby never feels like an alcoholic, but rather like a man playing at being one.

Thankfully, the performers all resist the urge to go overboard. There are no big, showy tantrums or overdone cryfests, as the three, Crosby, Kelly, and Holden, try to make the most of the material, but cheap melodrama is still cheap melodrama, even when it’s performed by the best.