My Son John
| My Son John | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Leo McCarey |
| Produced by | Leo McCarey |
| Written by |
Myles Connolly and Leo McCarey, adapted by John Lee Mahin |
| Starring |
Helen Hayes Van Heflin Robert Walker Dean Jagger |
| Music by | Robert Emmett Dolan |
| Cinematography | Harry Stradling |
| Edited by | Marvin Coil |
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Production
company |
Rainbow Productions
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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122 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
My Son John is a 1952 American drama film, starring Robert Walker as a man whose parents suspect he may be working as a Communist spy. It was directed by Leo McCarey. One of the last films produced as part of Hollywood's contribution to McCarthyism, the film received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story, possibly an attempt by Hollywood to signal its loyalty to red-baiting officials in Washington.
Paramount built interest in the project by reporting the casting of each role, beginning with the news that Helen Hayes was considering it for her return to film after more than 15 years. The details of the story were kept secret while it was first described in one news report as "a contemporary drama about the relationship between a mother and son, described by McCarey as 'highly emotional but with much humor'". Despite McCarey's "close-mouthed silence" for two months and a public warning to Hayes not to discuss the plot, it was reported that "word has gotten around Hollywood with the authority such wisps of information always have that the son ... is a traitor to his country–an agent of Communist espionage." Daily Variety reported that Hayes, mirroring certain current events, would shoot her son in the film and be tried for his murder. Ten days into shooting, the plot's unknowns continued to garner press coverage. McCarey denied it was the Alger Hiss story and said it had a "happy ending". He offered this:
It's about a mother and father who struggled and slaved. They had no education. They put all their money into higher education for their sons. But one of the kids gets too bright. It poses the problem–how bright can you get?
He takes up a lot of things including atheism. The mother knows only two books–her Bible and her cookbook. But who's brighter in the end-- the mother or the son?
It's such a fragile little point, but so is nuclear fission. It's not bad sometimes to have a small point and get the most out of it.
Hayes denied that the film's "message" attracted her to the project: "I just like the character and the story. I am deadly set against messages as the prime factor for taking a part. But I do feel the picture is a very exciting comment on a certain phase of our living today".
In April 1952, just after the film opened, Bosley Crowther noted that My Son John provided an ironic contrast to all the public outcry about Communist subversion in the film industry on the part of the American Legion and the Catholic War Veterans. He wrote:
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