I'm not sure how he managed to succeed in landing the role of the son, every time he was on screen he really stood out and not in a good way. Nearly every scene he was in he had a fixed cheesey grin from ear to ear and struggled badly whenever he delivered his lines. This pretty much spoilt a lot of the film as it was irksome and distracting. Am i alone in this?
sharePossibly
shareMost definitely so
shareMaybe the fact that Richard Ney and Greer Garson were lovers and eventually married explains why he was in this picture.
share"Maybe the fact that Richard Ney and Greer Garson were lovers and eventually married explains why he was in this picture."
I had no idea they were married. I looked up their respective ages during the time of filming, and Richard was around 25-26 and Greer was 35-36.
I had no problem with Richard playing the son. He's smarmy, well-educated and well-off, and life seems unshakeable. I think that helped to contrast their later misfortunes.
I found a funny blog about Old Hollywood, and about that marriage they said:
<< Garson would take 1946 off from acting to try and save her marriage to Ney which would be in vain as they would divorce the following year. They would go through a very nasty public divorce where Greer would testify about his physical and mental abuse, citing that he called her a "has-been" and belittled her age. >>
Oh dear. And I do like Greer Garson well enough, though about her Oscar they say:
<< For those of you who aren't really a Greer Garson fan you might be asking yourself who she beat out for the Academy Award since she was a British woman born into a middle class family playing a British woman from a middle class family, not a huge stretch. >>
That made me laugh : )
.
Hah, thanks for those tidbits. So I not only had no idea they were married, but also had no clue they were married for such a short time. The pictures I saw of them together looked like they were married for quite a while, because Ney has a beard and looks much older (could've sworn he was in his 40s in some pics w/ Greer).
Oh Hollywood, you tempestuous thing, you!
This is the blogspot that had a lot about Greer Garson (including pics from her stage appearances before coming to Hollywood)
http://myloveofoldhollywood.blogspot.com/2011/03/greer-garson-1904-1996.html
Apparently that husband kept her "captive" on their Austrian honeymoon!! THE BLIGHTER!!!
.
He seemed like such a nice guy but it sounds like he was something of a walking terror. ☹️
Thanks for the link to that blogspot. It has a lot of really cool photographs on there.
I believe Garson and Ney first met on the sets of this film and fell in love, so she couldn't have gotten him this role. I thought he was quite OK in this role. Yes, he was not very seasoned, but he did what was required of him. I wouldn't have guessed that was 26 when he played the part of a teenager in this film.
shareI think he was great in the part. He was suppose to be an idealistic well educated young man.
As for Ney's and Garson's affair and marriage, I first heard of that from Robert Osbourne on TMC.