Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Best movie ever!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's good enough when a movie can impress me with an excellent performance delivered from an actor whom I didn't think had the chops to do so, now multiply that by three and you've got The Country Girl.I had only previously seen Bing Crosby in several musicals and comedies. He's never struck me as an enigmatic screen presence but serviceable none the less. Thus surprise performance # 1 in The Country Girl. Why didn't Crosby do more dramatic roles in his career? This is one of most powerful performances I've ever seen as a washed up alcoholic performer who has hit rock bottom. Like Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend and Jack Lemon in Days of Wine and Roses, Crosby's performance has helped convince me never to start drinking (or at least that would be the case since I've never had any intention of starting). Yet I would still say he's outdone by William Holden, surprise performance #2. I've found Holden to be very hit or miss as an actor, possibly relying on great directors to get a good performance out of him otherwise he comes off to me as forgettable. The jury is still out on his abilities as an actor but never less after watching The Country Girl again I can say this is my favourite performance I've seen him deliver giving so much raw energy as a driven stage producer.Finally in the triangle of surprise is Grace Kelly. Prior to watching The Country Girl I was becoming increasingly anti-Grace Kelly, questioning if she was even a very good actress. Here in this dowdy, playing against type role, my opinion of her changed. I have a rule when it comes to reviewing not to talk about Oscars as I see complaining about awards to be futile and cliché. Yet this is one exception in which I'm forced to break it due to the controversy surrounding her win. Judy Garland's role in A Star Is Born is one of my favourite film performances of all time and should have won her the Oscar that year however if The Country Girl had been released most other years I would have been more than happy to see Grace Kelly get the Oscar. Without delving into a mindless praise fest I really was left flabbergasted by this trio of performers aided with the help of the film's unforgettable sense of atmosphere as Grace Kelly puts best herself: "There's nothing quite so mysterious and silent as a dark theatre, a night without a star."

Years ago, Frank Elgin (Bing Crosby) was a successful singer and actor, but a tragedy turned him in to an alcoholic loser and his wife, Georgie (Grace Kelly), into a bitter shrew. A young Broadway director (William Holden) wants Frank to star in his new show, but Frank's drinking and his uncooperative wife may spell disaster. This stark and touching drama has both Bing and Grace playing against type and they're both wonderful. Bing plays the weak has-been with utter sincerity and Grace drabs it up to play the nagging wife. She won Best Actress and he was nominated for Best Actor. The two reunited two years later in "High Society," playing carefree socialites, showing their versatility. William Holden is excellent as the demanding director who pulls a good performance out of Frank and shakes up the angry Georgie. The script draws on the themes of guilt, alcoholism, and redemption and the black and white photography emphasizes Frank and Georgie's misery. It's a very good and thought-provoking film.

Well, it won Grace Kelly an Academy Award and it's easy to see why. She was delicious in a couple of earlier movies and positively supernal in "Rear Window." Here, too, she's playing against type -- not the glamorous, elegant blond but the beaten-down mousy wife in glasses, holding up her enfeebled alcoholic husband, Bing Crosby. But was she really actress enough for such a melodramatic role? Yes and no. She does okay, slumping her drab way through the role, radiating exhaustion. But when it comes to angry shouting she seems uncomfortable, as if in violation of the rules of the convent school in which she'd been educated.I don't know if that can be held against her. This is from a play by Clifford Odets and so all of the lines sound as if they were written for the stage. Nobody else sound especially natural either. Her worst moment is her most intense -- when the director, William Holden, who's trying to resurrect Crosby's career chews her out, blaming her for all of Crosby's weaknesses. She turns and slaps Holden hard across the face, then says with what intensity she can gather, "Did I forget to tell you I was proud?" That's pretty pompous stuff.With regard to that scene, it's a good illustration of the mediocre and middle-brow talent of the film's director, George Seaton. The pauses after the slap and after the devastating line are long. Very long. The camera lingers on the two figures in medium shot, waiting, one supposes, for the gasps to die down in the audience. You know, a good, efficient director of Grade B movies, which this is, at heart, would have given the audience credit enough to understand this is an important incident and would have edited his way quickly through it. Sam Fuller, nobody's idea of a self-important artist, would have introduced somehow a touch of irony.But director Seaton more or less stumbles through this stagy plot and exercises no discernible imagination in his staging. He's also responsible for the screenplay, which turns far too much time over to Bing Crosby singing vapid songs and cuts out what was one of the most important events in the play -- the scene in which the Holden character provokes the Crosby character into improvising a stunning angry speech in front of the producers. The power of that improvisation leaves the producers speechless and secures the job for Crosby.I remember that scene because many years ago I played Larry the Stage Manager in a college production of "The Country Girl." I was a far better Larry the Stage Manager than Gene Reynolds, who plays Larry the Stage Manager in the movie. I can prove I was better. I even got a fan letter. True, the letter was written by my girl friend, and, true, I had to threaten to pull her hair to get her to write it. But I'm morally certain when she thought about it later, she realized her accolade was justified. It's not a terrible movie, but it's not what it might have been. Holden is constantly on the edge of exploding. Crosby's performance belongs in a movie with Dorothy Lamour. And Kelly's exhaustion is exhausting. Most of the flaws I attribute to the director.

Seaton's film doesn't hold up as well on repeated viewings. I first watched this last year and was very impressed with the film, and its three central performances from Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly (who controversially won the Oscar over Judy Garland) and William Holden. While I still remain impressed by the engaging performances, I find much of what surrounds the three stars to be flat. The musical numbers in the play-within-a-film, "The Land Around Us" are very ordinary. No wonder Crosby's Frank Elgin receives bad reviews. Seaton doesn't really try to open up the film, adapted from the award-winning Clifford Odets play, and the result is a visually tired film. On subsequent viewings the Odets dialogue is still powerful but several exchanges feel incredibly fake. When Grace Kelly says "The theatre is mysterious" it goes against the grain of what we have already seen of her character. I seem to be bagging the film quite a lot, but I do enjoy it. Holden is excellent and gives the best performance of the film. Crosby is also very good, and Kelly, for all the criticism over her winning the Oscar gong over Garland, does a very admirable job with a difficult character. Watch it for the three stars.