MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Up 2,377 this week

The Country Girl (1954)

 -  Drama | Music  -  17 May 1955 (USA)
7.3
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 7.3/10 from 2,823 users  
Reviews: 56 user | 19 critic

A director hires an alcoholic has-been and strikes up a stormy relationship with the actor's wife, whom he believes is the cause of all the man's problems.

Director:

Writers:

(play), (written for the screen by)
Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 1555 titles created 11 months ago
 
a list of 3595 titles created 1 month ago
 
a list of 421 titles created 3 months ago
 
a list of 250 titles created 23 Apr 2011
 
a list of 56 titles created 24 Sep 2011
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: The Country Girl (1954)

The Country Girl (1954) on IMDb 7.3/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of The Country Girl.
Won 2 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 9 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

All About Eve (1950)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.4/10 X  

An ingenue insinuates herself in to the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends.

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Stars: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie. His reunion with his father, Big Daddy, who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Director: Richard Brooks
Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.

Director: Elia Kazan
Stars: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.1/10 X  

The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four day drinking bout.

Director: Billy Wilder
Stars: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry
Drama | Film-Noir
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

An unhappy man threatens suicide by standing on the ledge of a high-rise building for 14 hours.

Director: Henry Hathaway
Stars: Paul Douglas, Richard Basehart, Barbara Bel Geddes
Oliver Twist I (1922)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

Oliver's mother, a penniless outcast, died giving birth to him. As a young boy Oliver is brought up in a workhouse, later apprenticed to an uncaring undertaker, and eventually is taken in ... See full summary »

Director: Frank Lloyd
Stars: Jackie Coogan, James A. Marcus, Aggie Herring
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

An emotionally remote recovering alcoholic and his dowdy, unambitious wife face a personal crisis when they take in an attractive lodger.

Director: Daniel Mann
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, Terry Moore
East of Eden (1955)
Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

In the Salinas Valley, in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother Aron for the love of their father Adam. Cal is frustrated at ... See full summary »

Director: Elia Kazan
Stars: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

The loons are back again on Golden Pond and so are Norman Thayer, a retired professor, and Ethel who have had a summer cottage there since early in their marriage. This summer their ... See full summary »

Director: Mark Rydell
Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

A troublemaking student at a girls' school accuses two teachers of being lesbians.

Director: William Wyler
Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.

Director: Robert Rossen
Stars: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

"Tiger" Haynes (Chaney) is a animal trapper in China who lives with his beautiful daughter, Toyo (Velez). Toyo soon becomes romantically involved with Bobby (Hughes), who turns out to be ... See full summary »

Director: Tod Browning
Stars: Lon Chaney, Lupe Velez, Estelle Taylor
Edit

Cast

Complete credited cast:
...
...
...
Anthony Ross ...
Gene Reynolds ...
Larry
Jacqueline Fontaine ...
Lounge Singer
Eddie Ryder ...
Ed
Robert Kent ...
John W. Reynolds ...
Henry Johnson
Edit

Storyline

Washed up singer/actor Frank Elgin has a chance to make a come-back when director Bernie Dodd offers him the leading role in his new musical. Frank however is very insecure, turns to alcohol and shuns even the smallest of responsibilities, leaving everything up to his wife Georgie who finds it harder and harder to cope with her husband's lack of spirit. Bernie tries to help Frank regain his self-confidence, believing that it is Georgie who's the cause of his insecurity. Written by Leon Wolters <wolters@strw.LeidenUniv.nl>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

director | alcoholic | actor | song | ultimatum | See more »

Taglines:

How far should a woman go...to redeem the man she loves?

Genres:

Drama | Music

Certificate:

Approved | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

17 May 1955 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Ein Mädchen vom Lande  »

Filming Locations:

 »

Company Credits

Production Co:

 »
Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

(Western Electric Recording)

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

The original Broadway production of "The Country Girl" by Clifford Odets opened at the Lyceum Theater on November 10, 1950 and ran for 236 performances. Uta Hagen won the 1951 Tony Award for Actress in a Drama for the role of Georgie Elgin, the same role that won Grace Kelly her only Academy Award for Best Actress. See more »

Quotes

Bernie Dodd: Does your wife really want you to play this part?
Frank Elgin: Yeah, she's all for it
Bernie Dodd: I was just wondering. The day I met her, she seemed a little difficult about terms and rather domineering, I thought.
Frank Elgin: She wasn't always like that
Bernie Dodd: Oh I know, I know. They all start out as Juliets and wind up as Lady Macbeths.
See more »

Connections

Referenced in 'White Christmas': A Look Back with Rosemary Clooney (2000) See more »

Soundtracks

"The Search Is Through"
by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin
Sung by Bing Crosby
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
Brilliant except for amateurishly dull musical interludes...
15 October 2005 | by (U.S.A.) – See all my reviews

BING CROSBY gives his all to the role of a washed up actor fixated on guilt (and the bottle) while GRACE KELLY and WILLIAM HOLDEN give even finer performances as the two people who quarrel over how to reform his guzzling ways.

The weakness here is not the script. It's the dull musical numbers assigned to Crosby, who carries them off in the usual amiable Crosby manner, before he reverts to character as Frank Elgin. Nevertheless, when he's down and out, he gives a very painfully convincing portrait of a weak alcoholic man who shifts all of the blame to his wife. I suspect Clifford Odets may have based his portrait of this weak man on actor Frank Fay (once married to Barbara Stanwyck), whose career was destroyed by alcoholism and who depended on breezy charm for his appeal.

There are some really searing scenes between Kelly and Holden, fireworks that never seem less than realistic as a result of two completely realized characters that come to life in a well-written script. Holden is particularly fine in a difficult, demanding role that forces him to gradually shift his sympathy as he realizes who the real culprit is. His performance is the strongest of the three stars.

Grace Kelly subdues her aristocratic ways (and her prissy affected manners and voice) to play a woman who knows what the truth is behind her husband's weakness. She looks as forlorn and beaten as the script requires, always completely in touch with her character's moods and feelings. There are little nuances all along that show what a fine actress she could be under superb direction and given some brilliant dialog.

Fascinating as a portrait of theater people, but a letdown whenever it strays into the producing of a show that looks to be as feeble as any amateur production could be with hopes of becoming Broadway bound.

Neverthelss, a gritty, searing, truthful drama that is well worth watching for the performances alone.


5 of 7 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
She Definitely Deserved the Oscar!! mmrealtyleague
Frank or Bernie? Jege_87
Good film... clarencejr
Voice LittleChineseSeamstress
Where the theater scenes were filmed eliam-1
Discuss The Country Girl (1954) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?