Ida Lupino directed this story of Sally Forrest, a dancer who contracts polio and winds up doing a long stretch in a rehabilitation facility. It seems to be one of a spate of movies in the last half of the 1940s that dealt with physical disability, some better than others. "The Men" was far more dramatic and so was the blinded John Garfield in "Pride of the Marines". The plight of one of the characters in "The Best Years of Our Lives" was heartbreaking.
Along with other studies of disabilities, like "Bright Victory," "Never Fear" is rather routine. It takes us through the varying degrees of acceptance of the disability and shows us what the process of rehabilitation and physical therapy look like. It's not a bad film. It's just that it was one example out of many, and some of the others are better done. We're looking here at a movie with animated points of view. It's largely predictable and the performances -- again, not shameful -- just pedestrian. And the central figure is a woman instead of a wounded veteran. The principal idea behind her recovery is a cliché. Therapy doesn't work unless you FIGHT for it to work. You must WANT to recover. You have to "stop feeling sorry for yourself." That takes us into free will and a bit beyond, which is unfamiliar territory for me.
Sally Forrest is an attractive actress and appears to have had some dance training. Her on-screen career was that of a dancer who was a rising star before being struck down by the virus. As her fiancé, Keefe Brasselle hits his marks and projects the proper emotions. Hugh O'Brian is on hand as another patient to provide reassurance. Confined to a wheelchair, he struts less than usual.
Ida Lupino's direction is functional but sometimes it's hard to tell what's going on. At one point, Forrest collapses emotionally and shouts at Brasselle, "I'm a CRIPPLE!" She and her lover then have an angry exchange and Lupino has framed Brasselle with a life-sized statue of Pan or Bacchus -- or sometimes only its mysterious shadow -- behind him. The image is marked and repeated. If the director was getting at something, it eluded me.
Polio was a terrible disease. President Franklin D. Roosevelt literally could not walk. Photos always show him seated or holding someone's arm. Both of his legs were encased in steel braces, and he imitated walking by swinging his right and left hips forward, one at a time, the momentum carrying each leg with it. There was a massive outbreak in the US as recently as 1952, and it left some dead and the rest disabled to some degree. Due to considerable effort by WHO and The March of Dimes, Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine, which virtually eliminated the disease in all but a few nations. Salk refused to patent his discovery. He gave the cure to the rest of the world, free of charge. Where are the altruists of today?
Along with other studies of disabilities, like "Bright Victory," "Never Fear" is rather routine. It takes us through the varying degrees of acceptance of the disability and shows us what the process of rehabilitation and physical therapy look like. It's not a bad film. It's just that it was one example out of many, and some of the others are better done. We're looking here at a movie with animated points of view. It's largely predictable and the performances -- again, not shameful -- just pedestrian. And the central figure is a woman instead of a wounded veteran. The principal idea behind her recovery is a cliché. Therapy doesn't work unless you FIGHT for it to work. You must WANT to recover. You have to "stop feeling sorry for yourself." That takes us into free will and a bit beyond, which is unfamiliar territory for me.
Sally Forrest is an attractive actress and appears to have had some dance training. Her on-screen career was that of a dancer who was a rising star before being struck down by the virus. As her fiancé, Keefe Brasselle hits his marks and projects the proper emotions. Hugh O'Brian is on hand as another patient to provide reassurance. Confined to a wheelchair, he struts less than usual.
Ida Lupino's direction is functional but sometimes it's hard to tell what's going on. At one point, Forrest collapses emotionally and shouts at Brasselle, "I'm a CRIPPLE!" She and her lover then have an angry exchange and Lupino has framed Brasselle with a life-sized statue of Pan or Bacchus -- or sometimes only its mysterious shadow -- behind him. The image is marked and repeated. If the director was getting at something, it eluded me.
Polio was a terrible disease. President Franklin D. Roosevelt literally could not walk. Photos always show him seated or holding someone's arm. Both of his legs were encased in steel braces, and he imitated walking by swinging his right and left hips forward, one at a time, the momentum carrying each leg with it. There was a massive outbreak in the US as recently as 1952, and it left some dead and the rest disabled to some degree. Due to considerable effort by WHO and The March of Dimes, Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine, which virtually eliminated the disease in all but a few nations. Salk refused to patent his discovery. He gave the cure to the rest of the world, free of charge. Where are the altruists of today?