The Yearling (1946)

My Review

“The Yearling” is a heart-warming story about a boy who adopts a young deer as a pet. This family drama has very high production values and earned eight Academy Award nominations, with three wins – Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography (Arthur Arling, Charles Rosher, Leonard Smith), and an Academy Juvenile Award (Claude Jarman Jr.).

The cast includes Jane Wyman and Gregory Peck as the boy’s parents, Claude Jarman Jr. as Jody Baxter, Chill Wills, Clem Bevans, Henry Travers, Forrest Tucker, and June Lockhart. “The Yearling” was the ninth highest grossing film of 1946 for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was filmed in Technicolor with a 128 minute running time from director Clarence Brown (“National Velvet”1944). The screenplay was penned by Paul Osborn, adapted from the 1938 novel of the same name by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.