Twentieth Century-Fox
Directed by Henry Koster
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Fox Movie Channel)
Jennifer Jones is Miss Dove, a stiff, unemotional schoolteacher in a typical small American town. Year after year she molds her young students into upstanding citizens regardless of their background. She takes ill one afternoon and is literally carried to the hospital, the whole town behind her. From her hospital bed, while waiting for test results, she is visited by old students. The film is essentially a series of flashbacks, each student's vignette showing how Miss Dove made a lifelong impression. This plot device is almost a gimmick and is overused, leading to far too many flashbacks. As a result, the film is never really allowed to congeal and feels fragmented. I wish Jones had been allowed to show just a little emotion, but I suppose that is the character. The outcome is never in doubt, I mean how could such a beloved hero die?
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