Best Actress 1949: Loretta Young in "Come to the Stable"

An overwhelming frontrunner in a praised and award-winning dramatic performance and a field of four nominees that all seem to have not a single chance for the gold, including Loretta Young with a light and charming performance in a popular and crowd-pleasing dramady. The Best Actress category of 1949 appeared to have all the ingredients to become a perfect copy of the race in 1947, only this time the favorite actually managed to win the award – and a loss for Olivia de Havilland might have been an even bigger upset than the loss of Rosalind Russell whose Mourning Becomes Electra was much less acclaimed than The Heiress and who hadn’t established herself as the same kind of admired and respected thespian even if she was among the biggest stars in Hollywood. And simultaneously a win for Loretta Young in 1949 would also have been an even bigger shock than her legendary out-of-nowhere-win in 1947 because it would have been her second Oscar in three years and Come to the Stable is an even less likely ‘Oscar movie’ than the already harmless and unaspiring The Farmer’s Daughter, despite the fact that this story of two nuns who collect money to build a children’s hospital was among the most-nominated movies of 1949 – Oscar voters obviously responded very well to the message and sentimentality of Come to the Stable which shows how never-ending faith and goodness can create little miracles but in the end they denied it an actual award and the outcome in all the races turned out as expected, including the winner of the Best Actress award. But even if Loretta Young did not win another Oscar for her work in Come to the Stable it’s easy to imagine that the movie itself and the character of Sister Margaret were still much closer to her heart than Katrin Holstrom and The Farmer’s Daughter since she was probably the most famous member of the Catholic Church in Hollywood, a devout Christian who liked to set up swear jars on movie sets and apparently more than once annoyed co-star Celeste Holm by telling her to act and behave more like a nun during the filming of Come to the Stable. In some aspects, Come to the Stable therefore appears to be some kind of ‘passion project’ even if it is not the same kind of ‘star vehicle’ that The Farmer’s Daughter had been for Loretta Young – it did not allow her any tricks, didn’t give her any laughs or an engaging love story and instead demanded a very straight-forward approach that would carry the picture without taking away from the overall storyline. And so Come to the Stable never turns into an actor’s showcase but at the same time it completely depended on the actors abilities to bring the sentimentality of the story to live without letting it appear implausible or too sugary. That’s why it cannot be called a true ‘passion project’ because Come to the Stable lives from its simplicity, its modesty and its lack of vanity in every aspect of its implementation and never comes across as the kind of movie that was made out of a deep desire or was the result of live-long efforts – instead, it combines a light playfulness, a slight touch of humor with a visible seriousness and dedication and turns into an artless and often hollow but still strangely engaging story thanks to its worthwhile cast which actively created this playfulness and seriousness and also knew how to balance these two differences. Considering Loretta Young’s own dedication to the Christian faith it is not surprising that hers was the more serious and thoughtful approach while her co-stars Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchaster provided the lighter, more humorous moments of the story. This again further underlined the contrariness of a movie that did not give its actors much to work with while depending on these actors at the same time – Come to the Stable needed its cast to work in harmony with its own modesty and simplicity, therefore asking them to reduce their own presence to the point of becoming a vessel for the story’s message but it also needed their commitment to give this message personality and character. And what does this finally mean for its actors? Looking at the Oscar nominations that Come to the Stable received it appears that they more than succeeded in their tasks and even went beyond any limitations of the script – with three acting nominations, Come to the Stable after all positioned itself above movies like Nashville, Gosford Park, The Best Years of our Lives or Hannah and her Sisters. And so the movie invites to a closer look at its lauded cast to find out if Academy members only allowed themselves to be touched by the inspirational story which made them give their blessing to Loretta Young, Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchaster or if these three actresses, and in particular Loretta Young, were able to use the simplicity of their roles to give performances that subtly suggested and hinted at something more beneath the surface and to inject these characters not only with the message of the screenplay but a life of their own.

The portrayal of characters that can be described as wholly good and wholesome is one that can easily be underestimated. Usually evil or ambiguous characters, anti-heroes that cannot easily be classified gain the larger amount of critical praise. The reason appears simple since these kinds of characters usually give the actors more opportunities to develop their own style, they allow different shades and variations and they tend to create a stronger influence over their picture. But it can actually be more difficult to carry a picture or simply brining a role to live with a constant focus on an undying goodness – Jennifer Jones is a beautiful example of an actress who was able to build her entire performance around the innocence and simplicity of her character in The Song of Bernadette and Gregory Peck almost embodied decency and respect in To Kill a Mockingbird without appearing saint-like in any way. But these two performances also point out that characters like this need to be tested in their goodness, need to face certain challenges to cause a variation in the personality and the performance or there is a danger of repetition and one-dimensionality very soon. Ingrid Bergman’s work in The Bells of St. Mary’s faced these kinds of problems for most of the movie’s running time until the last 15 minutes allowed her to create some haunting moments of self-doubt and quiet desperation. And Paul Scofield’s Sir Thomas Moore would also have been only half as interesting if his adhere to his personal believes had not been responsible for his ultimate downfall. In this aspect, Loretta Young benefitted from the script of Come to the Stable since the struggle of Sister Margaret to raise money for her hospital is its major storyline but Come to the Stable is also a movie that never truly dives into its broader issues and constantly stays on the surface of its own presentation. It never offers any true obstacles but only contemporary setbacks and always wants to keep a certain ‘feel-good-feeling’ to the point that the plot becomes of almost secondary importance since all outcomes and twists are already expected long before they happen and Come to the Stable becomes more noteworthy for its parts instead of its whole – even the task of getting land for the hospital from what appears to be well-known criminal takes only a matter of minutes for these two persistent nuns. Come to the Stable obviously never intends to challenge itself or the audience and it completely fulfills its goal of becoming the kind of heartwarming and engaging story that can be enjoyed on a rainy afternoon but this also indicates that none of the actors are truly ever challenged in any way or asked to craft a character out of their templates. And Loretta Young is actually the cast member that suffers the most from this since Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchaster are not asked to do much more than add some comedic touches to their performances which they both do adequately and without throwing the story off-balance. But Loretta Young has the task of focusing more strongly on the serious moments of the script while actually starring in a movie that is not truly offering such moments. And since her fight for the hospital is always done in the most harmless but also heartwarming way, her moments of quiet desperation, contrary to those of Ingrid Bergman’s nun in The Bells of St. Mary’s, never appear as grand as they would like to be – which basically leaves Loretta Young with little else to do than the aforementioned display of goodness and warmth without any shades or any deeper look at the inner depth of Sister Margaret. And this thinness of the central part makes Loretta Young’s performance also one that is quite peculiar in the Best Actress category – seldom has a nomination been given for a role that so completely lacks every bit of character, every bit of wider life outside a single mission, every bit of depth and even the smallest kind of development or storyline that is not solely focused on the major plot. It’s a performance that can be praised for being heartwarming and doing nothing wrong and can at the same time be criticized for doing nothing at all – and both statements are true. The role of Sister Margaret is almost completely empty – but thankfully Loretta Young’s performance isn’t and like Come to the Stable itself, her work is more noteworthy for smaller details than its entirety. Her performance shows how close the overall theme of Come to the Stable had been to her heart and how strongly she connected to the role of Sister Margaret, proving the truth of the fact that she doesn’t do a lot – but what she does strangely works even if the limits of the part can never be left behind.


Come to the Stable is the story of two nuns who come to a little town to build a children’s hospital but the category placement of Loretta Young and Celeste Holm is not truly a reason for outrage. Both actresses can be considered co-leads but Loretta Young’s performance is much more substantial and the different natures of the parts put Sister Margaret almost naturally at the centre of Come to the Stable – she is not only the woman who is pushing the story forward but also woman who is much more aware of the world, who naturally takes charge and to whom others quickly turn for guidance and support. Celeste Holm’s Sister Scholastica might share equal screen time but she is always a companion who goes along without ever stepping into the foreground, who is often mostly defined by her naivety and who lacks the same kind of determination and leadership qualities – both women might be equal in their faith and their human spirits but this role allocation made the classification of Loretta Young as leading actress and Celeste Holm as supporting actress both convincing and satisfying. And even though Loretta Young suffered from the fact that her performance, more than all the others, had nowhere to go, she still fulfilled the task of personalizing the story’s overall theme and motives, using only her rich and distinct voice and her bright face in a characterization that is never deep or truly challenging but serves the movie’s purpose and adds the necessary amount of honesty and sincerity without feeling either too forced or too exaggerated. This crafting of Sister Margaret as a sincere woman is probably the most laudable aspect of Loretta Young’s work – as mentioned before it’s not easy to create a character that is purely good and honest without appearing implausible but it cannot be denied that the constant happiness and warmth that Loretta Young displays always feels sincere and believable. It's a natural friendliness that was eagerly embraced by Academy members – 30 years had passed between her film debut and her first Oscar nomination for The Farmer's Daughter, making it seem that Oscar voters did not care too much for her work in comedies of the sexes, romances or dramas but waited until Loretta Young turned herself into a symbol of decent wholesomeness in the later parts of her career before they finally recognized her. Her Katrin displayed strong inner beliefs despite a certain naivety while her Sister Margaret is much more worldly-wise, despite the contrary ideas of those around her but both women always believed in a greater good and the general benevolence and kindness of people that needed to be supported against darker influences. In the case of Sister Margaret, this display faced a much stronger danger of becoming repetitive very soon since the character had less personality than her Katrin who was asked to overcome various obstacles but Come to the Stable was smart enough to let the two central characters constantly counterbalance each other. Both Loretta Young and Celeste Holm faced limited characters but the combination of humor and sincerity helped to let both parts appear more dimensional than they really are and the chemistry between both actresses helps to underline the friendship and respect that these two Sisters share while letting the different aspects of their work intertwine in effective harmony – the humor of Celeste Holm lets Loretta Young appear less streight-forward and limited while the seriousness of Loretta Young gives Celeste Holm's performance more maturity and sincerity than the role itself intended to. It's an effect that both actresses wisely used to their own advantages and that helps to keep the viewer's interest in these two characters alive throughout the story.

The performance of Loretta Young in Come to the Stable is the kind of work that mostly impresses with its attention to detail and ability to find small suggestions at the inner core of a character that was written without any depth at all. Such small moments further underline that Loretta Young was
always in full control of her character and understood that the story’s
aim to entertain rested on Celeste Holm’s charm and lightweight acting
style while its plausibility depended on her own ability to bring a
certain level of deeper understanding to Sister Margaret and let her
appear not only optimistic and faithful but also give her a sense of
pragmatism and everyday capabilities and there are little scenes during
which she is able to emphasize the character of Sister Margaret a little
more than the script would have done. The same kind of naivety that
dominates the performance of Celeste Holm cannot be found in the work of
Loretta Young and she demonstrates that Sister Margaret’s innocence and
sincerity are more often than once just weapons that she uses precisely
at the right moment to get what she wants – but Loretta Young is still
honest enough in her performance to prevent the character from becoming
calculating or slyly. It is certainly easy to overrate Loretta Young's work whenever it finds any chances of suggestions at the inner character of Sister Margaret because these kinds of small successes appear grander than they really are in the context of a role that only exists to express unlimited optimism and trust in the help of God and  Loretta Young was also not able to insert Sister Margaret with a true inner depth and an identity of her own – but what she did was still crafting her as a believable and strangely complete character. It never feels unsatisfying in her work that Sister Margaret is a woman who only exists for a single purpose since her focus on this episode of this woman’s life made it appear that there could be many untold stories even if Come to the Stable decided not to tell them. When she tells Sister Scholastica that this is not the right time to ask a man for a donation or that they cannot ask for more support from Mr. Rossi, Loretta Young adds a friendly yet decisive guidance to her role and again fulfills the task of giving plausibility to the story of two nuns who are able to get everything they want not just by persistence and faith but also their own kind of wisdom. Again, it’s easy to overrate these parts of her performance which would probably have been realized by any other actress in this role, too, but they also deserve a closer consideration since Loretta Young’s strong screen personality and sincerity in the role added a special aura to Sister Margaret which maybe those other actresses might have missed. It’s mostly this high level of honest concern and open kindness that gives Come to the Stable the kind of atmosphere that would most likely be described as ‘heartwarming and uplifting’. Celeste Holm adds the needed humor to the proceedings but Loretta Young gave it spirit and its raison d’être. And so it’s not a surprise that her most memorable moment comes when this honest concern is at its most effective display – when Sister Margaret learns that the son of Mr. Rossi used to fight at Normandy, she tells him that he and his wife must be very proud and prepares to leave before she turns around again and asks, with a sensible tone of care, ‘Mr. Rossi, your son did come back, didn’t he?` When his answer turns out to be negative, Loretta Young’s face expresses the right amount of sorrow and condolement and her answer ‘How sad for you and your wife’ is as straightforward as possible, neither trying to give him any comfort when she knows that she can’t and neither trying to add even more pathos to the moment – the honesty and careful consideration of Loretta Young in this role is never more visible than in this short moment. But if this performance deserves a closer look at any almost hidden moments of occasional triumph then it also has to be observed for moments of failure. Because even if the role does not offer Loretta Young a character that goes deeper than her desire to raise money for a hospital, there are still a few moments that might have deserved more consideration – when Sister Margaret tells about her experiences in Normandy during the war when the hospital in which she worked was close to being destroyed, Loretta Young avoids all sentimentality but she also avoids all possibilities that could have showed how this time shaped and influenced her character apart from her desire to thank God by coming to America and build a hospital herself. And later, when she learns from Mr. Mason, a musician next door, that he knows the city in Normandy where Sister Margaret used to work, she only replies with a bright ‘Oh, how nice’ – Loretta Young is surely not to blame for the dialogue in this moment but since the audience knows what this expression means and it also knows that Sister Margaret must understand the deeper meaning of these words, too, she could have used this moment to show more than just kindness but also to communicate her own experience and the connection between herself and Mr. Mason. Loretta Young deserves praise for letting the kindness and gentleness of Sister Margaret dominate her performance without overbearing it but this approach also missed the chances to inject more shades of her past experiences into the role – as small as these chances might have been.


Overall, Loretta Young’s performance is nice to look at and she serves the movie well by never contradicting its intentions and it is also noteworthy that she is completely believable as a nun – scenes of her praying or praising God seem to flow naturally from her body and her spirit and it demonstrates that the combination of actress and character worked very well in Come to the Stable. But all this doesn’t change the fact that Come to the Stable wants to be a heart-rending and diverting experience without any complexity – the role of a determined nun who overcomes all obstacles to raise money for a children’s hospital could have provided a more multilayered approach but this was not the intention of Come to the Stable. All this is perfectly fine and Loretta Young clearly understood her material and the successful simplicity of her work is beautiful to look at and even makes her Oscar nomination appear logical and deserved despite the underdevelopment of her character. And so what’s on the screen is a strangely peculiar performance that offers occasional moments of grace and love but mostly lacks all of the qualities that would usually be expected from an Oscar-nominated piece of work. Still, Loretta Young’s distinctive screen presence and her ability to radiate warmth and kindness leave a maybe not lasting but often satisfying impression.