Review of Sunrise at Campobello

Ralph Bellamy turns himself into FDR. Anyone who has ever watched film from that era can tell that Bellamy's acting is spot on. This is the result of his realization in the 1940s that he would never be anything but a second banana unless he stopped taking the inferior roles he was offered and ventured out into the world of authentic acting, which led him to the Broadway stage and this excellent movie. It's tragic Bellamy did not win the Oscar for this performance. This was acting at its finest. He will be remembered as a finer actor than those he worked with as "second banana" in the 1940s. Greer Garson was a strange choice for Eleanor, Garson, who had been picked for the role and had not faced Broadway audiences, was accustomed to presenting Greer Garson in her movie roles. In Sunrise at Campobello, she does a better job, although no one would mistake her for Eleanor Roosevelt, who was still living at the time of the movie's release and was still fresh in the minds of Americans, through her newspaper columns and work at the United Nations. Perhaps the actress who played her on the Broadway stage would have been a better acting choice, or someone like Myrna Loy, who had more genuine warmth and middle-class sentiment, yet still was a star for driving up the box office take. What seems wrong with Garson's portrayal of Eleanor is Garson's upper-class (notice the British accent?) inclinations and the lack of genuine warmth and affection Eleanor developed for everyone -- but especially for the lower classes. She went out of her way to help black people, for example, in an era in which this was considered extremely inappropriate. Garson did not have the genuineness or warmth that Eleanor conveyed, even through film accounts. However. she went beyond her usual skill set and actually acted in this film, so credit should be given her. The supporting cast is magnificent and the Dore Schary script hews closely to reality. Complaints about length of the movie do not take away from its greatness. It's too bad owners of properties like this are so short-sighted. Permission should be granted to a legitimate filmmaker to edit this film down professionally before it gets into the public domain and is mangled to death.