TO EACH HIS OWN

Collaborating here with Billy Wilder's former screenwriter, Charles Brackett, Mitchell Leisen transforms what could easily seem like a soap opera plot - small-town girl bears an illegitimate son, gives it up for adoption, then follows his life over three decades - into something anguished, eloquent and profound: a tearjerker with a soul. To Each His Own initially was rejected by the Hays Office; Leisen, with typical stubbornness, just went ahead and shot it anyway. The censors, however, were so moved at the first screening that they actually reversed their decision; the result, a massive box office success upon release, gave its star Olivia de Havilland her first Academy Award for Best Actress. Its complexity and Freudian subtext, however (e.g. Leisen's decision to cast the same actor - John Lund - as both son and lover), continue to fascinate modern-day audiences.