Ann Blyth and Farley Granger share a quiet moment at the beach in OUR VERY OWN (1950). The pleasant scene is a hopeful reminder to those of us looking forward to summer. We currently find ourselves in the midst of graduation season, and this film also evokes the momentous occasion of high school graduation, not only for the senior class on the threshold of adulthood, but for their families experiencing ever-changing dynamics.
The heartwarming comedy quickly shifts to a tense drama as a rift in the family occurs and Ann's character is told by a vengeful sister that she was adopted. Ann's search for her "real" parents and her re-discovery of only family she's ever known is a thoughtful and reflective slice of life. From my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.:
Our Very Own (1950) is like opening up a time capsule and seeing the world as it was in a year that began a new decade, that oddly seems at once to look ahead bearing unconscious predictions—and, also, to take a brief glance over the shoulder at a world that was about to be relegated to memory and family snapshots. This film is about a teenager who discovers she was adopted, but it is not about adoption. It is about belonging, about losing one’s identity and finding one’s place in the new thing called the nuclear family, which would play such an important part of our national identity in the 1950s and ‘60s.
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