Donna Reed makes the steady, supportive wife worth watching in her own right. Her warmth is essential to It's a Wonderful Life, though her frequent casting as the reassuring woman too often left her with less to do.
Fi1m perspective
In It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Donna Reed gives Mary Hatch a warmth that makes George's domestic life worth our attention, even when he wants something else. She has the less showy task in a film whose exhaustion James Stewart makes so palpable. It is a fine performance, with little fuss made about Mary's decency. We were moved by her warmth, because it makes the responsibilities George resents feel worth the trouble. Without Reed, his complaints would be considerably harder to sit through.
Early supporting parts often cast her as the girl-next-door, and that expectation proved hard to escape. In They Were Expendable (1945), she played Lt Sandy Davyss opposite John Wayne, a substantial role before Capra's film. The clearer change came with From Here to Eternity (1953), which cast her as Lorene, a vulnerable prostitute. It was a departure from the wholesome image, but the parts that followed did not consistently give her the same chance to depart from it.
Calling Reed wholesome can make it sound as though being suitably cast was enough. Her work for Frank Capra in It's a Wonderful Life shows how much acting that leaves out: she has to make a home matter in a story about a man wishing for a different life. The screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Capra can be blunt about decency and grasping wealth, and the film's whimsy sometimes insists too much. Reed's contribution helps the sentiment feel earned even when the writing makes goodness look a little too straightforward.
The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966) brought the domestic role to the centre, with Reed as Donna Stone, an assertive, loving mother and housewife. She also helped shape the programme, and the character's assertiveness complicates the notion that Reed's usefulness began and ended with reassurance. That is still a restricted set of roles for an actor, however well she could play them. Start with Mary Hatch, and watch how much a film about one man's disappointment needs the woman beside him.
Biography
Donna Reed, born Donna Belle Mullenger, was an American actress whose career spanned more than 40 years and included appearances in over 40 films.
She played Mary Hatch in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). In 1953 she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lorene in From Here to Eternity. She is also known for starring as Donna Stone in the television sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–66), for which she won a Golden Globe Award in 1963.
