User reviews

After winning her two-year court battle with Warner Bros., OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND became a free-lancer and got her big chance when Paramount offered her TO EACH HIS OWN, a script that had already been turned down by Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rogers. Everyone shines in this movie, from the leads (OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND and JOHN LUND) to the smallest bit players.

De Havilland was perfect as Jody Norris, realistically portraying a young girl of seventeen and then various stages of maturity, ending as a brusque, middle-aged business woman in war-torn London of 1944. Her range as an actress is fully demonstrated and she does a remarkable job of playing the heroine at various stages of development.

John Lund is excellent too in a dual role (her lover and later her grown son), Bill Goodwin as a good-hearted pal, Philip Terry as another suitor who still loves her after marrying her friend (Mary Anderson). Anderson never had a better role than she does as the jealous, neurotic wife unwilling to let Jody have her own child back.

An intelligent script, detailed period direction by Mitch Leisen, fine background score by Victor Young and memorable moments from every player in the large cast. This is one Madame X kind of story that still holds up today. Probably the best soap-opera of the '40s, played to the hilt by a wonderful cast.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Roland Culver as Lord Desham. Brilliant performance. And on top of all the drama, there's a lot of humor and touches of real Americana, especially in the early scenes depicting Jody's small-town life.

Summing up: This was a huge box-office hit in the summer of '46 and re-ignited Olivia's career after a three year absence from the screen.

Although I don't think To Each His Own is as good as Olivia DeHavilland's other Oscar winner The Heiress or as good as the film she lost for in between these two, The Snake Pit, To Each His Own was the film that Olivia finally came into her own as an actress. She also showed Jack Warner a thing or two about type casting.

The story of To Each His Own is very much like something that Olivia's friend from Warner Brothers, Bette Davis, might have done. Bette won and was nominated multiple times for films like these and it's the stuff that Olivia badly wanted to do and was thwarted by Jack Warner who could only see her as the clinging leading lady to some dashing hero like Errol Flynn.

This film is all Olivia and she's the right age to do it. She was 30 at the time she made To Each His Own and the part called for her to age from her Twneties to her Forties. When we first meet her she's a a rather unhappy middle aged spinster doing duty as an air raid warden in wartime London. She's an American expatriate who is a cosmetics queen though her factory has now been converted to war use. She meets up with dashing Roland Culver who's a titled earl doing the same work and her thoughts go back to her years as a kid during that first World War.

A romance with a dashing flier played by John Lund and she's left pregnant and no chance of married when he's killed in action. Illegitimate birth was a horrible situation back in the day, so Olivia gives up the child to friends Philip Terry and Mary Anderson. Still the maternal instincts can't be snuffed out and she intrudes in their lives as well as a friend of the family her own child refers to as an 'aunt'.

Of course the whole thing becomes impossible and Olivia eventually moves to London when her factory becomes British based. Still she never stops thinking about the child someone else is raising.

Playing Josephine Norris as a young girl was no stretch because that's what she was playing all those years at Warner Brothers. But the more difficult challenge and what got her the Oscar for Best Actress was the way Mitchell Leisen guided her through the many stages of life. That called for Olivia to draw from the wellsprings of talent and ability that she knew she had and couldn't convince Jack Warner of the same.

The film was aided at the box office by the popularity of the song To Each His Own. You will not hear a note of it in the film, but The Ink Spots and Tony Martin had best selling records that year, The Ink Spots version going to number one on that Hit Parade that Lucky Strike sponsored. In fact I'm sure the popularity of the song and the film aided each other.

To Each His Own also earned an Academy Award nomination for Charles Brackett for Best Original Story.

You watch this film and you wonder just what Jack Warner must have been thinking when Olivia DeHavilland's name was announced on Oscar night.

To Each His Own covers more than twenty years in the life of Josephine "Jody" Norris (Olivia DeHavilland), a successful American-born businesswoman now working in London as an air raid warden. Jody thinks back to an earlier time in her life when she had fallen in love with a handsome WWI fighter pilot named Bart Cosgrove (John Lund, in his motion picture debut). Shortly after she becomes pregnant by Cosgrove, Jody learns he has been killed in action. To avoid public scandal, she concocts a scheme to keep her child, but it backfires. Her son, who becomes a fighter pilot like his late father, doesn't know who his real mother is. But Jody's confidante, Lord Desham (Roland Culver, in a wonderfully understated performance), does, and he believes it's his duty to right the situation. A superior soap opera, the film is deftly directed by Mitchell Leisen and features restrained, impressive performances by the entire cast. For her efforts as Jody, deHavilland won the 1946 Oscar for Best Actress. Victor Young's music is never overbearing, and Charles Brackett and Jacques Thery's screenplay is wise and intelligently written.

What a gentle, tender story! This is a Romance 'par excellence' handled with maturity, insight, and simply told in flashbacks which take us back to earlier years, into the realities of life for a young woman who loses her true love during wartime (WW1) then finds herself unmarried and bringing a child into the world whom she must give up afterwards due to a twist in circumstances. It's a truly wonderful role for Olivia de Havilland, as Jodie Norris, and I can't think of anyone else who could play it so convincingly.

Roland Culver, in his supporting role as Lord Desham, provides a substantial backup for the elderly 'Jodie' who meets him rather abrasively during WW2 days but later relates to him the personal tragedy in her youth. He has the presence of mind and determination to see that old wrongs are set aright -- all of which leads to one of the most beautiful endings to a film anyone could wish for.

It's a film that poignantly reflects the war years when so many lives were uprooted, hopes dashed, yet carried on with courage. I wish they made more films like this one, it's a gem.

I found this web site so I could find this movie! This story was so captivating and Olivia's performance was so endearing that I was glued to the television at 2am and didn't care! For those of you who love the tales of tragic love denied and then bestowed - this is one of the best kept secrets of classic movies.

This is a beautifully acted and realized "soap" kind of mother love films, which done in 1946, has the ability to still bring down the toughest EVIL MEANIE to his or her knees. De Havilland is deserving of the Academy Award she won for her range and her excellence as a screen actress. She may not have come from the Method school of training or RADA but her varied performances which can quite literally be called a brilliant melange of characters in THE HEIRESS to SNAKE PIT in which she is as good as it gets in female roles. Charlie Brackett wrote a tight screenplay for what could have gone on for hours and the art direction and music all work along with one of those great supporting group of character actors of the day. All told, it is De Havilland's controlled and believable performance that make this a film a must see for the most hardened critic. Grown men will not admit to liking this film because it more than likely will bring a tear of two.....it is that good.

Given the novelettish material she had to work with Olivia de Havilland is remarkably good as 'Miss Norris', the middle-aged spinster who also happens to be mother to an illegitimate son, conceived during World War 1. He's played by the then newcomer John Lund, in his film debut, and he also plays his own father. This weepie was directed by Mitchell Leisen in 1946 and it was a huge hit. It's far from his best work but Leisen had a knack for taking sub-standard stories and giving them a depth they didn't deserve. He didn't quite achieve that here but there are times when this movie does have a ring of truth thanks mostly to de Havilland who won the Oscar for her performance.

Lund isn't at all bad either, showing a promise that was never really fulfilled while that fine British actor, Roland Culver, is also very good as an English Lord de Havilland meets during World War 11. The main problem is that it feels like a Victorian melodrama of the 'Dead, Dead and never called me Mother' variety. It is, in other words, very hard to take seriously as a wartime romance. Hard too, to believe it came from an original story by Charles Brackett and not from some door-stopper of a novel, (it crams a lot of plot into two hours). Still, as a weepie it does the business and many people are very fond of it.

I think the film was quite wonderful. Miss. De Havilland was so compelling as the young Jody, caught up in a wartime love affair that leaves her pregnant. Her kindly, wonderful, and non-judgemental father, played by Griff Barnett leaves you feeling nothing less than empathy for the Norris's. When the illegitimate son of that romance finally meets his biological mother, Jody, with the help of her friend Lord Desham it is every adopted childs wish come true. Keep the tissue's close. This movie has so many wonderful character actors and actresses. Some may find it a bit trite but you must keep in mind the time period, it was a different society then. Watch it at least once.

An unwed mother, forced to give up her child to avoid scandal, follows her son's life from afar even as she prospers in business.

Sometimes Oscar-winning performances make you scratch your head, especially many years after the fact. This, however, is not one of them. Very few films of the era had an actress carry a film from beginning to end, especially for a story that spans twenty years (or more).

Unfortunately, it may be that a decent home release does not currently (2017) exist in the United States. The copy I watched was dark, and the voices were occasionally out of sync. It must have been a third-generation copy, if not more so. A real shame.

After having only seen Olivia de Havilland in 2 films (Gone With the Wind and In This Our Life) I could tell she was a very natural actress, gifted at convincing you she is who she plays onscreen. I became interested in her and purchased To Each His Own on a recent holiday to America. I didn't know what to expect except I knew she won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance of Jody Norris in this wonderful film. Olivia puts a lot of actresses to shame with her understated, technical and extremely moving portrayal of a small-town girl forced to give up the son she bore out-of-wedlock to the county's richest family. Jody sells the family business once her father dies and goes to New York to roll in the high life and become a successful business woman. 20 years later she sees her son once again, and he learns the truth. A masterful performance by Olivia de Havilland and fine supporting performances, particularly by Mary Anderson as Jody's son's adopted mother and Robert Culver as Jody's friend Lord Deshem. A fine film that will have you in giggles and tears. Give it a chance, you won't be disappointed.

This is another of those recipients of a top Oscar (in its case, Olivia De Havilland's first for Best Actress) which have unaccountably fallen through the cracks over the years; in fact, the copy I watched left much to be desired, and this prestigious Paramount effort does not even seem to have been released as a MOD DVD-R! Indeed, it was helmed by one of the studio's top directors, albeit starring an actress who had long been associated with one of its rivals i.e. Warner Bros. With this in mind, the film seemed very much in the vein of a typical vehicle Bette Davis (a De Havilland colleague) would make over there – in particular, it followed pretty much the same plot as THE OLD MAID (1939)! This neglect may have something to do with the fact that, not only was the star's second win – for William Wyler's Henry James adaptation (of "Washington Square") THE HEIRESS (1949) – a more substantial (or, if you like, contested) achievement but, that same year (1946), De Havilland would appear as twins in Robert Siodmak's classic noir THE DARK MIRROR, which the late eminent British film critic Leslie Halliwell eventually chose for the actress' rosette in his "Filmgoers' Companion"!

Anyway, the plot (co-scripted by producer Charles Brackett – who received the film's other Oscar nod for Best Original Story) is not exactly compelling and fairly preposterous at times: De Havilland meets, is seduced and impregnated by dashing flier John Lund (in his debut and, curiously enough, amounting to a dual role) in one night; then, so as not to create a scandal in her small town, she tries to pass her offspring off as a foundling…which is subsequently 'claimed' by a couple – the man involved having only married after the heroine rebuffed him – whose own baby has just died and left the mother grief-stricken! However, De Havilland keeps a close watch on her son by seeking to assist her former flame's wife; when the family's fortunes flounder but herself comes into big money – by taking over the cosmetics company set up by yet another bootlegging ex-beau(!) – she offers to bail them out as long as the child is returned to her. Still, her pampering is not enough to conquer his affections, and she has no option but to let him go! Years later, they are momentarily reunited in London (where he, whom Lund again incarnates, is about to be married) but a British lord – played by Roland Culver and who, like De Havilland, has known disillusion and loneliness – determines that the truth finally comes out...

The handsomely mounted film is well served by the accustomed studio efficiency; De Havilland, only 30 when this was made, is most convincing as a woman who has sacrificed her youth and personal happiness for the sake of her (ungrateful) flesh and blood – in this respect, it does feel somewhat old-fashioned, considering that it offers nothing new from the standard "Madame X" formula. Incidentally, while rated a respectable ** in the afore-mentioned "Leslie Halliwell Film Guide", it is erroneously listed therein as running 100 minutes – when the movie's official duration is well over that length, at a hefty (if not overly tiresome) 122!

This is de Havilland's personal favorite of her own movies. She won her first of two Best Actress Oscars for this movie.

The movie starts in London during the Nazi bombings of WW II and then flashes back to Jody's memories as the teen-aged daughter of a small town druggist during WW I.

There is something about this movie that I just don't like. Is it that most of the characters were not likable? Or is it that I personally thought Jody was always selfish to everyone, everywhere? One keeps wondering why she never "got on" with her personal life after giving her son up for adoption.

Is this noble or right?

It comes down to this: having a life full of love and memories or having one full of regrets and disappointments.

For me, she chose the wrong path.

Nothing was ever forced on HER the way she forced herself on her friends.

For me, there was only one truly noble character in this movie, Lord Desham. Only he was not a mercenary. Only he knew what it was like to have lost everything and know that he had wasted so much of his life in its lonely misery.

This movie was dated ten years before it was released. The emotions were faked and the story too contrived. I also hated the acting. What a waste of talent.

I caught this one on a late-night TV broadcast some years ago and was immediately hooked by Olivia's beautiful performance (plus being a sucker for tear-jerking stories with a flashback structure, I'm embarrassed to admit.) With Paramount's finest artisans and technicians in all departments to enhance her return to the screen, Olivia's Oscar was well-earned, indeed.

Other IMDb comments on this title are "on the money" (except for the one nay-sayer...Can't please everyone!) but no one mentioned John Lund's (as Gregory, Josephine Norris' long-lost son, rediscovered during his wartime London leave) constantly having to exclaim "Holy Canarsie!" before nearly every line of his dialog. After the first couple of times I wanted to scream at him, "Oh, stuff it!" But then, we're all guilty of overusing certain expressions, but THAT one was REALLY annoying. No wonder the script failed to win the Academy Award. So there!

The big draw for me in watching "To Each His Own" is the fact that it brought Olivia de Havilland the first of her two career Oscars for Best Actress. Not only that, but she beat one of my all-time favorite performances by an actress to do so, that of Celia Johnson's in "Brief Encounter." Well, much as I love de Havilland, I think the Academy got it wrong that year.

"To Each His Own" is pretty standard-issue women's picture stuff of the time, albeit it's pretty racy in its treatment of unwed pregnancy. Olivia suffers as nobly as anybody for her child, which she pretends is an orphan dropped off at a neighbor's doorstep so as to avoid a town scandal and then watches be adopted by another couple who raise the child as their own. De Havilland watches from afar as her child grows into a soldier, snatching fleeting moments with him over the years in the guise of a doting aunt while she becomes a successful businesswoman. De Havilland's character is so confident throughout the entire film that we never really feel like she's in any danger of becoming overcome by her hardships, which is good for her but bad for any dramatic tension the film is trying to build. It's a decent movie but a rather forgettable one, and Olivia was better in all sorts of other things, mostly because she had much better characters to play.

Charles Brackett, frequent collaborator of Billy Wilder, was Oscar nominated for writing the film's original story.

Grade: B

This is one of my favorite overlooked movies of the '40s. Olivia deHavilland truly deserved an Academy Award for her performance. Told in flashbacks, she is as believable as an older woman as she was as a young lady. A really memorable ending, I could watch it again and again.

Leonard Maltin calls it a 'soaper', for Pauline Kael it's an 'illegitimacy tearjerker' while Le guide des films dismisses it with these words: 'frightful wartime melodrama as only the Americans can make'. The disdain in the last comment is only too evident. I call it a very well crafted study of what a woman may go through as she has to deal with small-town morality/hypocrisy around having a child out of wedlock. Olivia de Havilland does a great job bringing Jody to life, and well deserved the award, beating out Rosalind Russell and Jennifer Jones that year.

My hat's off to the technicians who had to make her younger than she was for the 1918 scenes, and then considerably older for WWII scenes. That's some artistry in itself. Thanks to Criterion Channel for reviving these Mitchell Leisen classics.

To Each His Own (1946) : Brief Review -

Watch Legend Olivia De Havilland giving one of her finest performances ever as Mitchell Leisen gives a 'Birth to a Mother' in this watchable soapy pulp. Yes, your daily soap pulp can be watchable too and here's the proof. To Each His Own fumbles big time in the beginning, actually in the entire first to be precise, but covers a lot in the second half. It's a soapy story of a young woman who bears a child out of wedlock and has to give him up to avoid scandal. Her mothership craves for the love of her child but the child is gone far away and it's too late. Firstly, I couldn't quite digest the idea of her being pregnant. The girl who has a couple of boys hanging around her keeps herself out of it for some reasons which she herself doesn't know. Just a 2 minutes meeting with some Pilot and she is in that much love to produce a child with him. How illogical was that part, well, don't ask me. The second thing I didn't understand was why didn't she find someone else to marry or why didn't she run away with the child? The beginning of this entire great-looking thought isn't really great at all. That scandal part was out of the question after the so-called trick she played. Corinne's character was a nice getaway through this mess though. The second half shows improvements and this average soap turns into a watchable drama. The climax seems rushed and done. Olivia de Havilland's act makes it even more watchable, almost upto 'A Must See' level. Brackett's writing has not one or two but plenty of beautiful scenes that I will remember for a long time. One such scene is that railway station scene towards the end. The mother is hungry for his love and all that the fella cares about is his girl and you know what, the mother can't help it. In a nutshell, it's a soapy script but it does provide you some memorable scenes, a rare one to do so. Besides, Olivia's performance takes it one level UP!

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

The title of the movie was misleading,but as a huge fan of Ms. de Havilland, I watched this movie. It was a very tender story of the enduring and endearing love a mother had for her child.

It brought to mind the contrast of today's societal views of unwed mothers(as it were).

The story made me even more grateful to have 3 wonderful sons.

I would love watch this movie with my mom and my five sister,on the day before mothers' day. What a good way to have your 'tears jerked'! What a celebration of motherhood!

I will be happy when it is released on DVD. Hopefully very soon.