Critical Reception
Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called the film "a whoppingly banal tear-jerker will lure multitudes of moviegoers who like nothing better than a good cry." He added, "Mr. Corwin's scenario, under Curtis Bernhardt's soupy direction, stretches Miss Wyman's situation . . . into a series of parchedly sunlit episodes, contrived to squeeze the heart and present this lady as a quivering-lipped saint. There is little in the way of wit, grit or, for that matter, real substance . . . Miss Wyman . . . has little to do herself except to age daintily. She exercises reasonable restraint but persevering sweetness with an iron halo in a grating two-hour gamut. And since Miss Wyman, like the rest of The Blue Veil, is so far removed from flesh and blood, we can only leave her and it to heaven."
Variety noted, "Curtis Bernhardt's direction handles the drama surely, if at times a bit measured, and never strives for dramatic tricks beyond the level of the simple, warm story being told."
Read more about this topic: The Blue Veil
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“The critical method which denies literary modernity would appearand even, in certain respects, would bethe most modern of critical movements.”
—Paul Deman (19191983)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fallthe company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (18391894)