The Farmer's Daughter

Critics Consensus

No consensus yet.

100%

TOMATOMETER

Total Count: 7

77%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 695

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Movie Info

When Loretta Young stepped up to accept her Academy Award for The Farmer's Daughter, the ever-youthful leading lady, who'd been in films since 1928, sighed "At long last!" Young is cast as Katie Holstrum, an independently-minded Swedish girl who leaves her family's Minnesota farm to take a domestic job at the Washington DC home of congressman Glenn Morley Joseph Cotten. Katie's outspokeness and Scandanavian common sense immediately endears her to Morley, his mother Ethel Barrymore, and the family's crusty-but-kindly butler Clancy Charles Bickford. Sensing that the political machine backing Morley isn't thoroughly honest, Katie takes an active hand in Washington politics, leading to her own nomination for a congressional seat. The machine-boss villains (depicted rather provocatively as right-wing reactionaries) try to discredit Katie on the eve of the election, but she is rescued by Morley, who of course has fallen in love with her. Adapted from +Juurakon Hulda (+Hulda, Daughter of Parliament), a Finnish play written by Hella Wuolijoki (using the pen name Juhani Tervapää), which had originally been optioned as a potential vehicle for Ingrid Bergman, The Farmer's Daughter later matriculated into a weekly TV series, with Inger Stevens as Katie and William Windom as Morley.

Cast

Loretta Young
as Katrin Holstrom
Joseph Cotten
as Glenn Morley
Charles Bickford
as Clancy
Ethel Barrymore
as Mrs. Morley
Rose Hobart
as Virginia
Rhys Williams
as Adolph
Harry Davenport
as Dr. Mathew Sutven
Tom Powers
as Nordick
William Harrigan
as Ward Hughes
Lex Barker
as Olaf Holstrom
Harry Shannon
as Mr. Holstrom
Keith Andes
as Sven Holstrom
Thurston Hall
as Wilbur Johnson
Art Baker
as A.J. Finley
Don Beddoe
as Einar
James Arness
as Peter Holstrom
Anna Q. Nilsson
as Mrs. Holstrom
Sven Hugo Borg
as Dr. Mattsen
John Gallaudet
as Van
William B. Davidson
as Eckers
Charles McGraw
as Fisher
Jason Robards Sr.
as Night Editor
Cy Kendall
as Sweeney
Frank Ferguson
as Mattemack
William Bakewell
as Windor
Jason Robards Sr.
as Night Editor
Charles Lane
as Jackson
Douglas Evans
as Silbey
Robert Clarke
as Assistant Announcer
Bess Flowers
as Woman
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Critic Reviews for The Farmer's Daughter

All Critics (7) | Top Critics (1)

  • The Farmer's Daughter turns out to be excellent entertainment because Producer Dore Schary and his associates evidently know a good deal about the special kinds of people they are telling about.

    Feb 27, 2018 | Full Review…

    James Agee

    TIME Magazine
    Top Critic

  • Young won the Best Actress Oscar for her charming if hardly award-worthy turn (her win is still considered one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history).

    Apr 22, 2019 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

    Matt Brunson

    Film Frenzy

  • It is a hopeful romantic melodrama which hits all the right notes of an optimistic post-WWII America obsessed with its own virtuousness.

    Sep 25, 2018 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

    Nicholas Bell

    IONCINEMA.com

  • Loretta Young won the Oscar for Potter's cheerful but naive upward mobility fable about an ambitious farm girl(of Swedish descent) who becomes a congresswoman and wins the man (Joseph Cotten).

    Aug 4, 2009 | Rating: B | Full Review…

    Emanuel Levy

    EmanuelLevy.Com

  • Charming film of a type completely absent these days.

    Apr 6, 2005 | Rating: 4/5

    Ken Hanke

    Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
View All Critic Reviews (7)

Audience Reviews for The Farmer's Daughter

  • Dec 20, 2013
    Loretta Young won her Academy Award in this well made, nuanced (originally Finnish) scenario of a plain spoken country gal who delivers common hardworking sense to the conceited, know-everything swells in the big city (sorta like a female version of Mr. Deeds Goes To Town). The frosting is thick on this cake but its still pretty good and its ladled out by a entire cast of totally recognisable character regulars. Like many old school visits to the dreamtime along with the realisation that this dreamworld never existed is the somewhat charming wish "that wouldn't it great if it did though?"
    Kevin M. W Super Reviewer
  • Aug 16, 2013
    Cute if slightly silly movie that would likely be critically panned today. Despite the loss of innocence in the post war period, this still depicts a world that displayed innocence in film..
    John B Super Reviewer
See all Audience reviews

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