Johnny Belinda

In post-war Cape Breton, a doctor's efforts to tutor a deaf/mute woman are undermined when she is raped, and the resulting pregnancy causes scandal to swirl.

A taboo theme – rape – became a landmark in the convoluted trajectory of Romanian-born director Jean Negulesco through Hollywood. Born in a poor family in Romania, Negulesco left home at age 12, became a dishwasher in Paris, worked as an orderly in a field hospital; during World War 1, learned drawing and painting, emigrated to the US and landed a job as a sketch artist and, soon, art director on the Paramount lot.