"Pilgrimage" is a phenomenon.First of all ,the subject is not,as the audience is expecting at the beginning of the movie,the story of two lovers but it focuses on the boy's mother ,Mrs Jessop,wonderfully portrayed by Henrietta Crosman.It's very rare that the star of a movie is a middle age woman ,particularly in a John Ford work,even if women often play a prominent part in his films (his last effort was "seven women") Mrs Jessop is a hateful over possessive selfish mom:"I'd rather see my boy dead than with that woman";her hatred knows no bounds when she enlists her son in the army (WW1 time) "whereas other mothers try to hide their son's age".

John Ford wanted the viewer to side with his pitiful heroine only in the last part .His film is never melodramatic because the tragic scenes alternate with prosaic ones (the shooting range in France is telling).And I dare you not to cry when the mom lays withered flowers on the grave and when she meets again her grandson .The cemetery scene is in direct contrast to the ceremony under L'Arc De Triomphe Sur La Tombe Du Soldat Inconnu:between the two moments,Mrs Jessop has become a mother.At last.

You'd never know this was directed by John Ford if his name weren't in the credits. There's not a bottle of booze in sight, no fist fights, no comedic interludes. Henrietta Crosman is a tough, domineering Arkansas mother who denies her grown son every privilege of independence. Of course, no woman is good enough for him either. And when he falls for some blond, and she for him, Crosman signs a waiver, has the boy drafted, and sent to France, leaving behind his now-pregnant girl friend. The son is killed in the Argonne.

Ten years go by, during which Crosman avoids any contact with the girl, now a school teacher, and her illegitimate son. Then Crosman is approached by an organization sponsoring a pilgrimage of Gold Star Mothers to the American cemetery in France. She's a bitter old lady by now and spurns their offer but, soon enough, finds herself joining the few dozen other ladies on the trip.

Aboard the ship Crosman gets to know some of the other mothers, including one from Carolina who has three sons buried in France. The two rustic Southern ladies, each pretty tough, get along well and, with the other's good-natured self confidence induced in her, Crosman begins to see that there may be a bit of warmth and amusement in life, after all, that one need not be a carbuncle on the integument of one's community.

In France she accidentally runs into a young man who is having almost the identical problem with his mother that Crosman's son had with his. The authoritative mother is driving the young couple apart. Crosman visits the rich, aristocratic mother and tells the story of her own self discovery. There is a good deal of sniffling and embracing before Crosman throws herself on her son's grave and begs his forgiveness. Back home, she embraces her grandson and his mother.

If it isn't mainstream Ford and it isn't a masterpiece, it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's inevitable sentiment is balanced by the gruff, no-nonsense demeanor of some of the characters. It's all helped enormously by Henrietta Crosman's appearance. (Her acting skills are no more than modest.) She is unable to look at anything without "glaring" at it. Her big black eyeballs in that pale face and under that white coif are overwhelming. They seem not to look at objects so much as look into them. The surprising thing is not that she has a little trouble becoming a warm and loving mother at the end, but that she can do it at all. (I still wonder how she's going to treat her grandson if he shows signs of becoming uppity.) Overall, it's a rather artfully done but routine drama about a person who never had any doubt whatever about what was right and what was wrong. That's an inhuman position. And by the end of the film the character has become human.

Henrietta Crossman, a big Broadway star since the 1890s who didn't have much luck with movies, is a tremendous presence in this uncharacteristic John Ford piece that zeroes in on the waste of war and spends little time glorifying foreign military adventures. As the frankly spiteful mother of a dead soldier she forced into combat, Crossman is as unsympathetic as they come and doesn't care who knows it; an Ethel Barrymore, say, would have somehow conveyed "yes, I'm playing a bitch, but you're still supposed to love ME." Crossman never indulges in such audience-baiting, and it makes her character real and frightening. There's an odd third act that ventures into totally unexpected territory to set up her vindication, and the comedy relief -- was Ford ever good at comedy? -- doesn't really work, relying on ethnic types and seeming at odds with the tragedy at the center. But the overall arc is powerful, abetted by good actors like Marian Nixon and little Jay Ward. And Ford's direction is suitably leisurely, with long tracking and sometimes absolutely still shots, and slow fade-outs that let the audience savor the sadness. It's emotional stuff, and if you shed a tear or two before it's over, you're not being had.