BEFORE: This time Lee Remick carries over from "Days of Wine and Roses", which justifies me watching this one in February, instead of summertime.
See, Turner Classic Movies, I can program a film set in the southern U.S. too. What's that? They've moved on to where? France? Geez, I'll never catch up with them at this rate. Today I'm passing on "Gigi", "Ninotchka", the 1948 "Three Musketeers", the 1939 "Hunchback of Notre Dame", and "The Day of the Jackal". The only film on today's schedule that I've seen is "Victor/Victoria", directed by Blake Edwards, who also directed "Days of Wine and Roses". Small world.
THE PLOT: Accused barn burner and con man Ben Quick arrives in a small Mississippi town and quickly ingratiates himself with its richest family, the Varners.
AFTER: Enough with those big-city ways, let's see how they handle romance down South. We start with the mysterious drifter, who blows into town and rents a tenant farm from the genteel rich family, and parlays that into a job in the general store, while setting his sights on the oldest daughter of the stereotypical fat & loud patriarch/plantation owner. He's played rather emotively by Orson Welles (last seen in "The Third Man"), and his character seems like a big rip-off of Big Daddy from "A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". But I should probably figure out whether Faulkner wrote this before Tennessee Williams wrote that, before I accuse anyone of plagiarism. (Turns out Faulkner wrote the short stories this was based on in 1940, and Williams' play was first staged in 1955 - but both films were released in the same year, 1958)
The daughter, Clara, has a boyfriend. Though maybe that should be "boyfriend", since they've been dating for years and he hasn't made his move yet. Considering that he's got a weak constitution and an overbearing mother, they might as well have put the guy in a dress, or given him a boyfriend of his own. I learned from watching "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" that these films tend to have at least one repressed homosexual, and I'm guessing here it's that guy.
This is set in the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone, and a gal is considered a spinster if she's not married by the age of 25, apparently. And people express their interest in each other by buying their picnic lunches at a charity auction, because they can't very well take one another out to a Chinese restaurant for sweet and sour shrimp, now, can they?
The pieces do manage to come together, mostly, at the end, but it all seems a little counter-intuitive. A son regains his father's respect by trying to kill him (that's odd...) and a man gains a woman's love when he stops chasing after her. Maybe that's just the way it works in Mississippi, like the way the water runs down the drain the other way below the equator? (I know that's a false myth, BTW)
But what was up with Orson Welles? In addition to the over-the-top acting, he was wearing some kind of false nose or something, his hair looked very fake, and in some scenes it looked like he was wearing very dark make-up. Was his character supposed to be very tan, or did he get some bad advice about the complexion of Southern men? Geez, it was almost like blackface, or at least Hindu or something.
NITPICK POINT: How could the town mob think that Ben Quick burned down the barn, when they were staring right at him, working at the general store across town? Did they think he used some kind of remote device, or perhaps paid someone else to set the fire? Or were they just idiots?
Starring Paul Newman (last seen in "Cool Hand Luke"), Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa (last seen in "City Hall"), Angela Lansbury (last seen in "The Company of Wolves"), and Richard Anderson (most famous for playing Steve Austin's boss on "The Six Million Dollar Man")
RATING: 3 out of 10 wild horses (a very obvious metaphor - yeah, we get it...)
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