SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

MartinHafer "Drums in the Deep South" is a very boring Civil War film that does absolutely nothing to explain the war and features a romance that is about as sizzling as one between siblings! As a result of being so dull and indifferently made, I can thoroughly understand why RKO let this one fall into the public domain. Why, oh why, would they bother renewing the copyright on something this unappealing and slow?The film begins with a little prologue where you are introduced to some old friends and their love interest. Only a few minutes later, the Civil War is on and the film now jumps ahead to only months before the end of the war. One old friend is on a mission from the Confederacy to slow down or stop the progress of Sherman and his men on their way to burn Atlanta and the other to make sure Sherman gets through. As a matter of record, anyone familiar with the war KNOWS that Sherman did indeed make it past Atlanta and burned it on the way to the ocean. The love story is boring. The ending is a foregone conclusion. The dialog is occasionally dumb and the actors are, for the most part, bland. Sounds like a great way to spend about 90 minutes of your life? Don't bet on it!

jarrodmcdonald-1 The obvious connection between GONE WITH THE WIND and DRUMS IN THE DEEP SOUTH (and there are many connections) is its subject matter about Sherman's advance through Georgia, and the reign of terror that occurs for southerners who come into direct contact with the northern general and his men. Another important connection, from a technical standpoint, is the fact that GWTW's art designer is the director of this film. It wasn't the first time William Cameron Menzies had moved into the director's chair, and his previous experience in this genre makes DRUMS all the richer. The mansion scenes and the Georgia countryside are photographed in sepia, and there's a balmy almost lazy sort of feel to the opening scenes.All that rural idyllic charm gets jolted out of complacency eleven minutes into the story when war has been declared. And there's an incredible shot where leading lady Barbara Payton watches her husband see his West Point buddies off (now on opposite sides), and she closes the door to everything simple and sweet and innocent they've ever known.At this point the story follows James Craig, one of the husband's buddies fighting for the south. There are some army camp scenes, where his regiment strategizes how they will defeat or at least stall Sherman's advance through the territory. It all involves a place called Devil Mountain which looks out on to a valley, and down in the valley Payton and her genteel uncle have stayed on at the mansion. But the mansion is fraught with tension, because while her husband is off in battle, Payton's home has been taken over by Sherman's men and one of them has developed a strange attachment to her.What happens next is something you've never seen before, not even in GONE WITH THE WIND. She tricks the man to go outside to get a picture of his children from his knapsack. Then she hurries upstairs, grabs a mirror and signals Craig's men over at the Devil Mountain lookout. The northern soldier finds her upstairs, and catches her in the act. They engage in a fierce struggle. The uncle enters the room with a revolver. As he gets off a shot, the Union soldier fires back. The uncle is killed instantly, but the soldier is still alive. Payton doesn't want to help him, but when she sees the picture of his children that he brought in from his knapsack, she can't help but feel overwhelmed and decides to save the life of a man she considers the enemy.There are more twists and turns, and Menzies keeps it moving. The men at the lookout try to blow up not one but two trains bringing supplies through for Sherman. Also, the other West Point buddy (Guy Madison) who takes orders from Sherman returns to the area and is reunited with Payton at the mansion. She is definitely caught in the middle-- she remains friendly to the north so they will not destroy her home, but her loyalties are divided, and she continues to work as a spy to help her southern compatriots. As I said, it operates on many levels. But no matter what direction it goes, Menzies is always careful to show the south in a compassionate light. He shows that the Confederates still have compassion for their northern brothers. I think that's an important point to keep in mind, because this story really has no villains.

qatmom Another treasure from the America One library of public domain movies! "Drums in the Deep South" looks like a good movie, but it lacks something a good movie must have: characters the audience can care about. I looked carefully for such characters, and couldn't find one. In fact, I hardly cared what happened to any of them, even when the would-be adulterous couple was blown up at the end of the movie! I really thought the Vile Yankee Devil was going to throw himself on the fuse wire to save his buddy; he looked ready to cry. But, no; the mountain blew up--where will the aliens land now? Curiously, though this tale is supposed to be in part about a love triangle, the husband-angle goes off to war and is NEVER seen again, but is mentioned briefly to be still alive! We're never ever given a reason why Kathy REALLY preferred Clay to Braxton; Brax used complete sentences, seemed to genuinely care for Kathy, appeared to have a practical attitude towards running pseudo-Tara, and there wasn't the faintest suggestion that Brax so much as ever said a cross word to Kathy. But off he goes and she forgets him, telling Clay to learn Spanish for California, implying that that is their next stop in life.This is exceeding strange for a movie made in 1951.If ONLY Kathy had known how KEWEL Brax was going to be in a few years when he morphed into Peter Gunn! Imagine Braxton returning home to Devastation, and lurid tales of fickle Kathy...but the movie was already too long...

ark30inf I had a really hard time figuring out whether to give this a 5 or a 6. The film has a few things going for it but on the other hand it has some definite problems. I finally settled on a 6. I gave it a point for quirkiness.The casting of James Craig was obviously intended to evoke Clark Gable and Rhett Butler. Too obviously. Craig's vocal performance seemed to indicate that he also wanted to play up the Clark Gable angle. It was a bit distracting during the love scenes but he seemed to, thankfully, drift away from it during the action sequences.Guy Madison was cast because he was easy to look at. But his performance was anything but easy to look at. His character gyrated wildly from manic damnyankee enemy to soft hearted friend of the family. I couldn't tell if he was possessed or just in serious need of some mood stabilizing drugs.I never developed an empathy with the leading male and female characters. Every time they passionately kissed I kept thinking about her poor naive husband off surrounded by Sherman's Army while she played footsie with his alleged old best West Point friend.The special effects were very interesting and quite well done. But its hard to imagine that anybody ever grew any cotton in the rocky scrub that looked remarkably like Southern California during wildfire season. If you are going to spend the special effects money to matte in a giant plantation house you can at least matte it into a rich green landscape rather than a rocky gulch.I won't even mention (well actually I will) the fact that the main geographical feature of the movie is a hollowed out, honeycombed, Devil's Tower from Close Encounters. Only this one is smack dab in the middle of Georgia! The makers of this movie would have had better luck just using the real Stone Mountain and pretended it was hollow. I kept expecting the mother ship to hover over the mountain.The explosive ending seemed to be the result of the writer suddenly realizing that he had to finish his script in the next two sentences. I can't say I've seen a film that only needs 2 seconds to wrap everything up and turn off the lights.But there are a few good things that made this movie appealing. Your generic Civil War movie has a smashing good Cavalry charge in it and lots of dashing guys on horses waving swords and flags. You know they do. This film went WAY off the beaten path. The heroes of this film are the artillery.....yes....you heard it right.....the heroes are exclusively the Confederate Artillery. That deserves a rating point right there. They even got the Confederate artillery uniform colors right. Its not often you see a Civil War film where the difference between a Dahlgren gun and a Brooke's Rifle is essential to the plot. The artillery battles were handled quite skillfully.This is essentially a fifties matinee action picture. But the makers did manage to insert a couple of quite beautiful moments into the film. For a moment, a hard-hearted, oppressive, damnyankee skulker becomes human when he presents a photograph of his two babies and thinks wistfully of his family and his farm. More than one character mentions that he didn't start the war, that he was just playing the role assigned to him on the great stage. A few quiet moments about the war's real meaning and effect in this odd little shoot 'em up.