SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Sarentrol Masterful Cinema

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Winifred The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

audiemurph "God's Little Acre" surprisingly defied the expectations I had after seeing the credits. I expected Robert Ryan to be corrupt and lascivious, but he instead plays the most optimistic and happy character of his career - even if he is not the brightest bulb on the tree. Actually, he is the brightest bulb on the tree - not one character (other, perhaps, than the black sharecropper played by Rex Ingram) has much brains at all. And Buddy Hackett was not the complete comic foil of the film either: he is one of the love interests, and, although ostensibly played for laughs, his love is a little too earnest for it to be a complete joke. Very interesting of Director Thomas Mann to let the actors mix it up a bit.And people always mention how Michael Landon once played the Teenage Werewolf: but this is definitely a weirder role, that of the confused and scorned albino.Anthony Mann had already made his incredible series of intense Westerns with Jimmy Stewart by this time, and so it is not surprising that "God's Little Acre"'s many tense scenes of lust and violence (and near violence) are handled so deftly and with such ease and skill by Mann.But much more interesting, I think, is Mann's decision to include in so many of his highly tense scenes other characters, who sit passively and quietly while the main protagonists battle for 5 or more minutes at a time. Watch Buddy Hackett and Fay Spain sit at a table barely moving while Tina Louise and Helen Westcott (as Rosamind) desperately try to keep a drunk Aldo Ray from going to the cotton mill to turn on the power; note Tina Louise sitting and staring, immobile, while Robert Ryan berates his spoiled rich son Jim Leslie (played by Lance Fuller) while begging him for money. The spectator-characters seem so weirdly detached in these scenes - or are they just being polite, emotionally withdrawing so as not to embarrass the speakers? Very interesting indeed.Yes, the weather in the movie is hot and steamy; and the two girls played by Fay Spain and Tina Louise are also hot and steamy; no doubt there must have been a lot of panting on the set of this film. Poor Tina can barely make it through the door with her oft-viewed bosom in the way. When did Hollywood decide to turn the South from a proud but defeated post-Confederate Lost-Cause Society into such a sleazy and seedy land full of lazy leering men and women (calling Tennessee Williams)? A great movie full of highly unusual dialogue and characters. Highly recommended.

wes-connors Georgia cotton farmer Robert Ryan (as Ty Ty Walden) has neglected his crop due to digging numerous holes in his land, searching for a fortune in gold supposedly buried by his grandfather. After fifteen years of digging, Mr. Ryan has not found the gold. After two months of digging, the latest hole seems fruitless. Helping during the opening scene are Ryan's sons Jack Lord (as Buck) and Vic Morrow (as Shaw). Mr. Lord is married to tempting Tina Louise (as Griselda). Making her movie debut, Ms. Louise is highly arousing. Ordering some great "bend over" camera angles, director Anthony Mann and his team offer a generous look up and down Louise's beautiful bosom, especially during her first scenes...Louise brings out the beast in brother-in-law Aldo Ray (as Will Thompson), who is suffering due to his cotton plant closing. Also involved in the story is rotund Buddy Hackett (as Pluto), who is running for Sheriff and wants to be part of the family by marrying Ryan's nubile daughter Fay Spain (as "Darlin'" Jill). Believing all-white albinos have magical powers, Mr. Hackett suggests Ryan use Michael Landon (as Dave Dawson) to find where his grandfather's gold is buried. Looking more like a peroxide blond than an albino, Mr. Landon leads the family to an area Ryan has dubbed "God's Little Acre". Landon also finds himself on top of Hackett's girl. Passions involving even more family members lead to a big climax...****** God's Little Acre (8/13/58) Anthony Mann ~ Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Tina Louise, Buddy Hackett

Jozef Kafka Watched this yesterday on TCM. I had seen this 1958 adaptation of Erskine Calwell's controversial 1933 novel (he was actually arrested and tried for obscenity) many years ago when I was a young teenager, and not cared for it. Part of my distaste was undoubtedly due to my being a Southerner annoyed by the sexed-up Li'l Abner stereotypes.But watching it again after all these years, and in a different frame of mind, it strikes me as almost a minor classic, for all its many flaws. This can be credited to the direction from -- of all people -- Anthony Mann (surely this is the odd-man-out in his filmography) and photography by Ernest Haller. Despite the rural setting, most of the film takes place at night, with key scenes in a deserted cotton mill and on the street outside a honky-tonk beer joint during a trip to the "big city" (Augusta Georgia).This gives the film a noirish look that is superficially at odds with its Beverly Hillbillies characters, and adds to its unique ambiance. Because instead of noir cool we get raucous black comedy and wildly over-the-top caricatures. In fact, GLA is so flamboyantly larger than life that it comes across as a musical that has had all its songs cut.(Idea for you theatrical types. Get the musical rights to GLA. It seems to be crying out for an adaptation).Some of the casting is unsurprising: Jack Lord (in his butch leading man phase) and an already paunchy Aldo Ray as the hunks, Vic Morrow as Lord's loyal puppydog little brother (ironic since Morrow despised Lord -- allegedly they even got into a fistfight on the set).Tina Louise plays the supposed sexpot that the various males fight over. Since Louise never did anything for me (I was always a Mary-Ann man) she not only looks wrong but seems almost schoolmarmish in her repressed manner. Fay Spain is a lot more fun as the nymphomaniacal sister.Buddy Hackett plays a spoof of the fat redneck sheriff cliché. Rex Ingram is a friendly black sharecropper, Michael Landon has a small role as an albino (!!) and one Lance Fuller plays the rich brother from Augusta. He's the one cast member who makes no impact at all.The central role, Ty Ty the obsessed farmer, is played by the surprisingly cast Robert Ryan. Ryan is expert as psychos and villains, but he's not the first actor you'd think of for this kind of larger-than-life "fool" role, one that might suit Burt Lancaster or Jimmy Cagney better. However, he's generally quite effective, making up in gravitas what he might lack in esprit.The script by the blacklisted Ben Maddow (although credited to perennial front Phillip Yordan) has some exposition and other problems. One example. The film is more than half over when Ty Ty needs money and decides to borrow it from his son in Augusta -- a son we've never heard mentioned before. His existence should have been worked into dialogue earlier.Maddow's script seems divided in theatrical style scenes, often separated by fades to black. This may have been necessitated by heavy editing (censorship?). Scenes that you expect to see are curiously missing. DLA is essentially two plots fused together: Ty Ty desperately searching for gold on his farm, and Will Thompson (Ray) desperately trying to open the cotton mill that supports the town's workers.This latter, proletarian storyline seems added-on, a leftover from the novel's original publication in 1933. It ensures GLA a place in that group of films (A Place In The Sun, Lonelyhearts, The Film Flam Man, Fitzwilly) that are set in contemporary times but really should take place in the 1930s.Elmer Bernstein's score, full of pastoral horns and strings, is very good, even if it is the most blatant imitation of Aaron Copland I've ever heard. In fact it's so similar Copland fans may want to track it down for comparison purposes. The title song is an interesting gospel pastiche, although the use of an all-too-obviously lily-white chorus blunts its impact.I don't know where the auteurists rank GLA in the Anthony Mann canon, but it definitely deserves a look.

Lee Eisenberg Apparently, when "God's Little Acre" first came out, much of it was cut for the theatrical release. Watching the unedited version, one can see why (needless to say, it's all pretty tame to us in the 21st century). Part of it is Tina Louise's very presence - I mean, what man wouldn't want to be stranded on an island with Ginger Grant? - but there's also a scene where Buddy Hackett works a pump for a woman in a bathtub (if that scene isn't a double entendre, then I don't know what is!).As for the movie itself, this story of a Georgia farmer (Robert Ryan) getting convinced that thar's gold in them thar holes in his garden does quite well. The idea of him tearing up his garden is an effective parallel for how the family gets torn up in the process. As for his friendship with the African-American guy, it's probably debatable whether they were sugar-coating race relations, or if they were encouraging tolerance. There could even be debates about how the movie portrays the South in general (the characters do come across as hicks).But overall, I recommend this flick. Usually, it would sort of weaken the movie to know that some of the cast members later became famous on TV shows - especially since one was known for seducing romantically incompetent men on a certain island - but they all do very well here. This is certainly a movie worth seeing. And the theme song will probably get stuck in your head. Also starring Aldo Ray, Jack Lord, Fay Spain, Vic Morrow and Michael Landon.