Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Inmechon The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 1957 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. New York opening simultaneously at Loew's State and the Plaza: 20 December 1957. U.S. release: December 1957. U.K. general release: 7 September 1958. Australian release: 5 April 1958. Sydney opening at the Liberty. At the London trade showing the film ran 185 minutes, but when released it clocked in at 166 minutes, plus 6 minutes of interval music.SYNOPSIS: The movie opens with a high-school graduation in pre-Civil War Indiana, and we meet John (Montgomery Clift), a dreamy type who spouts some piffle about a symbol of wish fulfillment called "The Raintree" ("It opens all locks, it heals all wounds," etc.). Thereafter Clift moves through everything with a lack of conviction or interest in any of the proceedings that, coming from an actor of his proved gifts, is appalling. He is loved by a goody-two-shoes named Nell, played by Eva Marie Saint on a monotonous note of petulant jealousy. At a subsequent celebration, Clift is embroiled in a foot race against local hot-shot "Flash" Perkins (Lee Marvin). It is here that Elizabeth Taylor makes her brief, wordless entrance. Looking radiantly beautiful, she discreetly vamps Clift and then exits into a photographer's studio. There she reveals herself as an amiable, predatory Southern belle. She emerges from the studio to crown Clift the winner in the race, and to vamp him some more. Thereafter you can forget about Clift, Miss Saint, the Raintree, and everyone and everything else in this swollen botch of a film. Elizabeth is the strongest, most clearly delineated character in it, and she commands both her role and the film with presence and authority from first to last. Nominated for the following prestigious Hollywood awards: Best Actress, Elizabeth Taylor (defeated by Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve); Best Art Direction (won by Sayonara); Best Music Scoring (won by The Bridge on the River Kwai); Best Costume Design (won by Les Girls). Number 9 at the domestic box-office for 1958.COMMENT: There's a lot of money up there on the screen and the movie often looks very handsome indeed. Unfortunately all the wonderful period detail and atmosphere is lost whenever Liz Taylor and Monty Clift get together. They are both great solo, but put them in the same scene and the viewer is in for a dull, lackluster time. They seem to be running some sort of inside contest, with Monty determined to be as sullen and withdrawn as possible, while Liz on the other hand explodes with tireless (but oh so tiring on the viewer) hysterics. Fortunately, the support players led by Nigel Patrick and Lee Marvin are a major source of the movie's entertainment.

dougdoepke Plot-- Before the Civil War, a pair of lovers marry and move from the North to the South where John finds out that new wife Susanna is haunted by a childhood trauma. Returning North they get caught up in the War, while Susanna becomes dysfunctional. What will John do, especially when lovelorn Neil (Saint) is still available.Oh my, I guess MGM had too big an investment not to release this swollen turkey. As I recall, it got a lot of hyped promotion in '57. For fans, like me, of the Taylor-Clift romantic pairing (A Place In The Sun, {1951}), this misguided sequel should be avoided like the plague. Taylor does her best in a part disjointed badly by a perforated script, while Clift struggles manfully following his traumatic road accident. Also undercutting the romantic theme is the absence of close-ups emphasizing the vital tender emotions. I suspect that was because of Clift's mid-filming disfigurement. Nonetheless, the first 2-hours of personal relationship is further pulled down by impersonal staging. And since so much of the film follows the romance, recovery is near impossible.The movie does come alive when Lee Marvin's blustery rough-neck comes on-screen. Clearly, he's on his way up the Hollywood ladder. But pity poor Eva Marie Saint of On The Waterfront (1954) whose sterling acting chops are almost totally wasted as the lonely heart in waiting. Where the movie does shine, as others point out, is in the visuals of costuming and massed army men. In short, the sort of production features big-budget MGM typically excelled at. I also like the effort at using the Raintree symbolism to bind the film into a poetic whole. Too bad, the script muddies that with sporadic development.Anyway, it's regrettable that such a prestige production got undercut by factors not entirely under studio control. I suspect there's a practical moral at work here, but I'm not sure what it is.

kindtxgal This is a fantastic Civil War film divided before and after the War of the States. I recommend that prospective viewers catch it on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) as I note that the DVD version offered is only 1:23 in length. The actual length of the film is 2 hours and 53 minutes, so I would wonder why the DVD version is so much less in length, not even a full feature length of 1:30. Just a thought. So, having rewatched it again, this time on TCM, I find that it's truly a fantastic movie...great actors, particularly Montgomery Clift who was seriously injured during its filming in an off-set automobile accident -- the resulting injuries serving to affect his remaining life in a negative way. It's interesting to watch the camera work post-accident. That aside, all of the acting roles are precise and everyone gives their roles their all. Montgomery Clift clearly shone out in this films and warranted an Academy nomination at minimum, as well as Best Picture nomination, neither which occurred unfortunately. Thus, it sometimes is passed over. For Civil War enthusiasts, it's a must see. Just enough of the fighting and struggle is shown to make its point without going overboard. For me the film is about love, commitment, and the power of holding onto a dream, real or fictional.

wc1996-428-366101 I feel really guilty because my partner of 40 years, who is an avid film collector, fished this tape out of his vast repository (5000 films) and set it up so I could watch it. Since his media center is in one room and our eating space in another (the kitchen)I was running back and forth between the movie and my breakfast lasagne waiting breathlessly for La Liz's entrance which I caught just in time between bites of food and of course she was ravishing as always and utterly the center of attention in every shot, everyone else fading into the woodwork - there will never be a star to equal her! But alas the script is a muddled mess and there is no question the studio (MGM)could not have found a worse writer than they did - I looked him up here and he did nothing to warrant being asked to adapt Raintree County from the book which he did along with the book's author. Right off the bat both the story and the central character (The Professor) are just plain silly with heartthrob Clift running off into a swamp in his Sunday Best for absolutely no reason and the professor running off with some man's wife. What all this has to do with the main storyline is anyone's guess, but after reading the synopsis of the story here I realized that poor MGM in its quest to film a sequel to GWTW failed miserably with this pathetic attempt. As the old saying says, you can't go home again!