Disappointing and pretty horrible
Let's laugh at stupid people seemed to be the thinking behind this. Do not be tempted to think that John Ford's follow-up to GRAPES OF WRATH (possibly one of the greatest films ever) is actually a follow-up. No siree Bob.
This is a staggeringly unfunny and distasteful comedy. The basis of its so-called humour is that southern farming families are essentially imbeciles. Apparently the play this was based on perpetuated that slack-jawed southern stereotype even more but because of it also had some quite salacious content, this film version was sanitised and slashed to pieces transforming it into alleged 'family fun.'
Mr Ford seems to do his best to alienate his rural downtrodden fans he'd built up with his tiresome Will Rogers pictures during the last decade in this hour and a half of prejudice and mockery. It beggars belief that this was made by the same team who made GRAPES just a year earlier. It feels more like a filed stage play.....an amateur stage play at that. Comedy clearly wasn't Ford's forte.
It's not a screwball comedy so a comedy drama like this needs you to believe in the characters but these characters are completely one dimensional devoid of any emotion. Charley Grapewin is simply too ridiculous to accept as a real person - he gives what is possibly the most irritating performance of the whole 1940s.....and he's not funny. I think we're supposed to develop sympathy for him and his plight but you end up wishing he'd just go away. Marjorie Rambeau is almost as annoying - stop singing woman!
Incredibly there's a performance even worse than these two - Grapewin's son. Violent, ignorant, hateful and nasty are his attributes - I think we're supposed to find him funny rather than wondering why he's not in a special hospital.
If for some reason you want your Illusions shattered that Gene Tierney was a great actress, this is the film for you! What the hell was she supposed to be? Apparently in the original play, that character is a bit of a vixen but in this her role is reduced to a piece of dusty furniture which occasionally moves.
On the plus side, the photography in the last eleven seconds when the dog comes into shot is o.k.
This is a staggeringly unfunny and distasteful comedy. The basis of its so-called humour is that southern farming families are essentially imbeciles. Apparently the play this was based on perpetuated that slack-jawed southern stereotype even more but because of it also had some quite salacious content, this film version was sanitised and slashed to pieces transforming it into alleged 'family fun.'
Mr Ford seems to do his best to alienate his rural downtrodden fans he'd built up with his tiresome Will Rogers pictures during the last decade in this hour and a half of prejudice and mockery. It beggars belief that this was made by the same team who made GRAPES just a year earlier. It feels more like a filed stage play.....an amateur stage play at that. Comedy clearly wasn't Ford's forte.
It's not a screwball comedy so a comedy drama like this needs you to believe in the characters but these characters are completely one dimensional devoid of any emotion. Charley Grapewin is simply too ridiculous to accept as a real person - he gives what is possibly the most irritating performance of the whole 1940s.....and he's not funny. I think we're supposed to develop sympathy for him and his plight but you end up wishing he'd just go away. Marjorie Rambeau is almost as annoying - stop singing woman!
Incredibly there's a performance even worse than these two - Grapewin's son. Violent, ignorant, hateful and nasty are his attributes - I think we're supposed to find him funny rather than wondering why he's not in a special hospital.
If for some reason you want your Illusions shattered that Gene Tierney was a great actress, this is the film for you! What the hell was she supposed to be? Apparently in the original play, that character is a bit of a vixen but in this her role is reduced to a piece of dusty furniture which occasionally moves.
On the plus side, the photography in the last eleven seconds when the dog comes into shot is o.k.
- Who_remembers_Dogtanian
- 6 sep 2025