Maybe a D. H. Lawrence could convince me that a bored faculty wife as beautiful and intelligent as Ingrid Bergman would fall in love with a loud, somewhat pervy redneck like Anthony Quinn is playing, but as described by producer/writer Stirling Silliphant, from a novel (which I have not read) by Rachel Maddux, I remain in a state of unsuspended disbelief. A big part of my skepticism is due to Silliphant's caricatured presentation of his rural folk which veers from "Deliverance" (the violently sociopathic drunken son of Quinn) to "Petticoat Junction" (Virginia Gregg's "Y'all come back soon now!" wife of Quinn). I mean, I appreciate that Silliphant here is more in the jokey, lively spirit of "Heat Of The Night" than the philosophical bombast of "Route 66" but if there is a middle ground between the lifeless Gatlinberg country club and barnyard sex with a guy who likes to bathe married women while their husbands are watching Silliphant does not appear to have found it. Another big problem for me in the cred dept is Quinn's performance which is best described as "Zorba does The Smokies". I appreciate that director Guy Green wanted to contrast Quinn with the overly intellectual Bergman and her stuffy academic spouse (well played, as always, by Fritz Weaver) but in doing so he forgot to tell this always over the top actor to maybe soft peddle the hand gestures, the moaning and groaning and the hearty laughter and, while he's at it, maybe work on that Southern accent, which is truly execrable. Almost lost in all of this is a fine late Bergman performance which saves the movie from utter crappiness. The scene between her and her selfish yuppie daughter (played by an actress I've never heard of but wish I had named Katherine Crawford) has what the rest of the movie lacks, a sense of well observed truth. Give it a C.
