The Round and Round

This is the worst movie ever made. Oklahoma actors Gailard Sartain, Rex Linn and Mr. Brimley, who have shown themselves capable of fine performances, just took the money and ran, in this deal. The writer/producer must've wanted to make a movie before he died, had a lot of money and figured that's all it would take. Wrong. The actors are not without fault, however. Sartain, for example, has made only one other movie in the last seven years ("Elizabethtown"). Maybe he can't get work anymore. Brimley's day is past as a character actor, and Rex Linn -- despite a few good performances being coaxed from him by excellent directors -- is essentially an ad agency spokesman. The story about cockfighting in Oklahoma is contrived, and no longer (six years later) of real local interest. Even though it's supposed to be a comedy, this movie is heavy handed, like a bronzed baby shoe hanging from the rear view mirror. Val Lewton could make fine movies with a budget a fraction of this one's, and Ed Wood's poor-boy movies could be interesting in a desperate sort of way. This one, "The Round and Round," has no redeeming qualities I can find, but it's the pretentiousness of the production that makes it the worst movie ever made.