God's Little Acre

What this and "Tobacco Road," Erskine Caldwell's other magnum opus, have in common is a portrait of the Deep South as populated by a people with a collective IQ of about 50. There's Robert Ryan as the clueless patriarch convinced that his granddaddy buried gold treasure on his land; he's a God-lovin' cuss but a hypocrite, forever changing his life rules to accommodate his avarice. There's Buddy Hackett (of all people) as a sheriff candidate who can't even paint an "N" correctly, in love with one of Ryan's nubile daughters. Characters have names like Ty Ty and Darlin' Jill, to make them more folksy, I guess, and the themes are greed and lust, most particularly between Tina Louise (the camera lovingly caressing her breasts at every turn) as Ty Ty's sassy daughter-in-law, desperately craving her brother-in-law, Aldo Ray. Tina Louise was sho' 'nuff all woman, and Aldo Ray all man, and I'll long remember their encounter at the water pump. The characters' collective idiocy gets on one's nerves, and the various conflicts resolve themselves entirely unconvincingly, but it's not a total loss. Ernest Haller's handsome black-and-white widescreen photography does capture the heat and grime of the cotton fields, and Elmer Bernstein's score is very good fake Copland.

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.

The controversy that surrounded this movie, along with the scandal associated with the novel upon which it is based, may not have added up to box office success, but the film has become a classic nonetheless.

Author Erskine Caldwell and Viking Press, his publisher, were actually charged and tried for obscenity for releasing God's Little Acre in 1933 after pressure by a New York literary board who wanted the book censored. A quarter of a century later, in 1958, when the movie was released, it was actually banned in some theaters and audiences under eighteen years of age were prohibited from viewing what were perceived to be numerous obscene scenes throughout. The on screen sexual exploits are rather tame by today's standards, but the sexual tension of men standing and watching naked women pushed the limits in its day.

Robert Ryan stars as Ty Ty Walden, a farmer who believes there's gold buried on his land. A devout man, he has set aside a small plot of land promising God anything that comes from it. With typical human frailty, he is prone to move God's Little Acre whenever he fears it may contain his fortune, an obvious allegory for the shifting faith we all suffer.

Ty Ty has singlehandedly raised three hot headed sons and a lovely daughter, who is his treasure and, it turns out, an almost irresistible sexual force. Throw in Grisleda, the sultry wife of one of the sons, and her ex-lover, Will, and a subtext of complex sexual entanglements and betrayals lead to tragedy and eventual destruction of the family.

Caldwell, by showing Ty Ty destroying his farm in search of quick riches, meant to comment on the destructive attitudes of the South with regard to the land. Although Ty Ty could have turned a profit at any time by farming, he does everything but farm. Eventually he enlists the aid of an albino, played by a delightfully young Michael Landon, whom Ty Ty believes has magical divining powers, and demands that he find the gold, which, of course, he cannot do, since there is none. Vic Morrow, Jack Lord and Buddy Hackett round out the supporting cast, as the entire family living around the edges of Ty Ty's dream.

The real story, however, revolves around Louise, stunning in her first major role, and Aldo Ray, a classic machismo who put the "man" in leading man. Their adulterous tryst generates more heat than the oppressive dog days of the southern summer. You've got to see the water pump scene, if you can find a copy that hasn't melted from heat of it.

Originally, the novel was intended to dramatize the strike and eventual shutdown of a textile mill in Gastonia, North Carolina. Caldwell thought of the novel God's Little Acre as a proletarian manifesto that would call attention to the plight of non-unionized textile workers, lintheads, as they were called, in the Depression Era South. That the film got made at all in the age of McCarthyism is astounding. In fact, the nominal screenwriter, Philip Yordon, was actually a front for the real screenwriter, Ben Maddow, who had been blacklisted in the Hollywood Red scare.

The Marxist ideas of Caldwell's novel are mostly lost in the film adaptation, although discerning viewers will see their remains in the brutish Will's desperate attempt to seize control of and reopen the textile mill on which the entire local economy depends. Without giving too much of the story away, this is classic transgressive fiction in which following the dark side of life leads inevitably to destruction.

Although the movie is a uniquely satisfying experience, please don't let this classic prevent you from reading the book by Erskine Caldwell. The novel, one of the best selling in history, is a literary touchstone and deserves a good read, and reading is in danger of becoming extinct. But do watch this movie, when it's hot and you're feeling a bit nostalgic.

Wowza! For 1958 this would have been a "must see" for any man or child past puberty just to see the lustful but married Griselda Walden (Tina Louise) in her first film role where she has three (3) horny men vying for her attention. the three (3) men who were hot and horny for Griselda were her husband Buck Walden (Jack Lord), the already married Will Thompson (Aldo Ray), and her slimey widower brother-in-law Jim Leslie (Lance Fuller).

This film had several actors/actresses who went on to much bigger A-lister stars of both television and film. Stars such as Michael Landon, Jack Lord, Tina Louise, and Vic Morrow. Additionally the film had veteran film stars such as Robert Ryan who was the widowed clan leader named Ty Ty of the misfortune Walden clan, as well as Buddy Hackett and Fay Spain.

Although the story focuses on the clan father Ty Ty Walden's fixation that he has a pile of gold buried somewhere on his farm land by his own grandfather, Ty Ty has spent the past fifteen (15) years digging crater sized holes all around his farm with two (2) of his sons who he insists they help him dig to eventually reap the benefits.

The real gold mine though really lies in the gorgeous body of Ty Ty's busty daughter-in-law Griselda Walden (Tina Louise), who has her husband seeded in deep jealously that Griselda still has eyes for her brother-in-law Will Thompson (Aldo Ray), and her other brother-in-law Jim Leslie (Lance Fuller) who has disowned his own family after marrying into money only to become a wealthy widower who tries to bully and buy the sexy Griselda away from her husband (and his own brother) Buck.

I thought the best scene in the film is late one hot and steamy night when the sexpot Griselda steps outside in a flimsy slip showing off all her curves and wares and she sponge bathes herself from the water well while her lusting brother-in-law Will Thompson cannot bear it any longer watching her from a distance and pining for her embrace, so they cautiously hide on two corners of the farm's outer walls hoping not to be discovered and then we see it...the embrace and the groping and then "the kiss". It is a lustful moment where every man and boy in the theater watching this film must have broken out in a maddening cheer, wishing they were Will Thompson groping Griselda.

Back to the gold digging and the rest of the dysfunctional Walden clan who decide they have had enough digging for some fictitious non-existent gold who finally decide to sow their farm land and grow crops and live happily ever after. But wait, while digging the soil up to plant seed father Ty Ty hits something below the land surface that tinged a metal sound. What will he find below this time?

I give God's Little Acre a 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.

Never mind that the front yard has more holes than no-man's land after a WWI artillery barrage. Or that Pluto's up-and-down pump appears to drive Darlin' Jill into censored delight. Or that the rotund Pluto appears to be running for sheriff of Disneyland. No, this is not the deep South of Rhett and Scarlett; it's the cartoon South of Dog Patch and Lil' Abner. Take drop-dead sexy Griselda who delivers water to sweating boys in a see-through dress. Or, patriarch Ty-Ty, God's very own real estate agent. And, of course, mustn't forget Darlin' Jill with her own ideas about how to integrate the South. Don't get me wrong—this first half is mildly amusing with its exaggerated characters and heavy breathing, much like an R-rated cartoon.

And, had the screenplay followed through with this comedic style, a mildly memorable movie could have resulted. But it's like someone suddenly decided the movie needed to really "serious up". So, we get a second half that's more like over-heated Tennessee Williams than Al Capp's riotous Dog Patch. I don't know if all that contrived staging around the cotton mill is supposed to deliver a "message", but it's sure as heck heavy-handed and out of sync with the first half. Plus, there's that typical 50's ending that ties up every loose end in unbelievably happy fashion. I don't know which of the many versions (thanks to censors of the time) I saw, but I doubt any combination of this bi-polar disorder could work. Too bad, since it's a rare stab at departure for that strait-jacketed decade.

(In passing—I do like how Ty-Ty's manic mining for his father's gold gets resolved. We discover that despite appearances, he knows there's no buried gold. Instead, he keeps digging in order to "keep the family together" and the memory of his dad alive. He's not crazy— he just has a wacky way of expressing his "family values". Still, I don't think I'd hire him to do my gardening.)