Bayou

Classic cult drama. A young Peter Graves post-Stalag 17 pre-Mission:Impossible made a good naive hero. This film absolutely reeks of 1950's country living. (Or should that be livin')

It's your basic city boy comes to the boonies and wins over Miss young and pretty despite the reluctant father and jealous bloodthirsty boyfriend story.

Timothy Carey as Ulysses (said boyfriend) did an excellent job. Extremely polite to the older folks while giving Graves the laser beam eyes. He had a habit of playing intensity like it was pure gold. If you can find it...find it.

I only watched this movie because of its striking description in Timothy Carey's IMDB page. The looming, hatchet-faced Carey is one of the most unique and unforgettable character actors Hollywood ever had, and he was apparently very eccentric in real life.

Whoever wrote that IMDB got one thing right: the only memorable scene in "Bayou" is when Carey does a bizarre, tortured jig to some Cajun music, twisting his head around and contorting his long body as though he's being electrocuted.

Besides that, this movie just doesn't have much in it. It's one of those movies that should have gone for half an hour. The plot is so simple: Man meets girl and falls in love, but some bad guy already has his eye on her, so you know they're headed for a clash, which takes far too long to arrive.

This was first released as "Bayou" in 1957, but nobody saw it, so it was shelved and re-released in '61 as "Poor White Trash", now apparently with an added scene in which Carey sexually assaults the girl, ripping her clothes off. The movie surprisingly shows her bare tush.

Now that I think about it, it's obvious that scene was added later, because it's shot so differently. It makes striking use of close-ups to really drive the point home. The rest of the movie, feels like the filmmakers (and other actors) were asleep at the wheel. Only Carey really signed on, but it's not really worth watching just for him, either.

Just to show you how good IMDb really is, they have covered even this movie? It has been 42 years since I saw this much hyped, black and white joke. A group of us went to a drive-in thinking that we were going to see some nudity. After suffering through a movie that was shot almost entirely in the dark and in a swamp, nothing happened. What a loser! Has been the standard for 42 years for a bad movie.

I think your time would be better spent someplace else. This film isn't going to be the worst thing you've ever seen but even as a trash film its just got nothing going for it.

Lita Milan is somewhat charming but you can see that charm in much better films.

Regardless of the quality of the film...I'm surprised no one has commented on Douglas Fowleys double duty in the film!