Thursday, October 03, 2019

Movie review - "The Barefoot Mailman" (1952) **1/2

Little known comedy drama which has the benefit of a novel setting - 1895 Florida when mailmen walked barefoot through the swamps and sand to deliver the mail. Conman Bob Cummings turns up to convince the locals that the rail road is coming through.

It's got colour and location photography and Cummings is ideally cast as a Music Man style conman. Cummings needs strong co stars though - he's not Cary Grant he's Cary Grant lite. He's got Terry Moore who looks too young - it doesn't help she pretends to be a 12 year old. There's also Jerome Courtland who has a really big role - he's the pure hero. He's a dull character and not a particularly charismatic guy - maybe Glenn Ford could have made the part work but Courtland doesn't. Cummings' character shod have interesting relationships with Moore and Courtland but he doesn't - it feels like he's off in one movie and they're in another.

There's enjoyable support players like John Russell and Will Greer and a bit of action including a fake fight with an alligator.

Courtland gets too much screen time - really this should have been all Cummings. And I was disappointed there wasn't more mailman stuff - I mean that's the title and a point of difference. I figured Cummings would deliver more mail or be a mailman or something.

Still it's breezy enough and like I say the setting is different.

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