A flawed film. A bigger hit in its day than is remembered but it cost so much it lost money. It didn't have to cost a lot - it all could've been shot on the backlot (there was location filming in the US but the scenery isn't exploited). It didn't have to be as poor as it is.
Some good things. Gorgeous photography. Strong cast. And a decent story.
The story is actually simple - Montgomery Clift is an idealistic Northern teacher who falls in love with a Southern girl who goes mad during the Civil War. That's solid. You've got love, insanity, a war.
But the film stuffs it. It's got too much bloat - the version I saw ran at 2 hours 40 minutes and there's a three hour one. The story could've been dealt with in 90 minutes. It actually didn't need battle spectacle sequences. Clift ducks out from his war service to find Taylor and finds his son - that's all cheap.
Too many scenes are talked about rather than dramatised - all the exciting stuff about Taylor's father's relationship with the slave and dying in a fire. (This film might've been better if it had been from Taylor's point of view.)
Clift's character is vague and passive. He gets trapped into marriage by Taylor who fakes a pregnancy. Why doesn't he just love her? Want her? Dump Eva Marie Saint for her? Clift and Taylor's relationship have none of the passion that they showed in A Place in the Sun. Maybe it was Clift's accident. Maybe the actors weren't into it. Maybe it was the director. (It's not very well directed - Edward D lost something when he got out of B pictures.)
Clift's performance is... fine. Not bad. Not great. The accident is distracting - some scenes he seems truthful, others bashed up and tormented. His character doesn't have a drive. He just sort of drifts along. What's his passion? Teaching? Taylor? He doesn't seem to be in to anything. Clift in A Place in the Sun was into Taylor - why didn't they just make it that? A grand passion?
Taylor is beautiful and has her moments but for me she struggled with her voice and the accent and the role. She could deliver the goods but she needed more help.
Rod Taylor's opportunistic townsfriend of Clift has his moments. Nigel Patrick has a flashy character, the sleazy articulate "professor" but Patrick isn't that great. Lee Marvin shines as Clift's friend. He has easily the best scene - defending Clift and Clift's son who are escaping, being taunted by a Confederate soldier who calls out in the dark. I wonder if this came from the novel (which I haven't read) or screenwriter Millard Kaufman, a former marine.
Eva Marie Saint has a terrible role - she just sits and stares at Clift. Compare it to say Melanie/Olivia de Havilland in Gone with the Wind - she did stuff, had a baby, stuck up for Scarlett. Saint here just hangs around; I guess she scolds Clift towards the end for not wanting to run for office.
The film's also racist. Clift's an abolitionist and Taylor is terrified of being black but there's hardly any black people in it. A few hang around. Only one gets some dialogue.
Simply not very good. A good movie inside, trying to get out.
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