The story is surprising in the fact that it deals with concern for conservation , the environment and treatment of native indians.
Of course, the oil companies paid no attention then nor now.
All the actors do very well - nothing great but very solid. Director Stuart Heisler is a good "B" director but I disagree with the reviewer that stated he "MADE" Susan Hayword a star. If anything Susan Hayword made him look decent just as Humphrey Bogart does with "Tokyo Joe".
The rear-projection scenes of the oil fields on fire are nearly flawless - I mean, I could not note the telltale signs of rear-projection (things appearing out of proportion or hazy etc.).
In my opinion, it's worth the asking price.
Conservation first
One will say one more film about oil in Oklahoma. But this film is different. It brings together several questions that are extremely important. First the alliance between the white entrepreneurs and the Indians. The Indians are divided on the question of the conservation of their land as grazing land, as cattle-raising land due to the easy money oil brings in. We will note that justice does not hear conservationist arguments. Second the position of women in this adventure and women are shown as entrepreneurial just like men, equal to men, though they can use their charms to convince people of the value of their decisions, not force but soft conviction. Third the problem of conservation : how can the land not be ruined and wasted by oil exploitation ? The answer is to do it in a non-intensive way because this intensive method gets a lot of oil in a short period of time, but it also ruins the land through pollution. The answer is in an exploitation that leaves the land clean and usable all the time for cattle or other activities. Then the money brought in is less massive in a short period of time but regular for a long period of time. Such a way is defended by scientists and engineers but opposed by entrepreneurs. It is an accident that will determine the state and various congressional representations to regulate oil exploitation in such a way that nature is not spoiled. Fourth oil culture is not just the exploitation of crude oil, but it creates a whole network of services and roads for the cars that use that oil to run and refill when necessary. It is a structurizing activity whose social consequences are extremely far-reaching. A very well done film on very modern issues. Conservation must be a major objective of man on earth : think of the long-run future instead of the short-term profit.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
firewater
Director Stuart Heisler must have liked Susan Hayward because he cast her in 3 films - Among the Living, Smash up - The Story of a Woman, and this one, so in a way he is responsible for elevating her to A level productions. This one hovers in between a B and an A, independently produced, and using a lot of rear projection. The material is interesting in it's view of the American Indian, here presented as land owners and cattle ranchers, with Heisler beginning with a montage of the different kinds of Indians, and Hayward being 3/4 Cherokee. Presumably this is want accounts for her "wildcat" quality. The screenplay by Frank Nugent and Curtis Kenyon, suggested by a story by Richard Wormser, is a cautionary tale of the emergence of oil drillers in Oklahoma and the effect they had on the environment of the cattle ranchers. We begin with the accidental death of Hayward's father, as the opportunity to hear the anti-oil lobby. However Hayward's form of revenge seems a direct violation of the conservation stance of her descendants, as she enters the oil business to be more successful than her main competitor, the man she blames for her father's death! Robert Preston appears as a "rockhound" engineer who helps Hayward strike oil, and matters reach a climax when she must decide whether to drill the property of her father's Indian friend, Pedro Armendariz. The notion of Armendariz as a "crazy Indian" is introduced when he refuses to have his land drilled, he is threatened with being declared "mentally incompetent", and Heisler provides an extended and laboured use of montage to suggest his mental breakdown as he drives through fields of oil drilling towers and starts a fire laughing maniacally. Armendariz' view however is seen as a minority as other Indians seem happy to sell as much oil from their property and overlook the "smaller short term profit". Of course, it is this very issue that produces conflict between Hayward and Preston, with Hayward's ambition seen to be clouding her true nature. Preston's romantic interest in Hayward is somewhat a surprise considering the way she humiliates him at their first meeting, though I suppose men had to be tougher than usual in the period, but what is more humiliating is the way Preston out-acts her. Here Hayward relies upon big smiles and profile turns for charm, though her yelling at Preston at one point is unexpectedly loud. Heisler uses horizontal slides, mini-montages, the unbearably bucolic singing of Chill Wills, Freudian symbolism in Hayward drinking from a large glass of brandy in front of Preston, and African-American servants for when Hayward hosts a society party, where Armendariz is a guest in tuxedo. We never actually see a servant serve him, since perhaps the irony would be too much.
Even under the heavy censorship of 1946 Hollywood, Lana Turner and John Garfield's libidinous desires burn up the screen in Tay Garnett's adaptation of James M. Cain's torrid crime melodrama. Platinum blond Turner is Cora, a restless sexpot stuck in a roadside diner married to mundane middle-aged fry cook Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway) when handsome drifter Frank (Garfield) blows her way. It's lust at first sight, a rapacious desire that neither can break off, and before long they're plotting his demise--but in the wicked world of Cain nothing is that easy. Garnett's visual approach is subdued compared to the more expressionistic film noir of the period, but he's at no loss when he films the luminous Turner in her milky-white wardrobe. She radiates repressed sexuality and uncontrollable... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lana Turner - John Garfield Director(s): Tay Garnett DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.97 Your Price: $17.97YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
Susan Hayward rules in her portrayal of an alcoholic.It's a great movie!! More Info about this DVD Director(s): Stuart Heisler DVD Release Date: Released the 09 October 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
List Price: $6.98 Your Price: $6.98YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
The Greatest Show on Earth is a heaping helping of flapdoodle served up by one of Hollywood's canniest entertainers: producer-director Cecil B. DeMille. This overripe melodrama purports to be life inside the Ringling Brothers Circus; maybe it's not, but the circus ought to be like this. The actors wrestling with the purple dialogue are: early-career Charlton Heston, as the tough-as-nails circus manager; Cornel Wilde and Betty Hutton as trapeze artistes; and Gloria Grahame (who won an Oscar), dangling from elephants. Best of all, James Stewart plays a clown who--for mysterious reasons--never removes his makeup. (Stewart took the supporting role simply because he'd always wanted to play a clown.) This is a fried-baloney sandwich of a movie: it ain't sophisticated, and probably... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Betty Hutton - Charlton Heston Director(s): Cecil B. DeMille DVD Release Date: Released the 06 April 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $13.49YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) Fredric March won an Oscar® for playing the protagonist (and antagonist) of Robert Louis Stevenson's story. Dr. Henry Jekyll is an honorable man of science, albeit frustrated at the enforced celibacy of a delayed wedding date. Hyde is the fearsome creature he turns into after drinking a potion, and Hyde's appetites (mostly expressed with Miriam Hopkins's Cockney dance-hall wench) are decidedly unrestrained. March's performance is pretty theatrical, but it's fun to watch; his Hyde twitches and squawks and lopes around like an ape in a tuxedo. Rouben Mamoulian's direction has plenty of the brio of early-thirties Hollywood, and the transformations from Jekyll to Hyde are ingenious for the time. This film followed Dracula and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Fredric March - Miriam Hopkins Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $17.98YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
Nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1957, Peyton Place has become synonymous with torrid soap opera. Though the novel by Grace Metalious is even more sensational, the movie provides plenty of tantalizing story turns--secrets, adultery, rape, bitter parents, frustrated teenagers, suicide, and murder. Multiple storylines deftly interweave: Allison MacKenzie (Diane Varsi), an ambitious young girl struggling with the neurotic fears of her mother (Lana Turner, in a career-reviving performance) and the neurotic fears of the boy she loves (Russ Tamblyn), while her best friend Selena Cross (Hope Lange) fights off the brutal advances of her drunken stepfather. The movie had to sanitize the novel's New England town in order to get some of the more unsavory plot turns past the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lana Turner - Lee Philips - Lloyd Nolan - Arthur Kennedy Director(s): Mark Robson DVD Release Date: Released the 02 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $13.48YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
