This is not a terrible film, but it was just too simple for me, perhaps reflecting a target of younger audiences and it being 1958. It's all rather generic, with emotions as sedate as Alan Ladd's performance. He plays a Confederate soldier from Atlanta (without a trace of a Southern accent) who arrives in town to see a doctor for his son. The boy has been struck mute after seeing his mother die, clearly a mental trauma, and yet an operation is what he's going to need to restore his voice (how does that make sense?) They're helped out by a friendly farmer (Olivia de Havilland), a widow who gives him work. She has some evil neighbors who want to run her off her land, and it's the same folks who picked a fight with Ladd in town. So you can see the conflicts - the boy's voice, the bad guys, and two decent, kindly widows living together getting attracted to one another - and it's pretty clear how it will play out.
The film starts off with some post-Civil War tension, Ladd being the 'proud rebel' who is picked on by some less than honorable Yankees, but this really doesn't go anywhere, which was probably a good thing. Was this just in there for the title, and to appeal to Southern filmgoers? I wondered. Regardless, it was nice to see Harry Dean Stanton in just his second credited role, as well as de Havilland, who at 42 had been living in Paris for several years and was in a slower part of her career. She plays her part well, handling horses and performing manual labor naturally, but the script is pretty limiting. Director Michael Curtiz, on the other hand, was 72 and nearing the end of his long career, and he just seems to have phoned it in. Maybe the biggest highlight of all was the border collie who becomes a key plot point, likely to try to get some emotion into this dud, because after all, what tugs at the heartstrings more than separating a dog from a child? Anyway, his sheep herding skills were on full display, and he was definitely a good boy.
The film starts off with some post-Civil War tension, Ladd being the 'proud rebel' who is picked on by some less than honorable Yankees, but this really doesn't go anywhere, which was probably a good thing. Was this just in there for the title, and to appeal to Southern filmgoers? I wondered. Regardless, it was nice to see Harry Dean Stanton in just his second credited role, as well as de Havilland, who at 42 had been living in Paris for several years and was in a slower part of her career. She plays her part well, handling horses and performing manual labor naturally, but the script is pretty limiting. Director Michael Curtiz, on the other hand, was 72 and nearing the end of his long career, and he just seems to have phoned it in. Maybe the biggest highlight of all was the border collie who becomes a key plot point, likely to try to get some emotion into this dud, because after all, what tugs at the heartstrings more than separating a dog from a child? Anyway, his sheep herding skills were on full display, and he was definitely a good boy.