Reviews

I would like to point out just two superb moments in this film.

If you don't like Monument Valley, westerns, and "true grit", then go home now...

My best bits: As the homesteaders bury the dead, they sing one of the great psalms "we shall gather by the river", in the extreme of their sadness, futility, guilt, and anger.

Later, they sing the same song to a subtly different beat at the wedding.

(Spoiler - the wedding doesn't go as planned!)

This is fantastic composition. A hugely emotive soundtrack with religious overtones, reworked...

And there's more. In the first reel, the characters arrive, always coming in from a distance, with others watching. A beautiful series of entries.

In the end, they leave in a miraculously terse and absolutely epic piece of cinematography. Everyone is framed in the doorway and (not just fades to black, but melts to a silhouette) so fast, so controlled, so good. Everyone bar John Wayne "transcends" but Wayne is thrown back into the world and has to walk away, with the door shut behind him.

This is a true classic. If you scored it less than 5/10, go think about your EQ...

This film was born in 1952. For those of you who are used to the cgi and tech wizardry of the 90's and this new millennium, then you have a painful adjustment to make. Welcome to reality...

Films used to be shot on a medium called "Film". Actors spoke their lines and they were recorded live on tape. Films were literally cut with a razor blade.

If you aren't prepared to make some allowances for the 1952 date on the film, go away and watch some cgi marvel that doesn't "need" actors. Look at the latest Starwars movie - all cgi, no quality.

Yes, the green screen background is visible in many scenes, but it isn't an impediment to enjoying the movie.

Yes, the boat going down the rapids is a model, with stuffed dummies nailed to the tiller.

Yes, the social niceties of 1952 seem quaint from our perspective, but they were real then - as real as the leeches - The *way* in which the characters work out their personal issues are part of the magic of the movie. By modern standards it's quaint, but back then it was revolutionary.

Never forget this in film reviews - many great films of their era are now outpaced by later copies with more action and less style(rip-offs?). The best films are the most copied and in a strange way the earliest to date - but they come back in style.

That said, I agree that Bogie didn't win the Oscar for *this film* but for his *previous* work that had not been adequately rewarded at the time (Maltese Falcon anyone?). Awards are like this. They're partial and they lag reality...

I agree that Bogie and Hepburn fall together too fast, but at the time it was almost verboten to hint at a night of passion the way this film does. The film was a landmark. We can never go back to how things were in the past, and before this film. Similarly, by breaking so many rules and moulds, this film may have contemned itself to a non-appreciative future with a new generation who don't understand that there was a "before".

Before this film, it had never been done. Once this film did it, nobody could appreciate that one would not do it this way.

Bogie and Hepburn were marvelous here. Watch it just for them...