LIGHT ON THE MOVIES
Hamilton, James S.
Light on the movies James S. Hamilton Our Vines Have Tender Grapes can go into the all-too-sparse collection of Americana in the movies, to be looked at years hence as about as authentic a picture...
...Martinius— slow-going, inarticulate—has his heart set on a big new barn...
...Family) * * * State Fair—When they decided to make Phil Stong's novel over into a musical show, there were Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II with Oklahoma to prove they were just the men to make a bang-up job of it...
...The little girl Selma is eager, spirited, full of curiosity about everything in life...
...seems to be on the stage, but State Fair does take its definite step towards a genial, homely kind of entertainment that is a vast relief from the giddy and gaudy back-stage shows that have set the style for song-and-dance movies ever since sound came to the screen...
...Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter are pleasant rural people, their son and daughter (Dick Haymes and Jeanne Crain) do the romancing with Dana Andrews and Vivian Blaine, and the tunes—well, try to escape them for the next little while...
...Family...
...And for the first time in moviedom a Protestant church has been presented with dignity and sympathy as the spiritual center of a community...
...Light on the movies James S. Hamilton Our Vines Have Tender Grapes can go into the all-too-sparse collection of Americana in the movies, to be looked at years hence as about as authentic a picture of life as many Americans live it as a fiction movie can manage to be...
...Little Selma has a season of vivid growth, full of childish adventures, and young Arnold, though he never gets the spanking you pray for, at least has to give up the skates he won by his astounding lie...
...The school-teacher —who stands the editor's smug preachments better than an audience is likely to—loses her yen for the city...
...Her fascination and terror and courage when she lets a circus elephant lift her on its trunk is a complete revelation of character...
...Its episodic record of a Wisconsin small farmer's year of everyday happenings is unpretentious and honest, full of the kind of little human things that Hollywood seldom concerns itself with, and on such a simple level of drama that a small boy's suddenly coming out with a thumping lie is as much of a shock as a rifle-shot, and the shooting of cattle in a burning barn more horrifying than a battle barrage...
...The Jacobsons are of Norwegian stock, proud of their new country and being part of it...
...Margaret O'Brien shows more richly than ever before that curious gift she has of making an inner light shine through a homely little face...
...In its leisurely way the picture does get somewhere...
...What an Iowa farmer and his family did at the State Fair is an elastic enough framework for aM kinds of gay, down-to-earth happenings, with room for romance and songs in its simple tale of Farmer Frake's big boar Blue Boy and his wife's mincemeat (should it be pepped up with a bit of brandy or not...
...his wife, a bit timid about such a huge ambition, wants smaller things like an in-door toilet...
...entered for prizes...
...There are neighbors and relatives—especially a small cousin Arnold and on a different level of education a young editor, devoted to the welfare of his people, and a new school-teacher who doesn't want to bury herself in a small town...
...Martinius loses the brooding feeling of isolation that makes him feel lonely in company—a prosperous year opens up a larger future for him...
...Edward G. Robinson gets far away from his old-time villainies as the farmer, and Agnes Moorehead makes a fine figure of understanding wife and mother...
...What this expert team has turned out probably won't be the landmark in movies that Oklahoma...
Vol. 9 • September 1945 • No. 38
