God's Little Acre (1958)

A poor farmer is obsessed with finding gold on his land supposedly buried by his grandfather. To find it he conveniently moves a marker out of his way that designates the land on which it ... See full summary »

Director:

Anthony Mann

Writers:

Erskine Caldwell (novel), Philip Yordan (front for Ben Maddow),

Stars:

Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Buddy Hackett

2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Robert Ryan	...	Ty Ty Walden
Aldo Ray	...	Will Thompson
Buddy Hackett	...	Pluto Swint, Sheriff Candidate
Jack Lord	...	Buck Walden
Fay Spain	...	Darlin' Jill
Vic Morrow	...	Shaw Walden
Helen Westcott	...	Rosamund
Lance Fuller	...	Jim Leslie
Rex Ingram	...	Uncle Felix
Michael Landon	...	Dave Dawson
Russell Collins	...	Watchman
Davis Roberts	...	Farm Hand with Hoe
Janet Brandt	...	Irate Woman
Tina Louise	...	Griselda Walden, Ty Ty's daughter-in-law

Storyline

A poor farmer is obsessed with finding gold on his land supposedly buried by his grandfather. To find it he conveniently moves a marker out of his way that designates the land on which it rests as as God's Little Acre, where anything that comes from the ground will go to God's work. Eventually he abducts an albino to help him find the gold. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law is suspected of fooling around with a labor activist out of work since the mill closed, and a local political hopeful actively seeks his daughter's hand in marriage.

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Plot Keywords:

gold | farm | albino | mill | marriage | 

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Taglines:

Love! Hate! Pride! Passion! Rampant, Riotous In the Heat of a Southern Sun!

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 September 1958 (West Germany)

Also Known As:

Gottes kleiner Acker

Filming Locations:

San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Security Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A 1967 re-release attempted to appeal to the new generation by playing up the sex in the advertisements. The '67 poster featured the drawing of a topless woman underneath a bare-chested man on a bed, as well as a topless (but chaste) photo of co-star Fay Spain that was definitely not in the picture itself! For this re-release, Tina Louise was given top-billing and Michael Landon went from tenth billing in 1958 to second billing this time.

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Goofs

When Pluto and Darlin' Jill are parked in his truck by a field, a tree can be seen through Pluto's window. An external shot of the truck shows fencing wire in front of the tree not visible previously.

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Quotes

Ty Ty Walden: [in son Jim Leslie's home] That's a dining room - way down there?

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Crazy Credits

introducing Tina Louise

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Connections

Featured in Michael Landon: Memories with Laughter and Love (1991)

User Reviews

Walden Family Values

For whatever reason the producer's decided that God's Little Acre should be set in no specific time rather than in the dust-bowl thirties where and when it belongs, it kept the film from being a great film. It's still a good film to watch, but it misses greatness by a length.

Erskine Caldwell wrote this and set in firmly the Depression. And for rural America, the Depression did not begin when the stock market crashed. It began after World War I when the demand for our farm produce dropped with the coming of peace. Agriculture had no price support system then, it was the beginning of the end of the family farm, be it corn or cotton. The stock market crash just exacerbated the situation.

But this Walden family has its own set of problems starting with the head of the family, Robert Ryan. As Ty Ty Walden, he's digging up the farm rather than working it, looking for some buried gold left from Civil War days. He's got three sons and two daughters and one fetching daughter-in-law, Tina Louise who is married to one son, Jack Lord, but has her heart set on her sister Helen Westcott's husband Aldo Ray.

Before she was movie star Ginger Grant and a castaway, Tina Louise was quite the sex object, she's also got another son, Lance Fuller all hot and bothered over her. He's gotten away from his family of rustics, he married a wealthy widow who up and died and left him well fixed. Of course he has the least amount of character among the whole bunch.

Jack Lord and Vic Morrow are the other sons. Lord in his days before he was telling Danno to book 'em played a lot of nasty types on screen. Here he's not nasty, but he's one powerfully jealous fellow. Fay Spain had a brief career as a young sex pot due to this film as the youngest in the family and one flirtatious young thing.

This film was loaded with TV stars in the making. Michael Landon has a very nice part as an albino these rustics believe has special powers that can divine where gold is. He's captured by them and put to work tramping all over Ryan's acres looking for the buried gold. He's a true innocent that Fay Spain seeks to seduce while she's still being courted by Buddy Hackett who's a local politician running for sheriff. Michael Landon or Buddy Hackett? I mean, really, who would you choose?

Though some of the left-wing polemics were drained from the film, this was the fifties, Anthony Mann still managed to get his cast to deliver a powerful and entertaining film.

I will say this about the ending, the audience gets the message for sure about what's important in life, but it looks Ryan never will.