Raintree County

They don't make movies like this any more, thank goodness! This `late MGM' historical costume drama from 1957 has great costumes, rather underemployed big stars, lovely locations and expert cinematography, overdone interior sets, rather ordinary dialogue and a trite storyline. The version I watched ran for about three hours; beautiful as it was, it seemed twice that length. It also lacked emotional intensity and the storyline was telegraphed far in advance, not what you would expect from Dmytryk, the director of `The Caine Mutiny'.

I understand Montgomery Clift (John Shawnessy) had a disfiguring accident during filming and thus he can be forgiven for looking a bit wooden in some scenes. In his mid-thirties, he was far too old for his character who was meant to be fresh out of college. At least Liz Taylor looked right as Susannah (from Savannah), the cracked Southern Belle. Eve Marie Saint as Nell, the hero's `best friend,' spends most of the movie just floating a few inches above the ground. Lee Marvin and Rod Taylor both have parts as eager young men (which they were at the time) and are reasonably convincing, and the British actor Nigel Patrick has a good turn as one of those charismatic/charlatan `professors' who seem to inhabit 19th century American literature.

The civil war and the battle against slavery get some screentime here, but the underlying theme is Shawnessy's search for personal meaning, for the Raintree of life. For him the answer is; find your patch, settle down, marry your own kind (Susannah was a big mistake) and don't run for congress. Ross Lockridge, the original author, a resident of Indiana where most of the movie is set (though not filmed), wrote this single best seller before committing suicide in 1948, and was thus not around to tell the filmmakers what he intended, but Dmytryk at least seemed to realize the story was a rather personal one. Someone forget to tell the set and costume departments.