God's Little Acre

The jaunty title song belies what lies beneath this southern Gothic drama from the ever reliable director Anthony Mann who loads this film with various subtexts.

Robert Ryan gives a marvellous performance as patriarch Ty Ty Walden who has spent years digging up his farmland looking for gold buried by his grandfather sometime in the civil war. Maybe things would had been better if Waldens farmed the land as the family might have turned out better with tighter morals.

Ty Ty has three sons and two daughters. One of the son, jealous, hot headed Buck is married to sultry Griselda but she always had a thing for Will Thompson. He lost her but ended up marrying TY Ty's daughter Rosamund but Will has always pined for Griselda and the closed down mill in the town.

Darlin Jill the youngest daughter is a fee spirited filly who is being courted by Pluto, a fat man running for the job of Sheriff.

Jim Leslie is the son who got away, married into wealth and lives in Augusta but he also has the hots for Griselda and does little to hide it. As Ty Ty comments, some of the men in the family are far from chivalrous when it comes to handling women.

Only Shaw the youngest son tries to keep everyone together but in this pot boiler with different vignettes it is Ty Ty who eventually realises that his quest for gold and digging holes in his field has crated a chasms in his family.

Director Mann brings out fine performances from his cast and I think he had the censor sweating over some of the playful and sensual scenes.