IN this era, when sex is easy, it's great to see all that inhibited lust steaming out over the screen. Aldo Ray and Tina Louise did one jam-up job of showing their passion for one another. Actually, Robert Ryan almost upped the ante from his '7 Days in May' stint where he lectured on the devil women sucking out the vital juices from the soldiers under his command. (That's true, you know. We women would rather suck out vital juices than just about anything.) Anyway, see this back to back with Tobacco Road, and you'll understand completely why all these Yankees think we're products of incest and can barely put 4 grammatical phrases together. No wonder, I am continually fighting off the prejudices of people who are amazed that I wear shoes and didn't marry my 1st cousin.
The writing in here is great: Robert Ryan plays a beautiful balance between an obsessed redneck who is trying to find his grandpappy's gold on his property, and his restrained longing for his son's daughter. His goodness screams out in his scene with his cotton broker son, who made it big. As my own evangelist cousin says, "We call him 'MMM"...our Miserable Millionaire Miser."
And Michael Landon, as the albino teen-ager, scared of the violence from these raging men who have kidnapped him to divine the gold.....what a sight!! Jack Lord, in his pre-Hawaiian Eye days is all wrathful, as he watches his beauteous wife with the NATURAL cleavage longing for the drunken Aldo Ray. Hard to believe the change, but the analogy between the tearing up the yard and sacrificing the peace of his family for the gold hunt...and today's all materialistic, 'if it ain't business, it ain't nothing', lifestyle.....is fantastic....rite smart writin'.
Check it out for a movie that SHOULD be colorized if ever there was one. And that house looks just my Aunt Mattie Seals' home in Talbot County, jawja!!!!! Boy, do I miss it!
