This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is the farm, which isn't necessarily all that difficult. Except, of course, that I've already used a couple of the movies that immediately came to mind, with a pair of them being in the "Small Towns" week last December: The Stranger's Return and Way Back Home. And then I used The Purchase Price a few weeks before that when the TMP theme was movies with strong female characters. I knew I had used it, although I thought I had used it in a theme of characters on the run. But I was still able to come up with three movies:
Our Daily Bread (1934). Tom Keene and Karen Morley play a couple who have basically failed in the big city thanks to the Great Depression. Her uncle offers them a plot of land out in the country and tells them they're welcome to try their hand at farming. So the couple eventually sets up a community farm with a bunch of people who have more ability (and more varied abilities) than our married couple, but less land. Barbara Pepper plays the woman who threatens to come between Keene and Morley.
The Southerner (1945). Zachary Scott plays the farmer in this one, and you can stop laughing at the thought of Scott as a farmer. He's a sharecropper who doesn't want to be a sharecropper any longer. So he, his wife (Betty Field), his children, and the children's granny (Beulah Bondi) start working a plot of land that his boss owns, with the possibility to buy it outright. Scott's new neighbor (J. Carroll Naish) and the neighbor's farmhand (Norman Lloyd) try to drive Scott off the land. Despite the bizarre cast of farmers (minus Beulah Bondi), the movie is surprisingly good. And if you want to see really bizarre casting of a farmer, you should see Ernest Borgnine as an Amish farmer in Violent Saturday.
The Egg and I (1947). Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert play a married couple who have (well, him, not her) bought a chicken farm. So they move out to the country and meet a wacky assortment of characters, most notably Ma and Pa Kettle (Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride). The Kettles turned out to be so popular that they got their own movie series.
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4 comments:
I haven't seen any of your picks this week, but Joel also chose Egg and I so I guess this is now my second time hearing about that lol.
I'm in the same boat with Brittani.
Good choices. Our Daily Bread has an almost documentary feel. The Southerner is beautifully acted but a real misery buffett. Nice to see Zachary Scott in a different part, this was his first film role so he hadn't been typed yet. We match on The Egg and I! A fun breezy comedy.
I went with two light films and a heavy drama for variety:
Summer Stock (1950)-Jane Falbury (Judy Garland) and her faithful housekeeper Esme (Marjorie Main) are struggling to keep the family farm afloat. One day Jane’s errant sister Abigail (Gloria De Haven) shows up with the news that she’s has been cast as the lead in a new musical. Oh and by the way she’s brought the entire troupe including her fiancée, the show’s director Joe Ross (Gene Kelly) with her to rehearse in the barn! After some persuasion Jane lets them proceed with the proviso that they trade chores for room and board. Everything goes bumpily along until Abigail departs in a snit and Jane is convinced to step into the lead. She’s reluctant but since she’s Judy Garland at the peak of her powers it goes well. Breezy if minor musical contains several iconic numbers, Judy & Gene’s challenge dance, Gene solo dance with a newspaper and most of all Judy’s infamous Get Happy number (filmed two months after the rest of the film with a 20 pounds lighter Garland). For something so light it was a nightmare to make taking six months to complete rather than the expected six weeks because Judy was coming apart at the seams (watch her weight fluctuate noticeably from scene to scene and entire backdrops change abruptly from scenes pieced together). For all the turmoil it’s a very pleasant film, Judy’s last at MGM.
The Egg and I (1947)-City slickers Betty & Bob MacDonald (Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray) head to the country to fulfill Bob’s dream of being a chicken farmer. Comic complications ensure with many rude shocks when they discover the farm is more or less a shack and the chicks are far more demanding than expected. Bob catches the eye of the rich neighbor farmer lady and Betty seeks solace and consul from their other neighbors, Ma & Pa Kettle (Marjorie Main & Percy Kilbride-who spun off into a successful series of B movies). Based on a bestseller by the real Betty MacDonald.
Places in the Heart (1984)-Suddenly widowed in Depression era Texas Edna Spalding (Sally Field) decides to make her small farm pay by bringing the first bale of cotton to market with the help of drifter Moze (Danny Glover), her blind boarder Mr. Will (John Malkovich) and her two young children. Facing many, many obstacles Edna perseveres against daunting odds. Sally won the Best Actress Oscar giving her famous “You like me! You really like me!!” acceptance speech.
We match with The Egg and I! I enjoy that film even though the leads are a bit too old but it doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen the other 2 but would like to esp3xially the second one because I love films that don’t seem right to have that certain actor in a film role,
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