Bayou

"Bayou" is a not particularly distinguished film that is, at times, slow-paced and is filled with questionable acting. Nevertheless, it became a notorious film a few years later when someone bought the movie rights and spliced in a few nude scenes...and made $10,000,000 in theaters! My review is for the original, non-nudie film. It's too bad...as the original picture is pretty slow.

Martin Davis (Peter Graves) has come to the Cajun country in Louisiana in search of a big project, as he's a young and enterprising architect. However, when he meets young Marie (Lita Milan), he forgets about the project and focuses all his attention on her. However, the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Quiet Man", there's a boorish jerk- face, Ulysses (Timothy Carey) who insists Marie is his...and he'll kick the butt of any man who tries to take her. While this all sounds interesting, most of the stuff in between is amazingly dull...and the film is filled with actors who seemed like amateurs...that is beside Graves and Carey. Overall, it's a very silly and only occasionally interesting movie.

This picture is terrible. I don't get all the hype about Timothy Carey with his lousy Cajun accent. He overacted in every film I ever saw him in. This one is no exception. The rest of the cast is okay but most of the Cajun accents sound phony. Slow pace, boring direction and an inane script all serve to make this film a total waste of time. One interesting footnote though: no one seems to have noticed that veteran character actor Douglas Fowley (Singin in the Rain) is playing two roles. Not only does he play the ingenues' toothless father but also Jim (with his teeth and dark hair), the guy cajoling Peter Graves to fight for his architect design. He is the best actor in this otherwise dismal film.

Classic cult drama. A young Peter Graves post-Stalag 17 pre-Mission:Impossible made a good naive hero. This film absolutely reeks of 1950's country living. (Or should that be livin')

It's your basic city boy comes to the boonies and wins over Miss young and pretty despite the reluctant father and jealous bloodthirsty boyfriend story.

Timothy Carey as Ulysses (said boyfriend) did an excellent job. Extremely polite to the older folks while giving Graves the laser beam eyes. He had a habit of playing intensity like it was pure gold. If you can find it...find it.

I only watched this movie because of its striking description in Timothy Carey's IMDB page. The looming, hatchet-faced Carey is one of the most unique and unforgettable character actors Hollywood ever had, and he was apparently very eccentric in real life.

Whoever wrote that IMDB got one thing right: the only memorable scene in "Bayou" is when Carey does a bizarre, tortured jig to some Cajun music, twisting his head around and contorting his long body as though he's being electrocuted.

Besides that, this movie just doesn't have much in it. It's one of those movies that should have gone for half an hour. The plot is so simple: Man meets girl and falls in love, but some bad guy already has his eye on her, so you know they're headed for a clash, which takes far too long to arrive.

This was first released as "Bayou" in 1957, but nobody saw it, so it was shelved and re-released in '61 as "Poor White Trash", now apparently with an added scene in which Carey sexually assaults the girl, ripping her clothes off. The movie surprisingly shows her bare tush.

Now that I think about it, it's obvious that scene was added later, because it's shot so differently. It makes striking use of close-ups to really drive the point home. The rest of the movie, feels like the filmmakers (and other actors) were asleep at the wheel. Only Carey really signed on, but it's not really worth watching just for him, either.

Regardless of the quality of the film...I'm surprised no one has commented on Douglas Fowleys double duty in the film!