The Romance of Rosy Ridge

Another reviewer claims this is a romantic musical comedy, not a drama--I beg to differ. There are songs, to illustrate the folksy ways of the Missourians, and there are a few laughs, and there is a romance, but it's difficult to class anything that includes montages of barn-burnings committed by hooded men on horseback as a musical comedy.

It's a film worth watching, though, as a post-WW2 look at the post-Civil War era, and how difficult it can be to cool off the high-burning passions of wartime. Johnson plays a vet who wanders into a small Missouri town still smarting with North-South divisions. It's an interesting story, incorporating unusually pointed comments about racial equality; the screenwriter, Lester Cole, was later blacklisted as a member of the Hollywood Ten.

The cast is incredibly engaging, from the dewy new starlet Janet Leigh (who got this part after just three weeks in Hollywood!), to the indescribably adorable young Dean Stockwell, to the complex Thomas Mitchell, to the wonderful character actress Selena Royle, playing Leigh's mother with beautiful emotional range.

This definitely falls into the category of the sort of social-issue picture (like Gentleman's Agreement or Paths of Glory) that led to the blacklisting of so many screenwriters. That alone makes it worth the viewing; the cast will just ice the cake.

I found this movie very uplifting and I believe quite true. My grandmother married my grandfather in almost the same situation. He had come to TX and found her while attending a political rally. They fell in love and married almost right away. Her father, a confederate, disowned her an never saw her again, as my grandfather's dad had fought for the Union. As I was watching it was so well done I felt I was there. Van Johnson and Janet Leigh (even though very young and quite new) was real as it gets. Unfortunately the quality of the film is quite poor, but maybe it will be restored and offered for DVD sale. Dean Stockwell did a fantastic job and should have won an award. Also, Missouri being the state seemed almost real.

I loved the emphasis on community values in this film. The ideas that the main character pulls for are not a whit outdated and can certainly be applied to today's society. It seems that in life, as in this film, there is always an element who tries to pull apart the community spirit for their own ends. These ideas are presented here in a completely engaging manner and are there for all to see as simple common sense. Kudos to Thomas Mitchell for another grand performance. Too bad this is another forgotten film which should be resurrected for its ideas which are strangely hip and contemporary. And Janet Leigh does a wonderful job, as does the actress who plays her mother.

"The Romance of Rosy Ridge" surprised me a bit. While I assumed it would be a pretty good film given its cast, it turned out to be even better. It's a wonderful little film and I strongly recommend you see it.

The film is set in Missouri 1965--just after the Civil War. Rosy Ridge is a sad community because it was a divided town in a border state and folks fought on both sides during the war. Because of this, there is still a lot of acrimony among the locals--with someone burning barns of the ex-Confederates. One guy, Gill MacBean (Thomas Mitchell) has vowed NEVER to have anything to do with anyone who fought for the Union.

One day, a stranger, Henry Carson (Van Johnson) wanders by the MacBean farm. While Gill isn't very friendly, the rest of the family invites the man in for dinner and soon he ends up staying for some time. Now this stranger isn't a freeloader--he works very hard around the place and he's also very likable. However, when it comes to politics, he says very little and Gill cannot figure out which side this young man might have fought for in the war. If he is a Yankee, this is a serious problem for Gill, as his daughter, Lissy (Janet Leigh--in her first film) is falling for Henry. There is MUCH more to the film than this--but frankly it's better if you just see it for yourself. Suffice to say, there isn't much not to like about this film. The acting is very nice (particular by Johnson), the script superb (offering lots of twists and a wonderful surprise ending) and it's a nice look at American history. Exceptional.

By the way, although it's not the same, you do wonder if the film was the inspiration for the "Andy Griffith Show" episode "A Stranger in Town" as there are some similarities.

This film, based on a story by the author MacKinlay Kantor (who was very popular in the 1930s-1950s period), is a delightful change from the urban tales usually emanating from Hollywood. It is possible that the film's title matches that of the original story, but I must point out that Rosy Ridge is never mentioned in the film itself, not that it matters (it is presumably the name of the location of the story). This film is set in the edge of the Ozarks in Missouri in 1865, amidst the seething tensions and hatreds of the locals who fought on the northern side of the Civil War and those who fought for the south. For those who don't know, there were two American states which were forced by the awkwardness of their geographical positions to remain officially neutral in the Civil War, and they were known as 'Border States'. One was Kentucky, whose sympathies were with the South but which did not dare declare for the South, and the other was Missouri, where sympathies were more evenly divided. This film was largely shot on location somewhere like Missouri, and it might even have been Missouri, who knows. There is a singular amount of authenticity to this film, especially in the flowery old-fashioned dialect used by the supporting actors. The script by Lester Cole (1904-1985, his last script being BORN FREE in 1966) therefore deserves a lot of praise, although that dialogue may have been lifted from Kantor's original. This was Janet Leigh's first film, and as the heroine, she makes a fresh-faced, smiling ingénue with doe eyes who leapt into everyone's hearts, and it made her a star. She would eventually appear in 86 films, the last one being released the year after her death in 2004. She was one of America's best-loved film actresses. Janet Leigh's father, somewhat too gruff and over-acted by Thomas Mitchell, is a fanatical Southern sympathiser who hates all Yankees. He and his wife and daughter and young son wait forlornly for the return of the older son, Ben, who may never be coming back from the War, and whose fate is unknown. They are poor arable farmers who live in a log cabin. Their next door neighbours supported the northern side, and they don't speak to one another. There is a lot of barn-burning going on, attributed whether rightly or wrongly to vicious Yankees, since all the barns which are burnt belong to Southern sympathisers. A different complexion is put on this towards the latter part of the film. A lot of Southern supporters are thus driven out and leave Missouri for good, going out West to what are called 'the Territories', which have not yet become the Western and Middle Western states. One evening a mysterious man, played by the ever-cheerful Van Johnson, walks down the lane near the log cabin playing the harmonica to himself and carrying a few belongings over his shoulder. He is clearly a former soldier, though of which army cannot be determined. He strikes up a conversation with Leigh's family the MacBeans and is given supper, then invited to stay the night, and he stays on and helps with the harvest. He and Leigh fall in love. But there are many complications and twists to the story, such as how and why did he happen to turn up at the MacBeans. I don't wish to spoil any of the mystery of this fine country tale, so I say no more. But this is a very wholesome and refreshing story of real country folk which is very ably directed by Roy Rowland (1910-1995), a New Yorker by origin and no countryman, who directed Margaret O'Brien the next year in TENTH AVENUE ANGEL (1948), directed Van Johnson the year after that in the film noir THE SCENE OF THE CRIME (1949), and is best known as the director of the later film noir WITNESS TO MURDER (1954) with Barbara Stanwyck.