All the Fine Young Cannibals

I love this picture. I think it's one of his best. For years I have been hoping it come to VHS. It's time to go into that library of movies and put them in VHS. I hope someone take a look at this and put on tape.

If you're looking for happy moments, then this isn't your film. The problems grow and grow and you never see a solution for them. Under my point of view, it's not a bad film, but the story hasn't got a message and it's so sad that the only way to enjoy the film is by appreciating the acting, the directing, etc...

My rating is 7 out of 10

the movie was one of my favorites because it shadowed my own life to a certain degree. it seemed so real to me it was scary. i love natalie wood and robert wagner and i felt for both of them in this film as though it was really happening. susan kohner was a very beautiful girl and i fell for her hook line and sinker

The opening twenty, or so, minutes of this film are ludicrous, and I had to force myself to stay away from the delete button on my DVR. Pretty couple Wagner & Wood unconvincingly play two white-trash Texas teenagers, utilizing some of the worst faux Texas/Southern accents to ever grace (or in this case, disgrace) the screen. Granted, once the film has Pearl Bailey to work with, there are some nice moments, but they are few and far between.

Hamilton has little to do, and Susan Kohner plays spoiled rich girl Catherine so broadly, you expect the character to grow horns and carry around a pitchfork.

Sets and costumes are the usual MGM glam.

Anderson's movie is derivative.It looks like lite Douglas Sirk: the spoiled kid sister (played by Susan Kohner who worked with Sirk) is not unlike Marylee (Dorothy Malone) in "Written on the wind" ;besides ,Ruby's funeral will fatally make you think of that of Annie in "Imitation of life" ,a black choir singing "Free at last" replacing Mahalia Jackson.The screenwriters also borrow from Kazan's "splendor in the grass" as far as the two leads' fate is concerned.And the baby trick was used a hundred times or more in the thirties and forties melodramas (notably Bette Davis' "the big lie" and "the old maid" ;Olivia De Havilland' s "to each his own").

Having said this,one must credit Natalie Wood for making the best of the stereotyped part of a go-getter;Robert Wagner's moody looks work wonders too when he plays the trumpet and in the scene when he backs Pearl Bailey's impressive vocals.

This is the kind of movie they don't do anymore;this is the kind of story which could go on and on and on and on;in a word,it's the perfect soap opera ,and it still exists today in the form of the TV series.

Like this?try these.......

Peyton Place Mark Robson 1957

Imitation of life Douglas Sirk 1959