helpless_dancer

Very enjoyable film about a southerner who gleefully goes off to battle only to find it wasn't the grand adventure he had envisioned. Sick of the carnage he takes the long road home, experiencing many rough knocks as he does. The picture bounces back and forth from 1861 to 1863 showing us the man before and after his soldiering experience. Primarily we see his relationship with a woman as it gets a rocky start and gradually forms into something permanent. Many fine performances in the movie made it memorable; I particularly liked the interplay between Ruby and Ada. I had to laugh a couple of times at Ruby's habit of counting off points she wanted to make. Hilarious. Well played out ending; fit in well with the mood preceding it.

As usual in these romance embedded comedies I wiped many happy tears as the lovable couple made their way towards a lovably enthusiastic display of eternally intense affection. Besides which, it had a message for us all: 'don't be a nasty person'. While I wasn't bowled over like I was in "Sleepless in Seattle" and "My Best Friend's Wedding", and I just knew what was going to happen, I nevertheless had a fine time kicked back and letting the action play out in it's own way. No getting mad at Tom Tom for being an arrogant little snot, no hand wringing worrying if the cutesy little couple would ever manage to beat the odds and form a lasting union which would burn brightly for eternity. None of that because, let's face it, one doesn't turn 30 over night and get to live all the mistakes over and right them. Fun film and JG is, like, totally hot you know.

Yes, I've seen worse films but this was so bad they had trouble keeping horses during the shooting; the critters would all run off at night. To say Joe Willie's talents lay elsewhere would be the understatement of the decade. His dismal performance wasn't all that noticeable, however, because everybody else stunk like a week old corpse in a broken icebox during a Texas heat wave. Even Elam, one of my all time faves, couldn't keep a straight face in many of his scenes. There was so much ham in this turkey that if Jimmy Dean bought it he would have to open up a new building to process all the pork. Seldom have I seen a greater collection of grinning jackasses than were displayed in this thinly plotted venture. The soundtrack was interesting but all that rock music never quite dovetailed with the action on the screen.