A Grande Promessa

When I first started watching this film, I assumed it would be a schmaltzy family film. However, as it progressed, I realized it was the story about a nasty old man who dominated his family...and the attempt by some of them to break out from under his thumb. I do think many WILL see it as a family film but with me being a father, I sure wanted to bust this guy in the nose!

Mr. Matthews (Walter Brennan) and his children arrive in town and they buy a farm. One of their neighbors is David Barkley (Robert Paige) and he's a college educated agricultural agent. But Matthews is a stubborn old guy and refuses to listen to Barkley--choosing to use his old tried and true methods. Likewise, he doesn't listen to his children but dominates them. He pretends everyone in the family gets a say but uses emotional blackmail to get his way every time. When Matthews is badly hurt and his children have to run the farm, the oldest, Deborah (Marguerite Chapman) decides to loosen up the reins and try new methods. When her father eventually learns of this, he tries to sabotage her efforts--all to prove he was right after all.

One of the beneficiaries of Dad's injury is little Susan (Natalie Wood). She's wanted to raise lambs and join 4-H but he vetoed this because...well...because he could! Now with Dad laid up in bed, Susan tries to prove she can raise sheep on her own.

Fortunately, everything works out by the end of the film....and I stopped hating Matthews! It is a nice little film...just try to ignore Matthews' boorishness that occasionally rears its ugly head. Also, try to ignore the kid in the Aunt Jemima costume at the party! My how times have changed!

It reminded me of those 16mm films we were shown in grade school--this one on the benefits of land conservation and belonging to the 4-H Club. Actually, it was sort of disturbing. Walter Brennan plays an overbearing, out-of-date father to three daughters who fear him---going out of his way to alienate those who would help him. Unfortunately, the arc of his character is more like a straight line with a sharp hook at the end, as he sees the error of his ways in the last 60 seconds of the film. A plus was seeing young Natalie Wood 2 years past her "Miracle on 34th Street" work. Points up what a difference a good story and direction can make. Both Brennan and Wood were ill-used in this filmstrip with sound.

The Green Promise is a commercial for the 4-H clubs which despite the ever shrinking number of family farms there are still enough kids growing up on same to provide a spring of new members. But this film is a time capsule which shows some of the problems of rural life around 1949. A lot of those same problems exist today because the things that Mother Nature can throw at you when you make a living from the land don't change at all.

Walter Brennan plays a serious version of his later Grandpappy Amos McCoy role. He's the father of four children, the grownup Marguerite Chapman and youngsters Ted Donaldson, Connie Marshall and the youngest Natalie Wood. Brennan is old fashioned and stubborn and not willing to listen to advice about new agricultural methods. Especially when they come from smart alecky young county agent Robert Paige. Paige knows his stuff, but he's a bit too sure of himself to suit Brennan and Chapman in the romance department. Of course she comes around in every way.

The star here is young Natalie Wood and she plays the part like a young Margaret O'Brien. In fact when I tuned the film on I wasn't sure I wasn't watching Margaret O'Brien, the only clue that puzzled me was that Ted Donaldson was too old be an older brother for O'Brien. Young Natalie is sweet and engaging and I defy anyone not to empathize with her concern for her young black lambs whom she is raising as her 4-H project.

The kids from 4-H pitch in with helping hands (that is one of the four Hs after all) to save the farm from the elements and the stupidity of man which I won't go into. All in all they're wholesome All American kids and a real advertisement for the group.

And The Green Promise is also an advertisement for the 4-H clubs in the USA. It's a nice family film without great production values and Natalie Wood is exceptional.

William D. Russell directs this rather unusual screenplay about a widower farmer and his four children of various ages, who live under their pig-headed father's thumb. Pretending to have a democracy in his family, the farmer--who always gets the last word--doesn't see that his stubborn ways of operating a home and a farm are not always the right ways, and he often comes close to alienating his children with his rigidly unsentimental attitude. Upon moving into their newest ranch house, eldest daughter Marguerite Chapman is wooed by the handsome, eligible local agriculturalist, yet she acts frigid and suspicious of men; we are to assume this is the way her papa raised her, but possibility a more vulnerable approach might have drawn us closer to the character. Natalie Wood is the talkative youngest child, and she pulls off some very difficult key sequences in the film with charm and poise (being voted down by her father when she desires buying two lambs, going to the bank and asking for a loan, and diligently taking her oath after being invited into the 4-H Club). The picture isn't a total success...and for a while there, I wasn't sure what Walter Brennan was trying for as the patriarch; at times he's so stern, he's almost villainous. However, the locations and silvery cinematography are perfect, and there's a dandy of a thunderstorm in which little Natalie finds herself caught. A genuine oddity from RKO, and worthwhile despite its flaws. **1/2 from ****

Charming little farm family drama, made more so by Wood's incandescent performance. Her emotions from joy to alarm are so infectious, it's hard not to be moved. That scene of acceptance into 4H is a little marvel of the kind of uninhibited joy that somehow gets lost on the way to adulthood. True, at times she's a little much, yet it's hard not to believe she's actually feeling what she's conveying, sort of an untutored version of the Stanislavski method, at least as I understand it. I also like Marguerite Chapman's unsmiling farm girl. She's certainly a long way from the expected eye-batting coquette when handsome David Barkley (Paige) comes calling. There's a feeling that the responsibilities of surrogate motherhood are making her old beyond her years. It's an unusually realistic, if rather dour, performance.

Despite the warm family overtones, the script is far from sappy. Catch how Dad (Brennan) manipulates the family's democratic process. He wants the image of democratic equality at the same time he works it for his own advantage. There's a larger lesson here that remains topical for our own time. Also, note how Dad opts for short-term financial advantage over longer-term conservation by cutting down the hillside trees. Those roots provide long-term flood protection, but don't provide the immediate cash he needs. Thus, his motives are understandable, yet when rain comes, calamity results. We continue to be confronted by the environmental issue of short-term advantage versus long-term security; at the same time, the screenplay raises this concern long before its like became a national issue.

The values here may be conservative, but they're hardly hidebound. Catch Rev. Benton's (Stone) Sunday morning sermon. It's really a recognition of the importance of science as both a source of knowledge and a potential benefit to our lives. The message is also a long way from the type of dogmatic conservatism that sees the Bible as the last word on either worldly wisdom or natural history. Then too, the values of 4H and the family farm are as relevant now as they were then, perhaps more so now that the hard lessons of industrial farming have entered our food supply. My general point is that the movie may be dated in some ways, but the screenplay remains an intelligent one even 60 years later.

Unfortunately, the version I last saw (on TMC) was edited and failed to include the now notorious bridge scene referred to by other reviewers. It also failed to include at least one other important scene I recall from an earlier version. So viewers should be alert to edited versions. Nonetheless, the movie is generally under-rated and combines both solid entertainment values with a well thought out message that makes for very worthwhile viewing.