Cette terre qui est mienne

"This Earth Is Mine" is a very glossy film from Universal Studios that obviously cost a lot of money. It featured some top stars and was set in lovely Napa Valley....but, sadly, the story was apparently written by chimpanzees...albeit moderately talented chimps! In other words, it looks great...but is, essentially, trash when it comes to writing.

The film begins with Elizabeth Rambeau coming to Napa to see the family she's never met. Apparently, her father ran off with her mother long ago and she was raised away from her father's extended family's influence. As for this new family, they are wealthy grape growers...the pride of the county.

When Elizabeth meets her cousin, John (Rock Hudson), she sees that he's a bit of a black sheep in the family. While the patriarch (Claude Rains) seems content to wait until prohibition EVENTUALLY ends (it's been 12 years already...so he's an insanely patient man), John is in favor of selling the grapes to the highest bidders...which, not surprisingly, are the mob who is eager to convert this grape juice into wine.

As far as John and Elizabeth go, this is a HUGE problem with the film. First, she detests him and he insists she REALLY means 'yes'...a very dangerous trope. Second, out of the blue, she DOES come to love him. Not only was this dangerous, as it lends credence to the 'she says NO when she means YES' mentality but also because she goes from hating him to loving John for no discernible reason. This makes no sense and really is bad writing. What's next? See the film...or not.

So, if this is just a bad but very slick film, why did I watch it in the first place? Well, I recently moved to California wine country and live within relatively short driving distance from Napa. And, the film is interesting in this sense. Seeing the old vineyards and what Napa was like long ago (it's set in the 1930s) was interesting. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is poorly written and dull. There are some nice story elements (such as the illegitimate child portion of the movie), but overall it's tedious and not the movie it could have been. It only earns a 4 because it is interesting historically and looks nice. Otherwise, it's a slick and glitzy bad movie.

Set during the last years of Prohibition, This Earth Is Mine tells the story of the Rambeau family of the Napa Valley, prominent wine makers who are having a rough go of it during those years. Family patriarch is Claude Rains who through arranged marriages has gained control of a good deal of the real estate in the valley.

Rains reminds me a whole lot of Melvyn Douglas in Hud, an honorable man, possibly too honorable. Even though Prohibition is killing his business, he's surviving on selling his grapes to make jelly and grape juice, he won't sell to bootleggers to make illegal wine. Not like he's got control over what happens to his grapes once they are sold, but Rains has an exaggerated and somewhat naive morality.

Those arranged marriages aren't always the happiest ones either. Kent Smith is married to daughter Dorothy McGuire an iron willed lady, but who was in love with Anna Lee the wife of a son of Rains and the two of them had a not so discreet affair that produced Rock Hudson. He's the black sheep of the family and his parentage is just not discussed in polite company.

But all that makes it OK for Hudson to get romantically interested in Jean Simmons the daughter of another son of Rains who is over in the United Kingdom. She's come to the USA to be the arranged bride of another landed wine family Francis Bethencourt who once considered the priesthood.

Hudson has no such scruples about who the grapes are sold to. He organizes some of the smaller growers to sell their crops to bootleggers and some of those who resist get the usual gangster treatment. All this threatens to tear the Rambeau family apart and that's without going into what's going on with Rock and Jean.

I compared Claude Rains to Melvyn Douglas in Hud and truth be told Rock Hudson's part was probably better suited to someone like Paul Newman. But I don't think either of them could have lifted this story above the soap opera level. This Earth Is Mine tries for an Edna Ferber epic like quality and misses.

But for those of you who like this sort of stuff you could have seen all this and more on the Eighties prime time TV soap opera Falcon Crest where they had a matriarch of a wine growing family, Jane Wyman, who weekly was involved in some machinations trying to control all the people around her.

This Earth Is Mine does boast some beautiful scenery of the Napa Valley and Henry King as director does do his best to breathe credibility into an unbelievable story.

This is not available on video, as far as I can determine, and if it does eventually become available, be sure that the CinemaScope ratio is reproduced. Winton Hoch and Universal-International's master of the color cameras, Russell Metty, did some fine location work on this one, having been granted access to over a dozen properties in northern California's world-famed Wine Country. Their work made the use of Technicolor and CinemaScope more than worthwhile.

The story is a bit pulpy but it's not that badly spun out and, surrounding Mr. Hudson, U.-I.'s all-time box-office draw, there are some fine actors, including Dorothy McGuire, the always regal Claude Rains (playing an autocratic patriarch), and the lovely Jean Simmons, fresh from a number of above-the-title roles in Twentieth-Century Fox CinemaScope costumers. Hugo Friedhofer underscores the plot's halting progress with his usual taste and finesse. I'd forgotten he had written this score (I did see it first-run.) until a broadcast some time ago on American Movie Classics (failing, once more, to "letterbox" it. Wish I could sue them. One thing is for sure...I make a point to avoid purchasing anything offered by the advertisers who now clutter up their broadcasts ad nauseum.) Friedhofer's contribution lifts this film into the Class "A" category, something that cannot be said of many U.-I. releases during the Fifties.

When this film was about to be released a friend and I, up from southern California for a brief vacation in San Francisco, suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a stop on a press junket for this film. There, just a few feet away from where we stood, was Mr. Hudson towering over the diminutive Miss Simmons. I recall the patience they exhibited as they posed for numerous pictures, while answering reporters' questions. If there was any security around for the stars' protection, we weren't aware of it...a far cry from what we might observe in these paranoid times.

This is a most attractive movie featuring a stunning cast.It has a haunting quality that left me thinking and wanting to view it again.Jean Simmons and Dorothy McGuire play their parts with absolute conviction and both ladies look lovely too.Claude Rains is superb and Rock Hudson gives a star performance in a challenging role.I love so many films made at Universal in the late 50's and early 60's;nice photography,costumes,make-up,hair etc. David Allen (New Zealand)

It looks like it was posted on you tube by Universal as their name appears in the bottom left hand corner. It is the full Cinemascope version and beautiful color. Excellent cast with names to remember. I have not seen this for many, many years but have been looking for it constantly. Now thanks, hopefully to Universal it is available for all to see again.

Locations in the Napa Valley give absolute realism to the production.