rberrong-1

Movie adaptations of novels usually leave one regretting things that had to be left out. This movie is an exception. It is, in my opinion, a real IMPROVEMENT on the literary source, Jean Giono's Regain. The novel is sort of like French Pearl Buck: strong silent types working the earth, simple folk with all the admirable qualities: hard work, honesty, etc. In principle, very good, but in Giono's handling, understated to the point of tedium, since his novel is very clichéd. Pagnol, aided by some very fine performers, especially the male lead, who is remarkable in this movie, brings a series of clichés to life. I couldn't sit through The Good Earth a second time, but this I could very definitely see again with pleasure.

The last time I saw this movie, which was the first time I saw it, it played on TV when I was a kid, in the 1960s. I appreciated even then that it was a good movie, with fine acting, but it was a history lesson: a story about bigotry and ignorance in a part of the country that had been bigoted and ignorant back in the 1920s. Looking at it from a northern suburb in the 1960s, it was a source of laughter. How could those bible-thumpers have been so ignorant as to have denied science? In 2007, when polls show that 40+ percent of Americans - not just small town Southerners, but Americans in general - believe the story of the creation of the world as told in Genesis, when state after state finds itself debating whether "creationism" should be taught along side science in public schools, Kramer's film is if anything more powerful and prophetic than when he first made it. It demands the right of men to think freely, to be different, and that right has never been more under attack in this country.

This is truly a film that, unfortunately, has gotten "better" with age.

This movie does actually have a plot, but you're better off not bothering with it. Van Johnson and Esther Williams do their best with it, but the plot is truly of no interest. They both made much better movies, and probably few others this weak.

That is not to say that the movie is not worth watching, however. But its merits are strictly musical. Tommy Dorsey gets some good numbers with his band, but the true star of the picture, much more important than his billing would lead you to believe, is Metropolitan Opera tenor Lauritz Melchior. At this point, Melchior was winding down his career at the Met - he would be one of the "old timers" to go when Rudolf Bing arrived and did a lot of "house cleaning." And perhaps the performances he was giving there were no longer what they should have been. But in this movie, he really steals the show. He plays an over-weight tenor, a part that fitted him to a T, with an affability and sense of humor that make him seem completely at ease on the screen, unlike too many of his Met colleagues who had taken their turns in Hollywood. He also sings with a voice that is still rock solid. And he has a lot of numbers, from his classical standards like Grieg's "Ich liebe dich" and "Vesti la giubba" to some pop numbers, of which the best is the closing one: "Please don't say no, say maybe." Go out to make popcorn while the plot is advancing, but make sure you come back for the musical numbers!