Gil Jones (Ronald Reagan) lives on a ranch with his cantankerous uncle, Henry (Lionel Barrymore). After their cattle are stolen by the notorious bandit Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery), Gil and Henry are faced with the prospect of losing their ranch. Banker Jasper Hardy (Henry Travers) wants to foreclose on Henry and take over the ranch but a businessman named Morgan Pell (Tom Conway) shows up and offers to pay the then-huge sum of $20,000 for the land. Accompanying Morgan is his wife, Lucia (Laraine Day). Lucia was Gil’s childhood love and Morgan fears that Lucia still loves Gil more than him. Also in the mix is Gil’s comic relief best friend (Chill Wills), who has a crush on Hardy’s daughter (Nydia Westman). Negotiations are interrupted when the flamboyant Lopez and his men return to the ranch and take everyone, but Gil, hostage.
This sepia-toned film is based on a stage play, one that had already been filmed twice. It was Ronald Reagan’s first film for MGM and, when Reagan was running for President, he quipped that if he could survive acting opposite Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore than he could survive negotiating with Leonid Brezhnev. The role of Gil is a typical Ronald Reagan role. He’s good-natured and dependable and a little boring. Because he once saved Lopez’s life, Lopez is willing to help him out with his problems. Reagan is not bad in the role but he is overshadowed by Barrymore and Beery, two veteran actors who chew the scenery with gusto here. Berry speaks in an exaggerated and not at all convincing Mexican accent while Barrymore bellows all of his lines. Gil has so many different people yelling at him that it’s impossible not to feel sorry for him. Morgan has ulterior motives for offering to buy the land and Tom Conway is a convincing villain. Lopez helps out Gil and her uncle, saving not only their land but also plotting to bring Gil and Lucia back together. It’s a stage bound mix of drama and comedy that doesn’t really work, though Beery and Barrymore are amusing and Ronald Reagan shows why he was cast in so many best friend roles.
Whether you’ll enjoy it will probably depend on how you feel about the cast because they’re really the only reason to watch. If you’re a fan of Barrymore, Beery, or Reagan the film might work for you. If you’re not, this stagey 70-minute western is probably not for you.
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If, at one in the morning on Wednesday, you were suffering from insomnia, you could have turned over to TCM and watched the 1970 film, Rabbit Run. That’s what I did.
Rabbit Run is the epitome of a dumb lug film. In a dumb lug film, a male character finds himself living an unfulfilling life but he can’t figure out the reason. Why can’t he figure it out? Because he’s a dumb lug, with the emphasis on dumb. Usually, the viewer is supposed to sympathize with the dumb lug because he doesn’t mean to hurt anyone and everyone else in his world is somehow even more annoying than he is. Typically, the dumb lug will have an emotionally distant wife who refuses to have sex with him and who is usually portrayed as being somehow at fault for everything bad that has happened in the dumb lug’s face. (Want to see a more recent dumb lug film than Rabbit Run?American Beauty.) Ever since the silent era, there have been dumb lug films. In particular, male filmmakers and critics seem to love dumb lug films because they allow them to pat themselves on the back for admitting to being dumb while, at the same time, assuring them that everything is the fault of the wife or the girlfriend or the mother or the mother-in-law.
In Rabbit Run, the dumb lug is named Harry Angstrom (James Caan), though most people still remember him as Rabbit, the high school basketball star. Harry’s life peaked in high school. Now, he’s 28 and he can’t hold down a job. He’s married to Janice (Carrie Snodgress), who spends all of her time drinking and watching TV. He has a son and another baby is on the way. One day, when the pregnant Janice asks him to go out and get her a pack of cigarettes, Harry responds by getting in his car and driving all the way from Pennsylvania to Virginia.
When he returns to Pennsylvania, Rabbit doesn’t go back to his wife. Instead, he drops in on his former basketball coach (Jack Albertson) and begs for advice on what he should do. The coach, it turns out, is more than little creepy. He also has absolutely no practical advise to give. He does introduce Rabbit to a part-time prostitute named Ruth (Anjanette Comer). Rabbit quickly decides that he’s in love with Ruth and soon, he’s moved in with her.
Meanwhile, there’s all sorts of little things going on. Rabbit gets a job working as a gardener. Rabbit befriends the local Episcopal minister (Arthur Hill), even while the minister’s cynical wife (Melodie Johnson) tries to tempt Rabbit away from both his wife and his mistress. Rabbit both resents and envies the sexual freedom of the counter culture, as represented by his younger sister. And, of course, Janice is pregnant…
Rabbit Run is based on a highly acclaimed novel by John Updike. I haven’t read the novel so I can’t compare it to the film, beyond pointing out that many great works of literature have been turned into mediocre movies, largely because the director never found a way to visually translate whatever it was that made the book so memorable in the first place. Rabbit Run was directed by Jack Smight, who takes a rather frantic approach to the material. Since Rabbit Run is primarily a character study, it needed a director who would be willing to get out of the way and let the actors dominate the film. Instead, Smight overdirects, as if he was desperately trying to prove that he could keep up with all the other trendy filmmakers. The whole movie is full of extreme close-ups, abrupt jump cuts, intrusive music, and delusions of ennui. You find yourself wishing that someone had been willing to grab Smight and shout, “Calm down!”
(On the plus side, as far as the films of 1970 are concerned, Smight’s direction of Rabbit Run still isn’t as bad as Richard Rush’s direction of Gettting Straight.)
James Caan actually gives a likable performance as Rabbit, which is good because Rabbit would be totally unbearable if not played by an actor with at least a little genuine charisma. There’s nothing subtle about Caan’s performance but he makes it work. You never like Rabbit but, at the same time, you don’t hate him.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing subtle about the rest of the cast either. Something rather tragic happens about 80 minutes into the film and, as much as I knew I shouldn’t, I still found myself giggling because Carrie Snodgress’s performance was so bad that it was impossible for me to take any of it seriously. Even worse is Arthur Hill, as the minister who won’t stop trying to help Rabbit out. I eventually reached the point where, every time that sanctimonious character started to open his mouth, I found myself hoping someone would hit him over the head and knock him out. Among the major supporting players, only Anjanette Comer is allowed a chance to be something more than just a sterotype. Like Caan, she does the best that she can but ultimately. this is James Caan’s movie.
It’s a disappointing movie but it did not put me to sleep. Give credit for that to James Caan, who is the only reason to see Rabbit Run.
(For those following at home, Lisa is attempting to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing 38 films by this Friday. Will she make it? Keep following the site to find out!)
Based on the beloved classic by Louisa May Alcott, the 1933 film Little Women tells the story of the March sisters. Growing up in Concord, Massachusetts during the Civil War, they wait — with their mother, Marmee (Spring Byington) — for their father to return from serving as a chaplain in the Union Army. There are four sisters. The oldest, Meg (Frances Dee) is a responsible and practical (which is a nice way of saying that someone is boring) seamstress. The youngest, Beth (Joan Bennett) is beautiful but selfish. Meanwhile, saintly Beth (Jean Parker) spends her time playing a severely out-of-tune piano.
And then there’s Jo (Katharine Hepburn). Jo is just a year younger than Meg and … well, basically, she’s Katharine Hepburn. She’s an independent-minded intellectual who dreams of being a writer and who isn’t interested in conforming to society’s expectations. She’s head-strong and occasionally, she’s too stubborn for her own good. But she’s also kind-hearted and loves her sisters, even if she does sometimes disagree with them. We follow Jo as she rejects one potential suitor, poor earnest Laurie (Douglass Montgomery) and discovers another when she meets the older Prof. Behar (Paul Lukas). We also watch as a family tragedy brings her and her sisters back together.
In fact, Katharine Hepburn is so perfect as Jo that it throws the rest of this adaptation out of balance. So totally does Hepburn dominate this film that it’s hard not to feel that the other March sisters end up getting a short shrift. To a certain extent, it does make sense. Jo is the lead character and the story is largely told through her point of view. But, for someone who enjoyed reading Alcott’s novel, it’s hard not to be disappointed. I mean, Jo is great but some of us may have related more to one of the other March sisters. Like Beth, for instance.
Another problem with this version of Little Women is that the March sisters are all supposed to be teenagers and yet, they’re played by actresses who were in their 20s. For instance, 23 year-old Joan Bennett played Amy, who is supposed to be only 12 years old when we first see her. By casting actresses who were already clearly adults, it makes t difficult for the film to work as a coming-of-age story.
(Personally, my favorite version of Little Women — and the first one that I ever saw — was the 1994 version that starred Winona Ryder as Jo. Even though Ryder was clearly the film’s star, the other three March sisters were all given time to make an impression as well and, as a result, they felt like a real family. Speaking as the youngest of four sisters, there was a lot about that movie to which I could relate. Add to that, Christian Bale made for a far more interesting Laurie than Douglass Montgomery.)
With all that said, it bears repeating that Katharine Hepburn is absolutely perfect as Jo and, if you’re a Hepburn fan (and who isn’t), this is one of her essential films. It helps that she was directed by George Cukor, the director who was responsible for some of Hepburn’s best performances. The rest of the movie doesn’t quite live up to Hepburn’s performance but she was such a great talent that it almost doesn’t matter.
Little Women was nominated for best picture. However, it lost to Cavalcade.
Gil Jones (Ronald Reagan) lives on a ranch with his cantankerous uncle, Henry (Lionel Barrymore). After their cattle are stolen by the notorious bandit Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery), Gil and Henry are faced with the prospect of losing their ranch. Banker Jasper Hardy (Henry Travers) wants to foreclose on Henry and take over the ranch but a businessman named Morgan Pell (Tom Conway) shows up and offers to pay the then-huge sum of $20,000 for the land. Accompanying Morgan is his wife, Lucia (Laraine Day). Lucia was Gil’s childhood love and Morgan fears that Lucia still loves Gil more than him. Also in the mix is Gil’s comic relief best friend (Chill Wills), who has a crush on Hardy’s daughter (Nydia Westman). Negotiations are interrupted when the flamboyant Lopez and his men return to the ranch and take everyone, but Gil, hostage.
Through the Shattered Lens 