What's so great about Ronnie Reagan's greatest flick KINGS ROW?
If the Devil popped up and said you could only watch one RR movie without being damned, you would probably say, "Wow, you mean I get a FREEBIE?"
Yes, you do. If so, the one to pick is KINGS ROW, directed by the quite competent Sam Wood, starring Robert Cummings, ex-President and bullet-magnet Ronald Reagan, and a not-too-bad-looking hottie named Ann Sheridan. It's one of those 'expose' stories of small town American circa 1900, and the sordid pablum in it includes forbidden love, schizophrenia, murder-suicide, a crazy butchering surgeon, and basically Ronnie's character engaging in a turn-of-the-century threesome with the Ross girls ('Poppie' and 'Jinny').
Yet it's a great film. The child actors are convincing, as is Robert Cummings (who has an uncanny knack for being convincing, kind of like Barack Obama). Ronnie is--well, Ronnie. Smiling, optimistically devil-may-care, you get the idea that he'd lower taxes in Kings Row if only the Ross girls would let him up for air. The psychiatry stuff doesn't seem half as goofy as it should, the score by Korngold is probably his greatest (yes, better than ROBIN HOOD), and of course anything the legendary Claude Rains is in is worth watching time and again, just to savor his gift for delivering a line.
Damn, this is a fun hour and forty-five. From Ronnie's famous "Where's the rest of me?!" to Ann Sheriden's sly smile and way with a line, it's a film that says : "Hate me if you dare!"
Well, I don't dare. It's un-hateable. In fact, it's got to be one of my top ten "Guilty Pleasure Films" (right up there with HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS and Cukor's THE WOMEN).
Oh--and if you want a good read, buy A MATTER OF REVENGE. It's fun, you'll learn something about the fifties (and Cold War Berlin, Belgium beer, the Mannekin Pis, the Battle of the Bulge, and more!). And come back again in a few days for another opinion on THE MOVIES.
If the Devil popped up and said you could only watch one RR movie without being damned, you would probably say, "Wow, you mean I get a FREEBIE?"
Yes, you do. If so, the one to pick is KINGS ROW, directed by the quite competent Sam Wood, starring Robert Cummings, ex-President and bullet-magnet Ronald Reagan, and a not-too-bad-looking hottie named Ann Sheridan. It's one of those 'expose' stories of small town American circa 1900, and the sordid pablum in it includes forbidden love, schizophrenia, murder-suicide, a crazy butchering surgeon, and basically Ronnie's character engaging in a turn-of-the-century threesome with the Ross girls ('Poppie' and 'Jinny').
Yet it's a great film. The child actors are convincing, as is Robert Cummings (who has an uncanny knack for being convincing, kind of like Barack Obama). Ronnie is--well, Ronnie. Smiling, optimistically devil-may-care, you get the idea that he'd lower taxes in Kings Row if only the Ross girls would let him up for air. The psychiatry stuff doesn't seem half as goofy as it should, the score by Korngold is probably his greatest (yes, better than ROBIN HOOD), and of course anything the legendary Claude Rains is in is worth watching time and again, just to savor his gift for delivering a line.
Damn, this is a fun hour and forty-five. From Ronnie's famous "Where's the rest of me?!" to Ann Sheriden's sly smile and way with a line, it's a film that says : "Hate me if you dare!"
Well, I don't dare. It's un-hateable. In fact, it's got to be one of my top ten "Guilty Pleasure Films" (right up there with HOLLYWOOD KNIGHTS and Cukor's THE WOMEN).
Oh--and if you want a good read, buy A MATTER OF REVENGE. It's fun, you'll learn something about the fifties (and Cold War Berlin, Belgium beer, the Mannekin Pis, the Battle of the Bulge, and more!). And come back again in a few days for another opinion on THE MOVIES.
posted by I. Michael Koontz | 4:22 PM
|
0 comments
