Raintree County (C+ or 2.5/4 stars)
In 1939, MGM Studios produced the incredible Gone With The Wind. It went on to be a critical & commercial hit (to say the LEAST). And it won a slew of Oscars, including Best Picture. 18 yrs. later, MGM hoped for lightning to strike twice with another epic Civil War melodrama, this film ... 'Raintree County' (directed by Edward Dmytryk). Unfortunately, lightning did not strike twice. Set on the eve of said Civil War, this nearly 3 hour (ugh) motion picture is gorgeously mounted with color cinematography, lavish sets/costumes, & nice music. But the narrative structure is fairly disjointed. Some of the main characters are simply not interesting enough. And the last 5-10 minutes feel both anticlimactic (against what occurs beforehand), as well as inauthentic to what you'd think would happen.
Elizabeth Taylor plays Susana, a beautiful & seductive southern belle - akin to Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara. Susana is an outsider from New Orleans, whose arrival in Indiana's Raintree County turns heads, shakes things up, & ultimately changes the lives of those around her. Our male lead is good 'ole boy, John Shawnessy (Montgomery Clift); son of liberals (Walter Abel, Agnes Moorehead). He advocates the abolition of slavery, & his ultimate goal is to become a teacher. Though he's engaged to his high school sweetheart - the very lovely, sensitive Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint), he falls hard for the vain, aristocratic Susana.
And after seducing him, she traps him into marriage by claiming that she is with his child when she's not. But they DO get married. And some yrs. later she has a son. But tension arises when John decides to fight for the Union, while true-to-Dixieland Susana is dismayed; maintaining loyalty to her southern Confederates. John & his pals (including a fun Lee Marvin & a great Nigel Patrick) endure years of battle in the war. Circumstances arise in which John's young son gets separated from John and Susana (who enters an insane asylum), & he must find his son in the wilderness.
After returning home with his son to Indiana, we learn that Susana is actually a deeply disturbed woman with insane tendencies that seems to run in her family. In said asylum, she regresses back to a traumatic childhood incident involving a fire, her troubled mother, her father, & a black maid whom he loved. Realizing that she is problematic and seeing how the stalwart Eva Marie Saint character is still in love with John, Susana bolts from her house into a fierce storm with hopes to locate the fabled Raintree that John always longed to find. Unbeknownst to all, her young son follows her into the storm. Melodrama ensues.
Even though 'Raintree County' did very well at the box office, it cost a pretty penny to make. As mentioned, the film benefits from having lush production design, beautiful costumes, pretty ball scenes, overcooked dialogues, & some battle scenes. But ultimately, 'Raintree ...' lacks the story, characterization, grandeur, sweep, & emotional power of a Gone With the Wind. Also, some viewers may not take kindly to Susana. Scarlett O'Hara wasn't Mary Sunshine, but you could feel sympathy for her. I actually felt sympathy for Susana here, but it's harder to cut through her layers of stubbornness & insanity to the vulnerable woman that she is.
The production of the film also had its share of issues. During the shoot, Montgomery Clift, then a well-known alcoholic, famously crashed his car after leaving one of Liz Taylor's lavish parties & damaged himself in a big car wreck; which changed his looks quite a bit (broken nose, shredded lips, cheek cuts, fractured jaw). The accident left physical & emotional scars he would never completely heal from. Production shut down for a few months due to this. THEN, later in the shoot, Liz collapsed; having suffered an attack of tachycardia. The whole thing is a shame, really. I could SEE a potentially wow-worthy film somewhere inside 'Raintree County'. But for a plethora of reasons, it just never materialized into something cohesively great.
Elizabeth Taylor plays Susana, a beautiful & seductive southern belle - akin to Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara. Susana is an outsider from New Orleans, whose arrival in Indiana's Raintree County turns heads, shakes things up, & ultimately changes the lives of those around her. Our male lead is good 'ole boy, John Shawnessy (Montgomery Clift); son of liberals (Walter Abel, Agnes Moorehead). He advocates the abolition of slavery, & his ultimate goal is to become a teacher. Though he's engaged to his high school sweetheart - the very lovely, sensitive Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint), he falls hard for the vain, aristocratic Susana.
And after seducing him, she traps him into marriage by claiming that she is with his child when she's not. But they DO get married. And some yrs. later she has a son. But tension arises when John decides to fight for the Union, while true-to-Dixieland Susana is dismayed; maintaining loyalty to her southern Confederates. John & his pals (including a fun Lee Marvin & a great Nigel Patrick) endure years of battle in the war. Circumstances arise in which John's young son gets separated from John and Susana (who enters an insane asylum), & he must find his son in the wilderness.
After returning home with his son to Indiana, we learn that Susana is actually a deeply disturbed woman with insane tendencies that seems to run in her family. In said asylum, she regresses back to a traumatic childhood incident involving a fire, her troubled mother, her father, & a black maid whom he loved. Realizing that she is problematic and seeing how the stalwart Eva Marie Saint character is still in love with John, Susana bolts from her house into a fierce storm with hopes to locate the fabled Raintree that John always longed to find. Unbeknownst to all, her young son follows her into the storm. Melodrama ensues.
Even though 'Raintree County' did very well at the box office, it cost a pretty penny to make. As mentioned, the film benefits from having lush production design, beautiful costumes, pretty ball scenes, overcooked dialogues, & some battle scenes. But ultimately, 'Raintree ...' lacks the story, characterization, grandeur, sweep, & emotional power of a Gone With the Wind. Also, some viewers may not take kindly to Susana. Scarlett O'Hara wasn't Mary Sunshine, but you could feel sympathy for her. I actually felt sympathy for Susana here, but it's harder to cut through her layers of stubbornness & insanity to the vulnerable woman that she is.
The production of the film also had its share of issues. During the shoot, Montgomery Clift, then a well-known alcoholic, famously crashed his car after leaving one of Liz Taylor's lavish parties & damaged himself in a big car wreck; which changed his looks quite a bit (broken nose, shredded lips, cheek cuts, fractured jaw). The accident left physical & emotional scars he would never completely heal from. Production shut down for a few months due to this. THEN, later in the shoot, Liz collapsed; having suffered an attack of tachycardia. The whole thing is a shame, really. I could SEE a potentially wow-worthy film somewhere inside 'Raintree County'. But for a plethora of reasons, it just never materialized into something cohesively great.