Raintree County is a Crazy, Must See Mash Up
By Kristin Battestella
Once upon a time, the 1957 Civil War epic Raintree County was the most expense movie ever made. Though blacklisted director Edward Dmytryk’s scandalous tale of the South has long since lost that mantle, this adaptation of Ross Lockridge’s novel remains notorious for its troubled, turbulent production.
John
Shawnessy (Montgomery Clift) has life dreams and literary aspirations thanks to
the legends of his hometown in Raintree
County, Indiana. His
childhood sweetheart Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint), however, isn’t part of
those aspirations once the wealthy and carefree Susanna Drake (Elizabeth
Taylor) comes to Raintree from New
Orleans. Her
romance with Johnny moves swiftly, and despite Susanna’s deception and lies, they
are soon married and living on her family’s estate in Louisiana.
Unfortunately, long held Southern scandals, family secrets, and the
looming War Between the States ultimately divide John and Susanna’s seemingly
blissful life.
Dmytrk’s
(The Caine Mutiny) cast is clearly
all too old for their roles, and the messy, muddled, overlong, and confusing
topics, tangents, and situations don’t help Raintree County find any identity. What’s this tale
really supposed to be about – finding the titular tree, country racing, romance
and love triangles, the War, or racism and mental health issues? The uneven
pace takes so long in introducing all the characters – the audience has no
reason to care why these vignettes are happening amid the looming Civil War
themes. Much of the opening feels
unnecessary, and one wonders why Raintree County didn’t just begin with Elizabeth
Taylor’s arrival to town. Scenes
inexplicably move from one lesson or life story to the next with little rhyme
or reason. The twists and ties supposedly interconnecting these plotlines are
poorly put together thanks to the long-winded mid century pomp onscreen and the
behind the scenes turmoil – not to mention the obvious editing, different film
values, and camera work used to shoot around Montgomery Clift. By time we get
past any scandals to the subsequent war search and battlefield action, the
viewer has forgotten how we even got there in the first place. Then again, Raintree County must not be about the Civil War either,
because after it there are another 45 minutes of the same old dry, crazy
politics and erroneous romances. The tender moments between father and child
feel like a different show and Raintree County limps into its final moments – that’s the frickin’ tree? By the end, nobody onscreen cares about the
eponymous foliage either.
Although
Elizabeth Taylor (There are just so many films from which to choose!) looks
divine when she makes her scene stealing entrance twenty minutes into Raintree County, the audience never
finds out why Susanna catches everyone’s eye – beyond those stunning eyes,
fabulous frocks, and New Orleans drawl that is. We’ve seen Susanna’s Southern
crazy, desperation, lying, and manipulation type before, yet it’s all played so
juvenile, passionate, and wild. Yawn. Again, the cast is too old to play young
in love, and the secrets, social mores, and scandals don’t explain the meh
character motivations. Taylor is trying to bring some sort of nutty,
look fair and feel foul, too good to be good true beauty hints, but the double
talking script doesn’t help. If Raintree
County was meant to be about her, then everything away from the Johnny and
Susanna plots becomes superfluous. Screenwriter
Millard Kaufman (Take the High Ground!)
should have seriously paired down the novel and developed the core love
triangle to its full measures – Susanna is cruel to Nell, both women are
bitchy, and hints of North and South tension, divides, and deceptions go
undercooked. Indiana versus New Orleans could have been a turbulent
enough dynamic, but the core characters’ relationships, potentially racist
attitudes, and social stereotypes end up all over the board with no justice to
any of the concepts. There are some few and far between but wonderfully, eerie,
disturbed moments from Taylor
filmed in an excellent, hazy style. However, in a feeling long three-hour film such
as Raintree County,
Taylor
doesn’t seem to appear enough for Susanna to have any fully realized character
development.
Unfortunately,
one truly sees Raintree County for
one reason and one reason alone, and that’s Montgomery Clift. His infamous car
accident during production of Raintree
County caused significant pain, facial damage, and partial paralysis, and
thus created drastic filmmaking differences in the picture. From up close shots
of the young and pretty Clift ala the likes of A Place in the Sun to distant shots of a man clearly ailing, Raintree County has become an awkward spot the
difference novelty thanks to this seemingly overnight change in onscreen
character and performance. Clift’s passion is there, but the tragic
circumstances are immediately apparent not just from scene to scene, but
sometimes shot to shot with right side only filming tricks, and his different
voice, weight, and stature. Too much is already happening for Johnny onscreen
thanks to the all over the place script – the tree, writing, school, romance,
running, fighting – but Clift is very into the character and then obviously unwell
by the next cutaway. It’s makes Raintree
County a heartbreaking, can’t look away, morbid curiosity, and the notion
of Clift’s slowly being made mincemeat by the Hollywood industry is
encapsulated in these few hours. If Terminal
Station is his worst, then Raintree County is a close second at the bottom of
Clift’s brief but otherwise excellent repertoire. The early, up close shots of
Clift are the lone color scenes of him pre-accident – 1960’s Wild River and his final picture The Defector are his only other color
movies. Beautiful and talented as he was, it’s almost as if Montgomery Clift
just wasn’t meant for CinemaScope and the bright, zesty of color pictures.
Despite some fine film work after Raintree
County, this movie sadly marks the must see turning point between Clift’s
career and his downward personal spiral.
Likewise,
Oscar winner Eva Marie Saint (On the
Waterfront) feels woefully miscast as the so wide-eyed, innocent, and
strangely dolled up Nell. The character should be the scene stealing heart of
gold that the audience adores ahead of the lonely and scandalous Susannah.
However, Nell comes across as some sort of nothing special, pining,
interfering, mousy old spinster and Saint simply can’t compare to Taylor in style or
presence with this kind of subpar material. Nigel Patrick (The League of Gentlemen) as Professor Stiles is also a bloated, smack
worthy, unnecessary caricature – he’s so full of his own dang greatness and
clearly flirting with all the student dames. His kind of teaching just feels so
nasty and his entire plot could have been excised from the filming of Raintree County.
How he received a Golden Globe nomination for this movie is beyond me. The
supporting townsfolk also all seem like ignorant or drunk stooges, a whole town
of jerks somehow making life difficult for Johnny in a series of coming of age
clichés. Lee Marvin (Cat Ballou, The
Dirty Dozen) and Rod Taylor (The
Birds, The Time Machine) deserved much, much more. Most of the time I
forget they are even in Raintree County!
Thankfully,
Raintree County is a sewing enthusiast’s delight thanks to these big, colorful frocks
and spectacle costumes – the lovely locales, regal homes, picturesque swamps,
and wild ruins are divine, too. While he sure sounds pretty, Nat King Cole’s titular
tune is a little out of place, and the scoring is a somewhat over the top with
the fifties heavenly chorales. Most of Raintree County’s attempts at sweeping and epic end up
over ambitious and stand as perhaps the perfect example of fifties filmmaking
gone awry. The battle scenes are well done, but they are just quick, almost incongruous
montages. All that time was spent on drinking, races, and trees, but you montage
the Civil War?! Of course, one can’t see Raintree County in all of its then glory because there
has been no official DVD release stateside. Netflix very long waits the all
region, awkwardly divided two disc Asian release – in which the sound is
uneven, the subtitles are screwy, and the innate 65-millimeter
widescreen/CinemaScope conversion is in desperate need of restoration. In spite
of all its flaws, I’d love to see Raintree County restored to its original, wannabe Ben-Hur-esque perfection on blu-ray just
for the Montgomery Clift observations.
Fans
of the cast or other Civil War historicals can enjoy Raintree County, but perhaps a multi-episode mini
series format would have better captured the scope of the eponymous tales,
scandal, and adventure. Too much was happening onscreen and off for Raintree County’s sweeping Civil War loves and losses
to succeed in its idealized Gone with the
Wind fashion. Nonetheless, the sad circumstances surrounding Montgomery
Clift and the film’s off kilter, hot mess scale make Raintree County worth seeing at least once.
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