Raintree County

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.

The Birds (1963)

The Birds One of Hitchcock’s Finest

By Kristin Battestella

My mother hates freaky birds, and to this day, I don’t think she has ever made it through Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 avian fright fest The Birds.  Tragic.

Troublemaking rich girl Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) crosses paths with San Francisco lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) and plots to get back at him by following him to Bodega Bay for the weekend and leaving two lovebirds for his young sister Cathy’s (Veronica Cartwright) birthday.  While in Bodega Bay, strange bird attacks begin to occur, and Melanie stays with schoolteacher Annie Hawthorn (Suzanne Pleshette) - an ex-flame of Mitch’s.  More birds attack at Cathy’s birthday party, and Mitch and Melanie must come to the aide of Mitch’s widowed mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) as birds of all feathers frightfully and fatally flock on the coast.

 

Alfred Hitchcock’s (Psycho, Notorious, Suspicion, must I go on?) direction is once again great, with a slow, country town brew of romantic tizzies, humor, suspense, animal disturbia, and more.  Based loosely on a tale from Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca), the script by Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle) may seem long or stilted by some today. However, the solid two hours and tight pacing from Hitch work seamlessly with all the classic freaky here. There are just so many layers of suggestions to investigate- familial innuendo, social stigmas, birds pecking away at our defenses and plucking out people’s eyes.  Are these the human eyes that can’t see these birds are angry and aren’t going to take it anymore?! What would indeed happen if birds decided to turn against us? The religion versus science hints, witch and evil harbinger debates- I love the diner scene where a boy eating chicken asks his mother if the birds are going to eat him. We would be pissed if the roles were reversed indeed! Whatever the social causes of or paranoid responses to the avian hysteria, the seed is smartly planted- and The Birds is still dang scary. It’s quite easy to think there is intelligent design or feathered revenge at hand, just as we could also think it’s all just some bizarre animal turn or random instinct.  Both possibilities remove our safe controlled answers and thrust the audience into the unknown- and there is nothing more frightening to us.  Instead of contemporary shock and awe and desensitization, The Birds is all about what we see but don’t believe, what we don’t see but know to be true, and what we hear that so scares us.

Wow, Tippi Hedren (Marnie) starts as a real socialite bitch! I couldn’t quite think of a word to describe her at first, but I see online that I’m not the only one who eventually settled on one name: Paris Hilton!  Fortunately, Melanie grows into a charming heroine in the face of this bizarre horror despite her typical blonde helpless babe looks. Hedren does look smashing in her fur coat and high heels- somehow being a woman of sass, smarts, and action without a hair out of place.  Although she does wear that same green suit for three days!  I don’t know that the up-close soft focus glow is really necessary from Hitch, but Tippi most certainly stands out among the crowd in The Birds.  Are these avian attacks Melanie’s fault? Is her ploy of lovebirds the cause? It’s certainly an easy place to point the accusing finger, and Suzanne Pleshette (The Bob Newhart Show) is the perfect dark-haired, pseudo femme opposite.  Annie is meant to be the good girl schoolteacher despite her sexy look- her brunette style certainly isn’t in Hitchcock’s favored ice queen vein. The mixing ideologies, however, work in Annie and Melanie’s relationship.  They become fast friends despite the romantic rivalry over Mitch and a frosty attitude from his mother.  Ha! Frenemies before there was such a thing, eh Paris? Speaking of Mitch, Rod Taylor (The Time Machine) is totally cool as a fun, swinging big city lawyer who ends up protecting his family against freak birds on the weekend.  It isn’t a role that one can take too lightly or overly serious, and Taylor finds the everyman balance.  Mitch is smart, charming, strong and there when you need him without being too sixties misogynistic- even if there is a strange mama’s boy angle going on. 

Oscar winner Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy) is simply lovely as Mitch’s mom Lydia, too.  Despite her jealousies and overbearing ways, the viewer instantly feels for the widow who can’t hold onto herself and her family with all this titular mayhem happening.  She’s lonely, sad, yet still strong, and again, it’s all a little weird the way Lydia looks to her son to symbolically replace her husband as head of the house.  Fortunately, little Veronica Cartwright (Alien) is so cute- not nearly as annoying as so many old school child stars often are. Cathy is realistic before the trauma and remains sincere while the hysteria happens.  Although I do wonder why these old films always have a college aged or even fully-grown child and then an elementary kid- did people really raise one child to entirety and then have another? Or is there an additional layer of Mitch and Melanie’s action parents relationship with Cathy for us to explore? Yes, a modern audience will notice some of these then latent suggestions or shout at the television, as some of the players’ actions are a little impractical in The Birds.  No one takes the offensive or gets some guns or weapons against the birds. While it’s totally iconic now, you couldn’t even find a phone booth to hide in today- not that one would choose a box made out of glass anyway. Hello, kamikaze birds on the run and no one ever gets away from the windows?  Nevertheless, we like the people in The Birds and get to know them for a little while, thus making it easier to believe their fears and irrationalities when the fantastic avians hit.

Despite its color filming, the dark and light values and cutting edge photography are used so smartly; The Birds almost seems black and white or devoid of palette in some scenes thanks to bleak interiors or flocking crows and sparrows.  Then of course, we get set up for unusual stills, zooms, and angles with pops of fresh red trickles. The sound alternatives are also dynamite. Sometimes the action plays almost as a silent film but for lingering vocals, singing, and squawking bird effects.  Naturally, some of the old school cheats are recognizable to wise contemporary audiences: matte paintings, split screens, innovative composite effects, live birds, fake birds, and every other trick possible.  However, we know The Birds is an old film, and even so, it still looks wonderfully freaky. Toss in that real bird scenery with all the twisted intelligent layers, and the smoke and mirrors trickery, and we still buy in to this definite sense of real world menace and animals gone awry. 

Sigh; there is just something about the production design and style of classic films.  Famed Oscar winner Edith Head’s (A Place in the Sun, Samson and Delilah) limited dressings for Hedren add color and a pop of sixties panache. Toss in cool cars- an Aston Martin no less- gas lamps, tea sets, suave updos, and the casual use of brandy for even more nostalgia.  Today, young actors forget there is a sense of grace and style in the way men used to handle their cigarettes or how the women twist the phone cords as they chat on those sultan type phones.  And using a pencil to dial on a rotary phone- wow, some youths might not even know what the means! The Birds is wonderfully of its time, and yet, there is nothing here so dated to distract new viewers. Everything still looks good, just made to look old perhaps. One might think this bird nightmare did in fact happen somewhere along some coastal inlet some 50 years ago.  The conclusion, I must say, may annoy some, but the infamous and eerie warning should be respected whether you like it or not.  Bird lovers may also have serious problems with The Birds thanks to their onscreen misuses and angry portrayals. That two story pet shop, however, is dang sweet, and the cute and humorous little lovebirds are just that adorable.

If you’ve somehow gone this long without seeing The Birds, this should be your next must see. Classic fans surely already know and love, as should any budding Hitchcock enthusiast.  Horror viewers, thriller audiences, and fans of the cast can also delight.  Earn your A in avian terror from Hitch with The Birds tonight.