Product Review

Hard to believe that Erskine Caldwell's God's Little Acre was, for years, the bestselling novel ever published. This 1958 film adaptation gives little reason for that status, being a curiously inert combination of sweaty Southern passion and rustic comedy. Thanks to director Anthony Mann's exacting eye for outdoor photography, the film is a pleasure to look at, and Elmer Bernstein's score makes it swell to listen to. Robert Ryan, always good at obsessives, plays a patriarch convinced gold is buried on his farm. He's aided by a gallery of future TV stars: Tina Louise (Gilligan's Island) as the lip-lickin' sexpot every living male tries to seduce; Jack Lord and Vic Morrow as her husband and brother; Buddy Hackett as a would-be politician; Michael Landon as an albino (thus giving new meaning to the term "white trash"). This gumbo has some fun flavors, but they don't quite blend. --Robert Horton