Home from the Hill

A pretty wonderful Faulkneresque melodrama that never stops smoldering with adolescent rage and unchecked masculinity. Novelistic in scope and depth of character, but beautiful and moving and sensitive in the ways that only great movies can manage. Plus, it has one of the key Mitchum performances. His compelling turn as the lascivious patriarch of this fractured family is both disturbing and disturbingly charming, exhibiting what it means to be manly and evil with an unnerving level of ease.

Nice ending, with the women and illegitimate son left to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives after the patriarch and his legitimate son are such disappointments.

Vincente Minnelli's Texas-set melodrama eventually reaches full boil, but it never scales the heights that Some Came Running does. Part of the blame must be assigned to George Hamilton, who simply cannot act, and is in a pivitol role.

Star Rating: ★★★★1/2

87.50

Some of the acting is not the best but the script makes up for it.

watched: 2013, 2019

A Robert Mitchum Melodrama? Oh yes!

Herança da Carne tinha sua première há 60 anos em NY. A primeira hora beira o insuportável com toda aquela rotina macho man e fiquei me perguntando o por quê falarem tão bem desse filme, mas o pulo do gato acontece na segunda metade que dá toda a razão de ser daquela primeira hora, porque vem à tona a teia oriunda daquela masculinidade tóxica. DVD Versátil.

"A lot of people got it into their heads that the only thing the American moviegoer wanted to do was to stare at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and they made movies accordingly." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2015/01/episode-42-vincente-minnelli-melodramas.html

There's almost a Douglas Sirk vibe at this point in Minnelli's filmography: It's an oversaturated familial melodrama, but the blunt, even clunky dialogue belies emotionally intelligent nuance. It's two and a half hours long, but consistently rivetting.

Theron Hunnicutt (George Hamilton) comes of age torn between his bull-headed father (Robert Mitchum), unhappy mother (Eleanor Parker), and bastard half-brother (George Peppard). That's a great simplifcation of this 150-minute soap opera, but suffice to say it remains compelling throughout, thanks to the strong (if occasionally overwrought) acting, Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch's finely detailed script, and Vincente Minnelli's direction (though a little more flourish would have been nice).

Drags a lot, but well acted.