Desire Under the Elms (1958)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Ephraim Cabot (Burt Ives) is an elderly man who loves his New England farm more than anything that has ever entered his life. He drove two wives to an early death and drove two sons away to his constant abuse over the work he requires done on the farm. His youngest son, Ebon (Anthony Perkins) believes the farm should be his when his father dies because it originally belonged to his mother before being stolen by Ephraim. Ebon lives with the abuse because he loves the land and hopes to own it one day. After leaving for six weeks, Ephraim returns home with a new bride, a 25-year-old Anna (Sophia Loren) who sees the farm as a way to escape her pass. Ebon knows that when his father dies the farm will be left to his new stepmother and the greed and jealousy comes to the surface but soon he begins to fall for Anna and their plans for the future are put on hold due to the old man who simply refuses to die.
Desire Under the Elms is based on the play by Eugene O'Neill, which I had no prior knowledge of before this movie and if the movie is anything like the play, it's certainly brave in its themes but in the end it just left a really bad taste in my mouth. The film tries to do a lot of things from telling the ugly side of greed, to a good love story and the ugliness that can come from all of these things but it's that ugliness that really killed the film for me in its final act, which is so incredibly bad that I was tempted to shut the film off.
The first act of the film wonders around a bit too much as we get introduced to all the characters who aren't anything we haven't seen before. The film spends way too much time telling us how angry Ebon is and after a while it starts to become quite laughable because the melodrama is so thick when less would have been more. The Bible-quoting father also doesn't do much as he comes off looking like such a fool we can't help but laugh at him the entire way. The screenplay goes way too thick in the drama that it gives the viewer way too much to laugh at, which isn't a good thing.
The second act is a lot more interesting and the film finally starts to come to life as the wife and her new stepson fall in love, which sets the film in a new direction. How the two come together isn't all that believable but Loren is such a beauty that we overlook this and just go along for the ride until that final act happens, which is so incredibly bleak and ugly that I wanted to jump through the screen and kill all three of the leads. I have no problems with a dark subject matter but there are certain lines that shouldn't be crossed unless the script knows what it's going to do and there's a good reason for doing it. To me, the ending just didn't have any of the class it needed for the thing to work and I suppose the director was trying to put a love stamp on it but I left the film being very angry.
Sophia Loren is the one thing that keeps the film afloat and I was quite impressed with her acting job here. At the start of the film she's playing a cold-hearted bitch and she pulls this off remarkably well making the viewer know exactly why the son hates her so much. When the love story kicks in she also comes off very well as a victim and even in the final actor Loren brings some grace to her character. Burt Ives is an actor I've always admired very much and he comes off very nice here during the quiet moments where the viewer can somewhat start to care for him. Whenever Ives is screaming his Bible talk, it just doesn't work. The dancing sequence with Ives is a classic however.
Anthony Perkins is another favorite of mine and he was a good character actor but unfortunately he brings this film down a few notches. It seems as if Perkins doesn't know how to play the role because he's all over the map throughout the film. He comes off looking really bad during all the dramatic scenes when he tries to be serious by speaking in a deeper, slower voice, which just doesn't work. The music score by Elmer Bernstein is very nice and the Academy Award winning cinematography shows off the farmland very nicely. Desire Under the Elms tries to be a serious film and while I admire the attempt at something different, the end results just left a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn't wash away.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Ephraim Cabot (Burt Ives) is an elderly man who loves his New England farm more than anything that has ever entered his life. He drove two wives to an early death and drove two sons away to his constant abuse over the work he requires done on the farm. His youngest son, Ebon (Anthony Perkins) believes the farm should be his when his father dies because it originally belonged to his mother before being stolen by Ephraim. Ebon lives with the abuse because he loves the land and hopes to own it one day. After leaving for six weeks, Ephraim returns home with a new bride, a 25-year-old Anna (Sophia Loren) who sees the farm as a way to escape her pass. Ebon knows that when his father dies the farm will be left to his new stepmother and the greed and jealousy comes to the surface but soon he begins to fall for Anna and their plans for the future are put on hold due to the old man who simply refuses to die.
Desire Under the Elms is based on the play by Eugene O'Neill, which I had no prior knowledge of before this movie and if the movie is anything like the play, it's certainly brave in its themes but in the end it just left a really bad taste in my mouth. The film tries to do a lot of things from telling the ugly side of greed, to a good love story and the ugliness that can come from all of these things but it's that ugliness that really killed the film for me in its final act, which is so incredibly bad that I was tempted to shut the film off.
The first act of the film wonders around a bit too much as we get introduced to all the characters who aren't anything we haven't seen before. The film spends way too much time telling us how angry Ebon is and after a while it starts to become quite laughable because the melodrama is so thick when less would have been more. The Bible-quoting father also doesn't do much as he comes off looking like such a fool we can't help but laugh at him the entire way. The screenplay goes way too thick in the drama that it gives the viewer way too much to laugh at, which isn't a good thing.
The second act is a lot more interesting and the film finally starts to come to life as the wife and her new stepson fall in love, which sets the film in a new direction. How the two come together isn't all that believable but Loren is such a beauty that we overlook this and just go along for the ride until that final act happens, which is so incredibly bleak and ugly that I wanted to jump through the screen and kill all three of the leads. I have no problems with a dark subject matter but there are certain lines that shouldn't be crossed unless the script knows what it's going to do and there's a good reason for doing it. To me, the ending just didn't have any of the class it needed for the thing to work and I suppose the director was trying to put a love stamp on it but I left the film being very angry.
Sophia Loren is the one thing that keeps the film afloat and I was quite impressed with her acting job here. At the start of the film she's playing a cold-hearted bitch and she pulls this off remarkably well making the viewer know exactly why the son hates her so much. When the love story kicks in she also comes off very well as a victim and even in the final actor Loren brings some grace to her character. Burt Ives is an actor I've always admired very much and he comes off very nice here during the quiet moments where the viewer can somewhat start to care for him. Whenever Ives is screaming his Bible talk, it just doesn't work. The dancing sequence with Ives is a classic however.
Anthony Perkins is another favorite of mine and he was a good character actor but unfortunately he brings this film down a few notches. It seems as if Perkins doesn't know how to play the role because he's all over the map throughout the film. He comes off looking really bad during all the dramatic scenes when he tries to be serious by speaking in a deeper, slower voice, which just doesn't work. The music score by Elmer Bernstein is very nice and the Academy Award winning cinematography shows off the farmland very nicely. Desire Under the Elms tries to be a serious film and while I admire the attempt at something different, the end results just left a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn't wash away.