Troy Donahue plays the title character Parrish who together with mother Claudette Colbert settles in the Connecticut Valley tobacco growing area and both change the lives of all around them. The story tries for an Edna Ferber like epic quality and misses. I think mainly because Troy Donahue is not a guy whom you would think of to star in epic films.
Originally Colbert was hired on by gentleman tobacco planter Dean Jagger to put some finishing touches on his spoiled daughter Diane McBain. But she gets gradually drawn to Karl Malden who is like one of those old fashioned robber baron types in his dynamism and greed. He's got a couple of dimwit sons who like the privileges, but can't handle the responsibility of being a tobacco king. Malden also has a daughter in Sharon Hugenny who's a good kid and must have got that from her mother.
As for Donahue, he's more or less involved with three women during the film, McBain, Hugenny, and Connie Stevens who is from a white trash family of itinerant tobacco farm workers headed by Dub Taylor. Stevens gets pregnant during the course of the film and a lot of Donahue's problems are that people around think he did it.
Malden has the most dynamic role in the film and he does make the most of it. He's a man obsessed with getting control of the whole Connecticut River Valley, like some cattle baron in the plot of a few thousand westerns. At the same time he knows that the force of his own personality has made idiots of his two sons and he thinks time is running out.
This was Claudette Colbert's last big screen appearance and she does have a good role to go out on. She did do stage work after this and one made for television film.
As for Donahue he's miscast in a part that was made for the late James Dean. Paul Newman could have also done quite a bit more with the part than Donahue managed. The film also ends rather abruptly as I was expecting quite a bit more to come. Almost like Warner Brothers just decided to not spend any more money.
Donahue, McBain, and Stevens were all starring in Warner Brothers television shows at the time Parrish was made. The popularity of television stardom gave Parrish a built in box office before a single ticket was sold. Parrish is not a bad film, but with some better casting in the lead, could have been much better.
Originally Colbert was hired on by gentleman tobacco planter Dean Jagger to put some finishing touches on his spoiled daughter Diane McBain. But she gets gradually drawn to Karl Malden who is like one of those old fashioned robber baron types in his dynamism and greed. He's got a couple of dimwit sons who like the privileges, but can't handle the responsibility of being a tobacco king. Malden also has a daughter in Sharon Hugenny who's a good kid and must have got that from her mother.
As for Donahue, he's more or less involved with three women during the film, McBain, Hugenny, and Connie Stevens who is from a white trash family of itinerant tobacco farm workers headed by Dub Taylor. Stevens gets pregnant during the course of the film and a lot of Donahue's problems are that people around think he did it.
Malden has the most dynamic role in the film and he does make the most of it. He's a man obsessed with getting control of the whole Connecticut River Valley, like some cattle baron in the plot of a few thousand westerns. At the same time he knows that the force of his own personality has made idiots of his two sons and he thinks time is running out.
This was Claudette Colbert's last big screen appearance and she does have a good role to go out on. She did do stage work after this and one made for television film.
As for Donahue he's miscast in a part that was made for the late James Dean. Paul Newman could have also done quite a bit more with the part than Donahue managed. The film also ends rather abruptly as I was expecting quite a bit more to come. Almost like Warner Brothers just decided to not spend any more money.
Donahue, McBain, and Stevens were all starring in Warner Brothers television shows at the time Parrish was made. The popularity of television stardom gave Parrish a built in box office before a single ticket was sold. Parrish is not a bad film, but with some better casting in the lead, could have been much better.