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New on Disc: 'God's Little Acre' and more …

26 Aug, 2013 By: Mike Clark

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God’s Little Acre

Olive, Drama, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Tina
Louise, Buddy Hackett, Fay Spain.
1958. Judging merely from one early bathtub scene with Fay Spain alone, one might speculate that American censors would have had a field day with the movie of Erskine Caldwell’s same-name 1933 novel, which is still one of the biggest sellers of all time. In a central role that could have made a lot of actors look silly, the never-bad Robert Ryan plays rural Georgia patriarch Ty Ty Walden, father to three sons and three attractive daughters. Obsessed by gold that his own father supposedly buried at some unknown spot on the property, Ty Ty is even driven (on advice from a sheriff’s candidate played by Buddy Hackett) to hire an albino who can divine its location. Olive’s prints are no-frills affairs, but what we get here are the fruits of a nice UCLA Archives restoration that definitely displays director Anthony Mann’s gifts at composition.
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Going Hollywood

Available through online retailers via Warner Archive
Warner, Musical, $18.95, NR.
Stars Marion Davies, Bing Crosby, Fifi D’Orsay.
1933. Buried as a French teacher in one of those awful Eastern female boarding schools devoted to turning out future old prunes, Marion Davies’ character develops an instant crush on a singer named Bill Williams (Bing Crosby), who is on his way to Los Angeles to make a movie. Davies finds a way to accost and follow him after bolting academia, and effortlessly steps in after the film’s intended co-star (Fifi D’Orsay) begins throwing temperamental fits. This is a Raoul Walsh musical, of which there are more than you might think, but the result is no less of a curio for that.
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