...based on Edna Ferber's book. Barbara Stanwyck stars as a young woman with a proper, big city upbringing who is forced by circumstance into becoming a school teacher in a rural farming community. She eventually marries a farmer, and becomes a hard-working farm wife. Years later, her grown son Dirk (Hardie Albright) risks becoming a lazy dilettante and kept lover, but artist Bette Davis helps him see the error of his ways.
The story's literary origin is evident in the wandering storyline, but that adds to the off-beat feel of this movie, which could easily have devolved into soap opera sentimentality. There are a lot of strange, unique characters and characterizations, and a number of humorous lines. Stanwyck and Davis are both good, and I liked Earle Foxe as the farmer husband. It appears that some amount of the originally filmed footage was scrapped, which may have filled in some blanks, and the ending is a bit abrupt, but neither are serious complaints. William Wellman ended up directing lots of these kinds of dramas and women's pictures at Warner Brothers. It may have not have exactly been his cup of tea, but he always rose to the occasion. Recommended.
The story's literary origin is evident in the wandering storyline, but that adds to the off-beat feel of this movie, which could easily have devolved into soap opera sentimentality. There are a lot of strange, unique characters and characterizations, and a number of humorous lines. Stanwyck and Davis are both good, and I liked Earle Foxe as the farmer husband. It appears that some amount of the originally filmed footage was scrapped, which may have filled in some blanks, and the ending is a bit abrupt, but neither are serious complaints. William Wellman ended up directing lots of these kinds of dramas and women's pictures at Warner Brothers. It may have not have exactly been his cup of tea, but he always rose to the occasion. Recommended.