The poster makes it look like a romcom but the film barely got anything like that. In fact, the moment in the poster is so very different and one of the worst scenes in the movie. This must be the first John Wayne movie I've seen fully. And his crooked football coach single dad role seems to be something very different from his usual roles from what I read. But from what I know of his power stance in Hollywood, this role seems apt to him. A manly man who uses his charm to make his misogyny look like righteousness. The writing on all the women from the ex-wife and the child officer to the actual child is filled with casual misogyny that is so ingrained in the society of that time that they must have thought they were showing something progressive. Sherry Jackson who played the 11-year-old daughter was fantastic and she and Charles Coburn who played the father rector carried the film for me. Donna Reed's child inspector or whatever that character is supposed to be is something that I dread to see watching these old movies. The way it tries to show she's different from the woman the hero knows and yet shows her as the worst thing possible is something old films do quite easily. It's a testament to entitled men in power at that time. The film does try to tell good messages and does work in some ways. And when it's not beating itself up it's kind of an okay watch overall.
Review of Trouble Along the Way
