Considering the budget and big name actors involved, this movie is a big disappointment. After all, with these ingredients and the hope of MGM execs that this would repeat the success of GONE WITH THE WIND, the movie came up surprisingly short. Sure, the story is set in the same time period, though mostly in the North, but somehow sparks just never fly. Most of this, it seems, is because none of the characters or what happens to them are very interesting and the audience is left feeling little connection with them. Now this isn't to say it's a bad film, just a pretty average time-passer--a very, very, very long time passer!
Eva Marie Saint plays the ultra-nice but rather bland sweetheart of Montgomery Clift when the movie begins. They had apparently been sweet on each other for some time and it looks as if they will eventually marry,...that is, until pretty and vivacious Liz Taylor comes to town and throws herself at Clift. Considering that Ms. Saint's character is never allowed to develop into anything other than a lady who pines for Monty, I could see why Clift ultimately fell for Taylor in the story. Saint's character just was way under-written--needing to be hashed out into a three-dimensional person instead of a rather broad and pathetic character who inexplicably hung around for the whole movie.
Now as for Clift, he, too, was a bit bland. While he had much more depth than Ms. Saint, much of the movie he just reacted to events instead of being a man of action. For example, he never actually asked Liz to marry him until she told him she was pregnant, he was an abolitionist but never really said of did anything about this until the war was about to begin--even though his wife brought a couple slaves with her when they first got married, he didn't enter the war until it was half over and his wife disappeared into the South with their son, and he wanted to go into politics at the end of the film but wouldn't commit since he felt an obligation to stay and take care of his mentally ill wife--at which point the wife killed herself because she knew he wouldn't do anything about politics until she was dead. What a total wimp--a very, very far cry from Rhett Butler or even Namby-pamby Ashley Wilkes!! As for Liz Taylor, she was the only one of the main characters with any depth or interesting back story. The problem, though, is that her character was histrionic and became progressively more and more mentally ill as the story went--but that alone was the only depth given to her character.
So, we are left to conclude that the story involves pretty dull and uninvolving people. And, considering that much of it occurs during the Civil War, it is amazingly turgid and slow. There are so many better and more interesting epic films or films about the war. This one just seems like it has a lot of style but absolutely no substance. This is the rare case where I really thought the movie could stand to have at least 25% of the film edited out to make for a tighter and more watchable film.
Eva Marie Saint plays the ultra-nice but rather bland sweetheart of Montgomery Clift when the movie begins. They had apparently been sweet on each other for some time and it looks as if they will eventually marry,...that is, until pretty and vivacious Liz Taylor comes to town and throws herself at Clift. Considering that Ms. Saint's character is never allowed to develop into anything other than a lady who pines for Monty, I could see why Clift ultimately fell for Taylor in the story. Saint's character just was way under-written--needing to be hashed out into a three-dimensional person instead of a rather broad and pathetic character who inexplicably hung around for the whole movie.
Now as for Clift, he, too, was a bit bland. While he had much more depth than Ms. Saint, much of the movie he just reacted to events instead of being a man of action. For example, he never actually asked Liz to marry him until she told him she was pregnant, he was an abolitionist but never really said of did anything about this until the war was about to begin--even though his wife brought a couple slaves with her when they first got married, he didn't enter the war until it was half over and his wife disappeared into the South with their son, and he wanted to go into politics at the end of the film but wouldn't commit since he felt an obligation to stay and take care of his mentally ill wife--at which point the wife killed herself because she knew he wouldn't do anything about politics until she was dead. What a total wimp--a very, very far cry from Rhett Butler or even Namby-pamby Ashley Wilkes!! As for Liz Taylor, she was the only one of the main characters with any depth or interesting back story. The problem, though, is that her character was histrionic and became progressively more and more mentally ill as the story went--but that alone was the only depth given to her character.
So, we are left to conclude that the story involves pretty dull and uninvolving people. And, considering that much of it occurs during the Civil War, it is amazingly turgid and slow. There are so many better and more interesting epic films or films about the war. This one just seems like it has a lot of style but absolutely no substance. This is the rare case where I really thought the movie could stand to have at least 25% of the film edited out to make for a tighter and more watchable film.