TOM KEENE and KAREN MORLEY are the lesser-known stars of this Depression-era classic, a poor man's "Grapes of Wrath", about a young farming couple who use ingenuity to overcome a drought that threatens to ruin their crops.
Tom Keene was a B-actor who did mostly westerns and does a sincere, earnest job of playing the kind of "everyman" role that Henry Fonda and Joel McCrea usually played in these sort of films. While he has a limited range, he makes an appealing hero, a man who fires others with his ambitious idea to build a gully for the water to reach the crops that are badly in need of water. It's this sequence, with the men following orders and digging the ditches that make a pathway for the water, that really makes the film special.
Otherwise, it's a rather drab exercise in showing the downtrodden lives of farming people during the Great Depression of the '30s.
KAREN MORLEY is lovely as the loyal woman who stands by her man and JOHN QUALEN does an effective job as a frustrated farmer. Some striking scenes for the last half-hour, but a bit heavy going before that.
Tom Keene was a B-actor who did mostly westerns and does a sincere, earnest job of playing the kind of "everyman" role that Henry Fonda and Joel McCrea usually played in these sort of films. While he has a limited range, he makes an appealing hero, a man who fires others with his ambitious idea to build a gully for the water to reach the crops that are badly in need of water. It's this sequence, with the men following orders and digging the ditches that make a pathway for the water, that really makes the film special.
Otherwise, it's a rather drab exercise in showing the downtrodden lives of farming people during the Great Depression of the '30s.
KAREN MORLEY is lovely as the loyal woman who stands by her man and JOHN QUALEN does an effective job as a frustrated farmer. Some striking scenes for the last half-hour, but a bit heavy going before that.