God's Little Acre

Michael Landon (Little Joe on Bonanza) as an albino teenager? Tina Louise (Ginger of Gilligan's Island fame) as a cat on a hot dirt farm (whose heaving bosom is the primary reason this DVD sports a theatrical version and a seven minute longer "uncensored" version)? Jack Lord (of Hawaii Five-O, "book 'em, Danno," fame) as a whining would-be cuckold? Welcome to God's Little Acre, Anthony Mann's 1958 Southern potboiler based on the novel by Erskine Caldwell, starring TV personalities you know and love as poor white Georgia trash whose smoldering emotions pretty much dominate their forebrains, leaving little room to think about such traditional Southern pastimes as sipping mint juleps on the veranda. Did I mention Vic Morrow (Combat) or Buddy Hackett? Here's the basic storyline: patriarch Ty Ty Walden (Robert Ryan) has dug deep holes all over his property on an El Dorado-like quest for gold purportedly buried by his grandfather. While his sons--Morrow and Lord--don't really share his obsession, they are strapping boys and therefore are shanghaied into backbreaking manual labor, leaving Lord miserable and tired at the end of the day, and his unsatisfied wife Tina Louise with little left to do but moon over the one that got away (Aldo Ray). Without revealing too much more, I'll just say that by the time Ty Ty kidnaps an albino (Landon), thrusts a dowsing rod in his hands, and maniacally shepherds him around the farm, you'll have comfortably settled into the slightly twisted groove of Caldwell's Southern dysfunctional misfits, who are more recognizably human than O'Connor's gallery of grotesques, if considerably less refined than Margaret Mitchell's Tara bunch. Featuring a handsome digital transfer and backed by a luscious Elmer Bernstein score, God's Little Acre is recommended. (R. Pitman)[Blu-ray Review—Aug. 13, 2013—Olive, 118 min., not rated, Blu-ray: $29.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1958's God's Little Acre is presented with a fine transfer, but no special features. Bottom line: an enjoyable Southern melodrama makes a welcome Blu-ray debut.]