Review of Home from the Hill (1987) by Max M — 23 Nov 2009

When it comes to high melodrama, no decade does it quite like the 1950's. The country was coming of age; it had been through WWII, it was in the midst of the Korean conflict, both the space race and the atomic age were set in motion, people were growing suspicious of one another thanks to McCarthyism. It would make sense that stories about the fracturing of the American family would begin to really hit home.

And filmmakers like Douglas Sirk, George Stevens, Nicholas Ray, and Elia Kazan, just to name a few, were at the forefront of that style of storytelling.

Vincente Minnelli was another director that was incredibly adept at visualizing that type of story. Minnelli is known mostly for his musicals, such as Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, and The Band Wagon, but his straight dramatic fare such as The Bad and the Beautiful, Two Weeks in Another Town, and Some Came Running were just as expertly crafted and equally effective.

With Home From the Hill, Minnelli tackles the Southern Gothic narrative style (from a novel by William Humphrey), a story about a wealthy southeast Texas land baron (the always fantastic Robert Mitchum) and the turbulent relationship he has with his wife (Eleanor Parker) and his two sons (played by a young George Hamilton and George Peppard, both of whom give what is probably their strongest performances), one of which is illegitimate.

Minnelli handles the material perfectly, never letting the drama of the situations become too overwrought. And his shot composition, aided by Milton Krasner's lush location photography (Oxford, Mississippi stands in for a small Texas/Louisiana border town) is impeccable as always, having his actors work in perfect harmony with each other much like the beautifully choreographed dance moves in his musicals.

To use a well-worn, but apropos phrase, "They don't make 'em like this anymore", and that is a real shame.