Review of Raintree County (1957) by Van R — 02 Dec 2009

MURDER, MY SWEET director Edward Dmytryk helmed RAINTREE COUNTY, a tragic love story set against the American Civil War. Everything about this prestigious MGM production had tragedy attached to it. Not only did the story conclude on a tragic note, but also Montgomery Cliff lost control of his car on a twisting road and crashed it into a telephone pole. The facial and cranial injuries that Cliff suffered were so critical that MGM briefly contemplating scrapping the production. Indeed, Dmytryk did have to stop production until Cliff recovered from his injuries. The handsome young RED RIVER matinee idol was never the same after the car accident. After the film premiered, Cliff told NEWSWEEK magazine that quote--the audience spends too much time trying to figure out which scenes were made after my accident--unquote. Tragedy had struck already because the massive novel upon which the film was based was written by Ross Lockridge, Jr. The book was a Book of the Month Club bestseller in 1948, but writing this epic drove Lockridge to commit suicide. The last tragedy of this lost movie is that the copyright owner has not issued an official DVD release. The only copies of RAINTREE COUNTY are available in the now largely defunct VHS format. An Asian company called Castaways has released a DVD, but the DVD is abysmal. Instead of the widescreen letterboxed format of the VHS version, the Castaways version truncates the picture and the film no longer has an intermission and some copies are unreadable in a DVD.

This sprawling soap opera occurs over a period of six years before, during, and after the American Civil War. The film and the county both drew its name from an exotic Chinese tree that Johnny Appleseed planted in a swamp on his way through the wilderness sewing apple orchards. During an outdoor lecture, Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles (Nigel Patrick) regales his class with the story of the raintree. Stiles tells them that anybody who finds the raintree will find the secret of life. Unfortunately, nobody knows where the raintree is located. Idealist Indiana poet/scholar Johnny Wickliff Shawnessy (Montgomery Cliff) plunges into the swamp and searches for the raintree. He becomes an object of ridicule for his impulsive behavior. About a half-hour in the action, Johnny accepts a challenge to compete with the fastest runner in Raintree County, Flash Perkins (Lee Marvin of THE BIG HEAT), but the professor intervenes before they can start. Stiles convinces all parties involved to have the foot race delayed until July Fourth. He wants to bet a hundred dollars on Johnny. Later, Johnny runs into the dark-haired, North Orleans-bred, Havana-born southern belle Susanna Drake (Elizabeth Taylor) when he goes to have his photograph taken. He accompanies her to her house and their romance begins. Miraculously, Johnny beats Flash in the race. After the race, Johnny and Susanna joint Professor Stiles on a picnic in the woods with his girlfriend. Eventually, Johnny winds up marrying Susanna because she informs him that she is pregnant with his child. This ruins the love that our protagonist shared with his golden-haired childhood sweetheart Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint) and they drift apart.

Actually, Susanna was never pregnant. Later, he learns that she lied to him because she wanted him so much. The hero visits the south with his wife and learns about a mysterious fire that she was involved in and the tragic circumstances surrounding it. Susanna thinks that the worst thing that can happen to a white woman is to have tainted African-American blood. She remembers the night that their mansion burned. As it turns out, her father had to leave his post as a Congressman to tend to his ailing, hysterical wife. Since he could not have a meaningful, child-bearing relationship with her wife, he resorted to an extramarital affair with a slave and Susanna was the product of their union. The Congressmanâ??s wife shoots both the slave and her husband and set the mansion on fire. Susanna blames herself for the incident because she left a nasty note for her in her scrapbook album.

MGM Studios spared no expense in the production of RAINTREE COUNTY. After lensing interiors in Hollywood, producer David Lewis took the company on location in Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee to finish the picture. According to RAINTREE COUNTY historian Stephen V. Russell, the film boasted 119 speaking roles, 72 interior studio sets, and 34 exterior location scene. QUO VADIS cinematographer Robert Surtees does an outstanding job lensing this movie. RAINTREE COUNTY was the film shot in an entirely new photographic process called Camera 65 that was designed to enhance pictorial detail. Indeed, the only other movie to employ this process was the Charlton Heston classic BEN-HUR. Not surprisingly, Surtees shot that movie, too. The cast is fantastic, but this MGM spectacle is no match for GONE WITH THE WIND. RAINTREE COUNTY is related from a Northern perspective, and the Montgomery Cliff hero is nothing like Clark Gable. The Elizabeth Taylor character has a mentally unstable history, keeps a massive collection of dolls, one with a half-burnt face, and she is supposed to symbolize the irrationality of the South. The actual Civil War scenes take place after the intermission, but they cannot compete with GWTW. The dialogue of BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK scenarist Millard Kauffman does not contain anything like the immortal Rhett Butler line at the end of the movie. Sumptuous set designs distinguish this film along with a fine, sensitive performance by Taylor that netted the London-born actress her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Lee Marvin, who had specialized in villain roles before RAINTREE COUNTY, played a sympathetic character for a change. Marvinâ??s performance is predictably agile, especially in the barroom scenes when he flexes his body for the upcoming race. Rod Taylor plays a slimy, Copperhead politician. Agnes Moorehead is cast as the mother of our hero Ellen Shawnessy.