Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

evanston_dad "Our Town" is an old fashioned, overly quaint play that probably belongs on the stage. But this 1940 film version directed by Sam Wood probably does as good a job as anyone else could at bringing it to life on screen. And the fact that it debuted on the eve of WWII gives its simplistic, misty-eyed attitudes about small-town American life an added poignancy. Now, in Trump America, it feels like an artifact of a previous epoch. Do towns like this even exist anymore? Rural desperation and a conservative gun culture have pretty much decimated the charms of small-town America today.An extremely young William Holden plays the male lead, and it's distracting to see him trying to play a character so much younger than he probably was when he made this movie. The same is somewhat true of his love interest, Martha Scott, as well, though she fares better, probably because she had the advantage of performing in the stage version first. The better performances come from a bevy of seasoned character actors like Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, and Guy Kibbee."Our Town" was nominated for six Academy Awards, but won none of them: Outstanding Production, Best Actress (Scott), Best B&W Art Direction, Best Original Score and Scoring (Aaron Copland was nominated for both categories; I've never understood how a score could be eligible for both), and Best Sound Recording.Grade: B+

atlasmb An adaptation of the popular play by Thornton Wilder, "Our Town" the film should not be judged in comparison to the play. The film has the advantage of a wonderful score by Aaron Copland, special effects that cannot be achieved on stage, and other changes that were made with the blessings of Wilder.The story takes place in Grover's Corners, NH--a small town of 2,642--where it feels like things are always the same, but things do change. The viewer is given a guided tour by Mr. Morgan (Frank Craven), proprietor of the town soda shop, who operates both as an integral member of the community and also as an omniscient being who provides a broad overview of Grover's Mill and its history. His point of view, aided by others who help him describe the town, is the most important conceit of the film, allowing the viewer to consider the town and its events from the broadest possible vantage point.Mr. Morgan introduces the main characters--George Gibbs (William Holden) and Emily Webb (Martha Scott)--and their families. They live moderated lives in their conservative town, with big dreams but small aspirations not much different from those of their parents. Mr. Morgan first takes us to 1901 when George and Emily are friendly teenage neighbors. He calls that portion of the presentation "Daily Life".Then he shows us 1904 ("Love and Marriage"). Little has changed in the town, but the milkman now dispenses the milk in bottles. George and Emily are getting married. Their youthful anxieties have been replaced by wedding day cold feet. A flashback shows George and Emily in the soda shop as their relationship changes from friendship to courtship.The final stop is 1913. The milkman has traded his horse for a newfangled car. Emily is having complications in childbirth and her life is in danger. We are shown the town's hilltop graveyard, where those buried there are represented by their ghostly images. Though they are emotionless and quiet, they can communicate. As a new presence there, Emily is more talkative and she sparks a conversation about life and death that is the central theme of the film.Viewers may see similarities with "A Christmas Carol" and "It's a Wonderful Life", which would follow in 1946. The viewer, given a broader view of life, is encouraged to not become so mired in the details of daily life that they can't see the bigger picture. It's the same message as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"--cherish every day. Appreciate the details as you experience them.Emily--as a ghostly presence--returns to her sixteenth birthday and reevaluates every occurrence with eyes that can now appreciate what she took for granted while living. She laments, "It goes so fast and we don't have time to look at one another." Her words are so true. It's a universal observation that connects emotionally with the viewer. The play's message was responsible for it winning the Pulitzer Prize.William Holden is at the start of his career, only one year after his breakout performance in "Golden Boy" and ten years before the notable films "Sunset Boulevard" and "Born Yesterday". But this is a film of ideas more than personalities.

Dalbert Pringle With the wistfulness of its sentimentality revved right up to "full-throttle", Our Town (from 1940) was a very starry-eyed and nostalgic look at the everyday comings and goings of the good citizens living in a quaint, little, New Hampshire town, set in the year 1910.This was an idealistic, "Norman Rockwell" type of setting where nobody felt the need to lock their doors and everybody knew everyone else's business.And even though, on the immediate surface, things appeared to be squeaky-clean and picture-postcard perfect, around every street corner there existed the underlying drama of family conflicts that inevitably came to light.Far from being what I would consider to be great entertainment, Our Town (now 70+ years old) has definitely lost a lot of its initial charm and sentimental-edge due to these fast-paced days of jaded attitudes which we now live in - But, all the same, this film was a sensitive and fairly intriguing look at an "innocent" era in time that has long ago faded away, never to return.Filmed in b&w (with a running time of 90 minutes), this fond reminiscence of yesteryear was based on Thorton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name.

silverscreen888 Like "Harvey", "The Second Woman" and "Good Morning, Miss Dove", "Our Town" is set in an underpopulated United States town. Its 1901 look shares features with theirs, as do some of its story elements. Everyone knows practically everyone else; and the very fact that such towns are not the sort of place where important thing happens renders what does happen peculiarly intense, as if it had been placed under a magnifying lens in a powerful light. Author Thornton Wilder and his co-writers here adapt what was a most successful and atmospheric play into a deliberately-paced by I suggest an absorbing screenplay. It has the build perhaps of "Picnic" with the underlying calm of a good early western; only the setting here is Grover Corners, New Hampshire, a decidedly northeastern setting.. Sam Wood directed the film with his usual understated skill; and the writers I believe have retained the best of Mr. Wilder's crisp and often memorable dialogue. The film really divides into three parts--which I would nominate as Introduction, George and Emily and Two Futures(?). George Gibbs and Emily Webb in this film become two of the best remembered characters in U.S. fiction. Sol Lesser produced, with music by Aaron Copland, whose repressed melodies seem to me perfectly to serve this understated masterwork of dramatic construction. Production designer William Cameron Menzies and cinematographer Bert Glennon here tried for an uncompromising atmosphere rather than quaint or merely attractive compositions. Julia Heron did the remarkable interiors, with simple but effective wardrobe by Edward P. Lambert. Among the cast, Martha Scott is wonderfully young and unspoiled, and as Dr. Gibbs, Thomas Mitchell plays with Fay Bainter as his wife more-than-expertly. As their neighbors Editor Webb and his wife, Guy Kibbee is unusually restrained and Beulah Bondi as usual solidly dependable or better in every scene she is given. Stuart Erwin ad Frank Craven (as the stage manager) are quite good, and young William Holden shows to much better advantage than he did in several other films of the period. The supporting cast is not given a great deal to do but they do it very seamlessly, in my opinion. But what one remembers of "Our Town" I assert is its haunting, almost poetic quality. The production's pace is leisurely without being slow, electrically tense without being excited and focused without becoming too sad. The story here is about life, death, youth, love, honesty and fear--and the narrative evokes these emotions in the viewer honestly I claim because it is never pretentious and never striving for the effect that it admirably earns. It is I argue a touching black-and-white classic; and it is quite well acted also throughout._____________________________________