Alicia I love this movie so much

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Pierre_D "The Country Girl" throws Grace Kelly in as the overextended wife of an alcoholic theater has-been trying to get on track. Unfairly castigated for her youth and appearance here, Kelly delivers a satisfying emotional performance as Frankie Elgin's wife, frustrated, betrayed, angry and unable to overcome her husband's fatal weakness, the bottle. Bing Crosby stuns as the drunk theatre has-been, and it is telling when you see him sing off-key or poorly, only to follow it up with immersion into a declining man's psyche, blaming anyone but himself for his foibles. Holden is the hard-edged theatre director who knows he can draw a performance out of Elgin but fights against Elgin's habits and Elgin's wife, whom he sees as little more than a nuisance.Our drama is sourced back to an early performance by Frank where we see a recognizable Grace Kelly, dressed to the nines and watching with their son. Frank has to pose next to a poster and his son runs into traffic, to predictable results. Frank blames himself and drinks himself deep, attempting suicide and turning on his wife. When offered a part in a play, he makes it a two week stint, convincing himself he'll fail and he can walk out. Only Georgie's insistence that he carry it through seems him finally emerge somewhat whole in the end. It isn't without trouble, however, as he relapses several times and Holden moves onto Georgie after an animated discussion in their office.Much has been made about Grace Kelly's being too beautiful, refined, young for Georgie's role. Here, the viewer must simply suspend disbelief a little. Kelly was in her early 20's when she filmed this, but she has been married for 10 years in the film. We're meant to think she is in her mid-30s and she pulls this off to a good degree. Very dressed down, tired looking and frustrated, she personifies the harrowed wife of a man she loves but can't save. Grace no doubt drew from her own personal experience here from her early days in New York at the Barbizon, much to her credit she keeps her character real and her Oscar was well-deserved.A great film on the perils on alcoholism, its consequences and simply as a look into some different roles for Hollywood greats.

roslein-674-874556 Grace Kelly (in return for the great sacrifice of wearing dowdy clothes and glasses) got the Oscar, but it was Bing Crosby who deserved it for his portrayal of a man who lies as naturally and as often as breathing to preserve his image as a nice, sweet guy. His alcoholism seems a lesser flaw than his essential phoniness--he blames his wife for things she has not done so that everyone can admire how graciously he forgives her; he vilifies in private a fellow actor to whom he is charming in public. It was far more courageous of Bing to show what people might have conjectured, with some justice, was the dark side to his public happy-go-lucky persona than it was for Kelly to wear baggy cardigans. Anyone who has had one of these men in their lives will relish this characterisation, given tremendous force by its being done by such a beloved entertainer. The best performance, though, is William Holden's, and the only one with energy and sex appeal. (What do you say of a woman who makes a picture with William Holden and Bing Crosby and has an affair with...Bing Crosby?) Yet all of them are at the mercy of Clifford Odets's couch-bound drama--and that's the analyst's couch, not the casting one. This is a story in which characters who live a life of secrecy or lies, on being confronted with The Truth, suddenly exhibit a remarkable degree of honesty and self-knowledge and come out with an articulate expression of their psychology. And for all the self-consciously sophisticated dialogue, the instigation for Bing's alcoholism is a piece of Victorian sentimentality-- he stops holding the hand of his cutesy-wootsy little blonde son for one minute, and the kid rushes into traffic to get run over. Poor Bing also has to deliver one of the most tasteless lines in the history of cinema: "I gave that woman ten years of the worst kind of hell outside a concentration camp."The songs Bing is given, though they are by Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen, are limp and mediocre, and the ones he sings onstage, at his audition and as part of the musical in which he appears, are dire. In fact, the stage show is so awful it is hard to believe it was not written in a spirit of parody--it's a combination of the worst parts of Oklahoma! and Our Town; the sign on the hotel in the set even says Our Town Hotel, for God's sake! Everything we see is, like the audition song, stuff that would have been considered dull and corny 20 years earlier. The scenes backstage, however, are rich in amusing theatrical atmosphere.Odets was a notorious misogynist, a trait that he cannot keep from creeping into the movie. When Holden makes scathing remarks about Kelly, his ex-wife, or women in general, he sounds much more believable than when he has to express his love for Kelly in uninteresting, awkward dialogue. And though the music surges at the end to bless Kelly when she decides to reject Holden and return to Bing (and was there ever any question she wouldn't? come on, who has top billing?) I couldn't buy the tragic nobility. The alcoholic and his enabler, both characters who live by sucking the blood of other people, have done it again: they have leeched off the warm, impulsive Holden, screwed him up, and then tossed him aside, having gained the strength to go on. One can't help wondering--did Odets know this and cynically misrepresent it to his audience, or did he fool himself?

MartinHafer This film is about a down-and-out performer (Bing Crosby) who has sunk into alcoholism and self-pity. However, out of the blue, he's received a huge break--to star in a Broadway show! Can the guy hold it together and rise to the occasion or will be return to the bottle and despair?! Although this idea is interesting, what is truly original is what happens with Crosby--how he copes with all this responsibility. Again and again, he manages to make it appear as if his wife (Grace Kelly) is a domineering woman who is trying to push him to fall on his face--when actually she is doing the opposite. She tries to help him from falling and, behind her back, he manipulates things so that the producer (William Holden) thinks SHE is the problem. Like many alcoholics, he has a great need to appear confident and capable AND to make excuses for when he does hit the bottle once again--'it's all her fault' is his excuse waiting to happen! Eventually, Crosby's manipulations result in Holden confronting Kelly for her supposedly undermining Crosby! He wants her to leave and return home so that Crosby will supposedly be free from distractions and her wicked clutches! Simply put, he's an alcoholic--a manipulative and insincere drunk. Now when I saw the film as a kid, I thought Kelly was a nice and innocent woman who meant well. Now, however, I see that by sticking with him, Kelly plays an enabler--a well-intentioned one but an enabler nevertheless. This, too, is interesting--creating a nice portrait of a drunk AND his partner.The film is original and cleverly written--plus it's one of the better films about addiction from this era. Grace Kelly received the Oscar for Best Actress for this performance. I used to think this was unmerited, though in seeing the film again I see what an exceptional job she did. Plus 1955 was a particularly weak year and she was better than the competition. Crosby was also nominated for an Oscar but considering Brando's performance in "On the Waterfront", it's not surprising he lost--though this is perhaps Crosby's greatest acting of his long career. Now this does not mean the film was perfect or problem-free. I cannot understand the casting as Kelly just seemed too young and glamorous (even when they gave her a very subdued makeup job)--I would have picked someone older considering Kelly was 51 and Kelly was 25! Although the part was to have been played by someone younger--perhaps in her mid-30s or older would have worked better. Otherwise, though, it's a very good film nevertheless. The other problem was the inexplicable relationship that sprang up between Holden and Kelly near the end....where the heck did THAT come from?!?! (yes, I know I ended this sentence with a preposition...deal with it. After 9600+ reviews I think I am entitled to one dangling preposition.)

Jem Odewahn Seaton's film doesn't hold up as well on repeated viewings. I first watched this last year and was very impressed with the film, and its three central performances from Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly (who controversially won the Oscar over Judy Garland) and William Holden. While I still remain impressed by the engaging performances, I find much of what surrounds the three stars to be flat. The musical numbers in the play-within-a-film, "The Land Around Us" are very ordinary. No wonder Crosby's Frank Elgin receives bad reviews. Seaton doesn't really try to open up the film, adapted from the award-winning Clifford Odets play, and the result is a visually tired film. On subsequent viewings the Odets dialogue is still powerful but several exchanges feel incredibly fake. When Grace Kelly says "The theatre is mysterious" it goes against the grain of what we have already seen of her character. I seem to be bagging the film quite a lot, but I do enjoy it. Holden is excellent and gives the best performance of the film. Crosby is also very good, and Kelly, for all the criticism over her winning the Oscar gong over Garland, does a very admirable job with a difficult character. Watch it for the three stars.