User Reviews

Either Ms. Ladd was going through a chemical peel or the lights were hot, making her make up peel off. Either way, only 10 minutes into the movie I was fixated on her skin wishing they'd taken a good look at the early clips before releasing the movie with such a lovely face destroyed by poor make-up skills.

The frazzled wig they popped on her head in an attempt to age her character was stunningly cheap and artificial looking. In her middle years, they affixed a longer hairpiece to her crown. That would have worked, but it was DARK brown and her real hair was lighter making the contrast obvious.

The premise of this movie...love lost, new love found, old love returning was solid. The acting was excellent all around. The music fit well. The period costuming well done. I never realized until now how really important an experienced make up artist is to a movie.

I was barely teenager in 1951. Young girls wore saddle oxfords and bobby sox more than the dainty ballerina shoe with hose. Also we did not wear hats everyday as they did in the 30's-40's. In the 50's, they were reserved for church if worn at all. I don't understand the plot of her being forced from her dad's home and no money whatsoever when he died. She could have kept it and taken in boarders, as was the custom in those days. Being from a military background, I know her fiancé Ben should have returned from Korea at least a Captain, promotions came speedily in wartimes and especially since he was a POW. He knew her dad had died before he was captured, why didn't he set her up for an allotment to help with her house.

I don't usually take time out to watch movies with commercials, especially on a Saturday afternoon when time is better spent on chores. But Mom is visiting this weekend, and we picked this movie for its faith-based theme.

The first thing I noticed was the hackneyed set-up, with the girl and her boyfriend sweeping through to collect grandma's money on their way to California.

The second thing I caught was the grandmother (old Elizabeth) and granddaughter "acting" as they spar over the granddaughter's desire to grab the money and run. But Grandma demands twenty minutes to tell her story -- naturally, it takes up the better part of this 100 minute movie. Now we're only minutes into the movie, but you know the child is going to come around in the end. But at this point, the acting is about at the level of a bad high school play.

The third thing I noticed was an apparent discrepancy in the script. When asked by her father to pick the new associate pastor up at the train station instead of going to the movies with her girlfriend, young Elizabeth opines that she is going to "miss a date with Gregory Peck." Unless small town Three Rivers was lucky enough to have more than one movie theater, I don't know how she is going to do this when the movie on the marquee is "Strangers on a Train." Before too long, young Elizabeth starts dating the young minister and goes to see "A Place In the Sun." At least they got the year right on both movies. (At this point in the story, "our movie" as Robert Osborne likes to say on TCM, is set in 1951.)

After some time passes (we don't exactly know the year now), and the characters have been through some "life experiences," Elizabeth and her girlfriend, who's now come back into her life, are still pining over Gregory Peck, but we aren't let in on which of his movies they go to see.

Eventually, Mom and I settled in and started to enjoy revisiting a time we both remember. A strong point of this movie is the many things they got right, and my hat is off to the art and makeup departments that helped put this movie together. Eventually, too, both the acting and the script improve, despite their rocky starts.

Up to now I've written mainly about sidebar issues, because I don't want to give away too much of the plot, however thin it may be. So without going through the highs and lows in Elizabeth's life point by point, I'll say that this movie is a tribute to maintaining one's faith through thick and thin, and is in my opinion a worthwhile view whether the viewer happens to be going through a rough patch at this point in life or not.