My wife and I were hard pressed to come up with a compelling reason for this film's existence while watching it. It sure is....um....pleasant enough I guess, but about an hour and a half in we were still waiting for a dramatic conflict to emerge.
The movie hints here and there at one -- drover Robert Mitchum is a wanderer, never content to stay any one place for long; wife Deborah Kerr wants a home to settle down in. But the marital strife this separation of minds creates is never treated as more than a minor hiccup in these people's lives, and in any case it's buried underneath the rest of the very long movie, during which not much happens.
Deborah Kerr is lovely as always; Robert Mitchum is well cast even if he misses his Irish accent by a mile; Peter Ustinov is on hand to deliver droll one-liners; and Glynis Johns enlivens things every once in a while as a blowsy hotel proprietress. But I can't imagine what people saw in this to get it nominated for five Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture, back in 1960.
Grade: B-
The movie hints here and there at one -- drover Robert Mitchum is a wanderer, never content to stay any one place for long; wife Deborah Kerr wants a home to settle down in. But the marital strife this separation of minds creates is never treated as more than a minor hiccup in these people's lives, and in any case it's buried underneath the rest of the very long movie, during which not much happens.
Deborah Kerr is lovely as always; Robert Mitchum is well cast even if he misses his Irish accent by a mile; Peter Ustinov is on hand to deliver droll one-liners; and Glynis Johns enlivens things every once in a while as a blowsy hotel proprietress. But I can't imagine what people saw in this to get it nominated for five Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture, back in 1960.
Grade: B-