God's Little Acre (1958)

Directed by

Anthony Mann

Genre

drama film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 58m

Rated

18

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 34 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A poor farming family in Georgia struggles with money and loyalty. The father searches for gold on his land while millworkers rebel against the owners, and sexual tensions flare between family members.

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What happens

God's Little Acre is a 1958 American comedy-drama film of Erskine Caldwell's 1933 novel of the same name. It was directed by Anthony Mann and shot in black and white by cinematographer Ernest Haller. The film was as controversial as the novel, although unlike its source material it was not subjected to prosecution for obscenity. Although both the book and film were laced throughout with racy innuendo calling into question the issue of marital fidelity, the film adaptation may have been the more alarming because it portrayed a popular uprising, or workers' insurrection, in the Southern United States by laid-off millworkers trying to gain control of the factory equipment on which their jobs depended. When the film was first released, audiences under 18 years of age were prohibited from viewing what were perceived to be numerous sexy scenes throughout, although in recent decades the film's scandalous reputation has diminished. Philip Yordan was officially given credit for the screenplay, but Ben Maddow claimed he wrote it. Since Maddow was blacklisted for his radical, and suspected but unproven, communist activities during the 1950s Red Scare, working without credit was the only way he could successfully submit screenplays. After decades of neglect, the film was restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive under the supervision of master restorer Robert Gitt. As part of Gitt's restoration, Yordan's name was removed and replaced by Maddow's in the main titles, although it does not appear on most current releases. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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