That kind of revolutionary genre-bending didn't really get going until the swingin' 60's.....
But every so often........a wild card popped up out of nowhere......
"God's Little Acre", based on a novel that gave censors heart failure and got readers hot 'n bothered, was the wildest card ever..........freely mixing low comedy with overheated melodrama, liberally peppered with sexual suggestiveness......
Way down Georgia way, obsessed, frenzied cotton farmer Ty Ty Walden (Robert Ryan) has given up plownin' 'n plantin' to dig up enormous holes on his property......in search of gold treasure supposedly buried by his Grandpappy.......
Helped in the digging by two of his idiot sons, Buck and Shaw (Jack Lord, Vic Morrow), Ty Ty's only managed to make his farm look like a bomb blasted no man's land at the Battle Of The Bulge.
Along comes town bumpkin and candidate for Sheriff. Pluto Swint (comedian Buddy Hackett), who informs the Waldens they'll be needin' an Albino to act as a diviner to the gold. Wasting no time, the gang promptly kidnaps a blindingly blonde teenager (Michael Landon) who, out of sheer terror, points a diving stick at the side of the house........which of course results in a new huge hole that threatens to topple the house into it.
But this movie's more about lust than greed........specifically centered around Ty Ty's voluptuous daughter-in law Griselda, played by Tina Louise way before she marooned herself on 'Gilligin's Island'.......
Virtually everybody's slobbering over Griselda, including Ty Ty's son in law Will (Aldo Ray), who's married to another of Ty Ty's daughters the.shy retiring Rosamund (Hellen Wescott And if that isn't enough sexual combustion for you, lurkin's around the farm is the youngest daughter, the resident steamy Lolita, Darlin' Jill (Fay Spain).........who's being wooed by, of all people, the bulbous, lovesick Pluto.
From this description, you may think the movie's strictly kidding around, presenting this entire Southern Fried Klown Kollege as objects of satiric ridicule.......especially since Ryan and the cast rip into their roles as if they're doing a Saturday Night Live skit,....'Ma and Pa Kettle On Meth and Viagra'
No, we think distinguished director Anthony Mann directed this with as much serious intent as his 'El Cid' or 'Fall Of The Roman Empire'........and the fall of Ty Ty's empire makes for a far more entertaining show than either of those 3 hour epics, even as the film's tone swings crazily from pseudo Tennessee Williams to cornpone Abbott and Costello.....
A huge Guilty Pleasure awaits you, with so much to enjoy.........Elmer Bernstein's bouncy Americana score complete with a title song.......the stupifyin' sight of TV icons Tina Louise, Jack Lord and Michael Landon like you've never seen them before......
And no cinema buff should miss seeing a film that features Buddy Hackett simulating sex with a water pump while he salivates over Fay Spain lolling around in an outdoor bath tub.......for BQ, that makes "God's Little Acre" a 4 star (****) Georgia peach.
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