This Earth Is Mine

... after all this film was made in 1959, in the age of "good government", the pledge of allegiance every morning etc. Part of the plot is that John Rambeau (Rock Hudson), one of the grandsons in a family that oversees a sprawling vineyard empire, supposedly will do anything to get what he wants when he wants it. This is towards the end of Prohibition, and the patriarch of the family, (Claude Rains), insists on only selling table grapes, on buying the crops of all of the smaller vineyards and plowing them under, and doing so because "this is the law gentlemen", to quote Kevin Costner. And he has been doing this for a dozen years. Except nobody followed the law. People drank more because of Prohibition, and the mafia, which was a two bit outfit confined to gambling and prostitution before 1920, became richer than they could ever imagine because it was illegal to sell alcohol but not to buy or possess it.

Today John Rambeau seems like the only one smart enough to figure out that this is a silly law not worth following, and why go broke when you can sell the grapes to bootleggers and make money? You are not violating any moral code, or actually the silly law itself by selling the grapes to bootleggers. Like I said, in the age of 50's conformity this may sound selfish, but not today. John also has a bad habit of loving and leaving the ladies, so no wonder when he meets one he really likes (Jean SImmons as a distant English cousin) , she can't take him seriously and is considering going through with an arranged marriage to a guy so boring he could double as a department store mannequin.

It's really a beautifully photographed film, but it is like a badly organized Douglas Sirk film - just too much melodrama and too many subplots that really have nothing to do with one another. Still, I have to wonder why it is so hard to find considering the all star cast. With Claude Rains as the kind old patriarch, Rock Hudson as the big as life prodigal, Dorothy McGuire in a role that is more...well, let me just say, more witchy than her usual well meaning passive characters, with Kent Smith as her neglected husband.

Soap operatic romantic tosh of an unusually high order thanks mainly to the superlative direction of Henry King working, as he so often did, with sub-standard material. The setting is the California vineyards, the period Prohibition and this film, based on a novel by Alice Tisdale Hobart, is clearly a forerunner of such television series as "Dallas" and "Dynasty" with Claude Rains as the ruler of this empire, Dorothy McGuire, his ambitious daughter and Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons his grand-children who are in love with each other, (don't ask!).

It's the kind of film that attracted star players and did the business back in the late fifties with quality usually taking a backseat to quantity but King was something of a master at this sort of thing imbuing the ridiculous plot with a seriousness it didn't warrant. Rains and McGuire and, to a lesser extent, Simmons take the acting credits while Hudson just seems to be having a good time in the sure and certain knowledge he won't be winning any Oscars if he keeps making movies like this. No classic, then, but a very sturdy entertainment nevertheless.

Set during the last years of Prohibition, This Earth Is Mine tells the story of the Rambeau family of the Napa Valley, prominent wine makers who are having a rough go of it during those years. Family patriarch is Claude Rains who through arranged marriages has gained control of a good deal of the real estate in the valley.

Rains reminds me a whole lot of Melvyn Douglas in Hud, an honorable man, possibly too honorable. Even though Prohibition is killing his business, he's surviving on selling his grapes to make jelly and grape juice, he won't sell to bootleggers to make illegal wine. Not like he's got control over what happens to his grapes once they are sold, but Rains has an exaggerated and somewhat naive morality.

Those arranged marriages aren't always the happiest ones either. Kent Smith is married to daughter Dorothy McGuire an iron willed lady, but who was in love with Anna Lee the wife of a son of Rains and the two of them had a not so discreet affair that produced Rock Hudson. He's the black sheep of the family and his parentage is just not discussed in polite company.

But all that makes it OK for Hudson to get romantically interested in Jean Simmons the daughter of another son of Rains who is over in the United Kingdom. She's come to the USA to be the arranged bride of another landed wine family Francis Bethencourt who once considered the priesthood.

Hudson has no such scruples about who the grapes are sold to. He organizes some of the smaller growers to sell their crops to bootleggers and some of those who resist get the usual gangster treatment. All this threatens to tear the Rambeau family apart and that's without going into what's going on with Rock and Jean.

I compared Claude Rains to Melvyn Douglas in Hud and truth be told Rock Hudson's part was probably better suited to someone like Paul Newman. But I don't think either of them could have lifted this story above the soap opera level. This Earth Is Mine tries for an Edna Ferber epic like quality and misses.

But for those of you who like this sort of stuff you could have seen all this and more on the Eighties prime time TV soap opera Falcon Crest where they had a matriarch of a wine growing family, Jane Wyman, who weekly was involved in some machinations trying to control all the people around her.

This Earth Is Mine does boast some beautiful scenery of the Napa Valley and Henry King as director does do his best to breathe credibility into an unbelievable story.

"This Earth Is Mine" is a very glossy film from Universal Studios that obviously cost a lot of money. It featured some top stars and was set in lovely Napa Valley....but, sadly, the story was apparently written by chimpanzees...albeit moderately talented chimps! In other words, it looks great...but is, essentially, trash when it comes to writing.

The film begins with Elizabeth Rambeau coming to Napa to see the family she's never met. Apparently, her father ran off with her mother long ago and she was raised away from her father's extended family's influence. As for this new family, they are wealthy grape growers...the pride of the county.

When Elizabeth meets her cousin, John (Rock Hudson), she sees that he's a bit of a black sheep in the family. While the patriarch (Claude Rains) seems content to wait until prohibition EVENTUALLY ends (it's been 12 years already...so he's an insanely patient man), John is in favor of selling the grapes to the highest bidders...which, not surprisingly, are the mob who is eager to convert this grape juice into wine.

As far as John and Elizabeth go, this is a HUGE problem with the film. First, she detests him and he insists she REALLY means 'yes'...a very dangerous trope. Second, out of the blue, she DOES come to love him. Not only was this dangerous, as it lends credence to the 'she says NO when she means YES' mentality but also because she goes from hating him to loving John for no discernible reason. This makes no sense and really is bad writing. What's next? See the film...or not.

So, if this is just a bad but very slick film, why did I watch it in the first place? Well, I recently moved to California wine country and live within relatively short driving distance from Napa. And, the film is interesting in this sense. Seeing the old vineyards and what Napa was like long ago (it's set in the 1930s) was interesting. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is poorly written and dull. There are some nice story elements (such as the illegitimate child portion of the movie), but overall it's tedious and not the movie it could have been. It only earns a 4 because it is interesting historically and looks nice. Otherwise, it's a slick and glitzy bad movie.

This is a most attractive movie featuring a stunning cast.It has a haunting quality that left me thinking and wanting to view it again.Jean Simmons and Dorothy McGuire play their parts with absolute conviction and both ladies look lovely too.Claude Rains is superb and Rock Hudson gives a star performance in a challenging role.I love so many films made at Universal in the late 50's and early 60's;nice photography,costumes,make-up,hair etc. David Allen (New Zealand)