God's Little Acre (1958) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½

  Action!: MANN MEN - Anthony Takes It All!

  Anthony Mann leaves the West and returns with a comedy that, like the novel on which it is based, sparked a great deal of controversy not only onscreen with its highly sexually charged characters (there are at least two whose entire existence in the film is being horny AF), but apparently much of the script was written by Ben Maddow, who we had already seen in this marathon and who had his writing credit removed for his suspected but unproven communist activities during the 1950s Red Scare.

  In terms of the film itself, I really enjoyed the film's overall slice of Americana vibe. It feels very much like Mann's Hud or The…

• Review by sakana1 ★★★★ 6

  There's a major spoiler in the second-to-last paragraph.

  Though known primarily for its scandalous sexual content and depiction of infidelity, God's Little Acre tells an unexpectedly complex tale, one in which capitalism is questioned, and women are often granted a remarkable degree of agency, particularly over their own sex lives.

  Set in Great Depression-era Georgia, and centered on a family led by a gold and god-obsessed patriarch (Robert Ryan as Ty Ty Walden), the film documents the chaos that envelopes the family over the course of just a few days. It opens with widower Ty Ty and his sons Buck (Jack Lord) and Shawn (Vic Morrow) digging in one of many holes that cover the family's land, searching for the…

• Review by pirateneckbeard ★½

  Besides this intriguing cast this movie has very little going for it. Sure Robert Ryan is zany over the top trying to find the buried "family fortune" roping in his younger sons but the tone of this film felt all over the map. It starts off as a comedy with lust but then it pivots to this other relationship about a cotton mill shut down on a town and the ties tethered between the two stories just seemed weak and unnecessarily to add salacious elements. I got nothing from this movie as it shook this family tree for all the story apples it could get to entice you to try and like it. Hell they even kidnap an albino to find treasure... poor Michael Landon. I did like certain shots like when the workers carried a body in reverence to the house but there is very little redeemable parts to this film. God's little Ache.

• Review by RanchoTuVu ★★★½

  Steamy southern drama with a lot of cleavage set in an area where there used to be steady jobs at the textile factory until it closed. The basic themes are lust, jealousy, and unemployment, kind of in that order and it's not really that simple anyway but that's a lot of the substance. Tina Louise torn between Aldo Ray and Jack Lord while Buddy Hackett steals a lot of the movie playing a candidate for county sheriff and being toyed with by Fay Spain as Darlin' Jill. It must have gone right up to the limits of the censor line with the cleavage shots but sex was integral and kind of fits in with the laxer morals of a hot and humid, econsomically depressed, southern countryside.

• Review by Paul D ★★★½

  Anthony Mann is on familiar territory here, as with the Westerns which he made with James Stewart, with a story of obsession.

  And here almost everyone is obsessed with something one way or the other.

  Primarily there is Robert Ryan's Ty Ty Walden, patriarch of an extended family who instead of farming his land has been digging holes for 15 years in search of the treasure which he believes for no other reason than that his grandfather told him, is buried there. And all the time moving around the cross which he planted on a patch of that land which he calls God's Little Acre to signify that whatever that piece of land yields will go to the church, just…

• Review by D Rock ★★½

  There's always something a little cringey about well-off Hollywood actors playing dirt-poor rural types, especially when it's played in such broad strokes (Buddy Hackett is in this, to give you an idea!).

  Still, I kind of get where Mann was going with this. Plus it has the estimable Robert Ryan , and Tina Louise who's just, well, you know. Oh and plus, Michael Landon!!?! Like, WTH. His weirdest role.

• Review by Channing Pomeroy ★★★

  If it’s easier to make bad movies from great books make and great movies from bad books, then theoretically this could have been a great movie. God’s Little Acre can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be: a Kornfield Kounty comedy or a family saga of tragedy and forgiveness; a hard scrabble story about a man’s failure to exploit the agricultural riches of his land in favor of quick riches, or social commentary on the exploitation of poor mill workers rich owners, or an exploitation of slutty farmer’s daughter cliches.

  Two year’s earlier, Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan did a great job of balancing similar conflicting tones in Baby Doll . God’s Little Acre does have flashes of…

• Review by trolleyfreak ★★★½

  It took a quarter of a century for Erskine Caldwell's controversial bestseller to be brought to the screen and when it duly arrived, Anthony Mann was a sound choice to helm the project as his films are littered with strong patriarchal characters.

  Robert Ryan gives a barnstorming performance in a Lear-lite role as the head of a poor family in rural Georgia and though the film is not great as a whole, there are some marvellous individual scenes.

• Review by Acervo Glauber Rocha

  Anthony Mann, autor de filmes
  por Glauber Rocha

  I – Único cineasta que conserva vivo e renovado o western, Anthony Mann, ao contrário do que pensaria a crítica, fez sua grande obra-prima fora do gênero: O Pequeno Rincão de Deus (God’s Little Acre, 1958, de um romance de Erskine Caldwell adaptado por Philip Yordan). E, em escala decrescente, seu segundo grande filme, Os Que Sabem Morrer (Men in War, 1957) não é também western. Na carreira do cineasta já veterano, são dois acontecimentos significativos, porque no moderno western ele é o maior artesão e o mais inventivo diretor. A realização de obras-primas fora do campo no qual é mestre prova que seu talento não é limitado a um tema. Que…

• Review by fulci420

  Top notch melodrama from director Anthony Mann follows a poor southern families struggle to do better for themselves despite being a bunch of dumb asses. There is some funny stuff here with dad kidnapping an albino boy (!) in order to find gold on his property. Drunkenness, buffoonery and some gorgeous women make for one hell of an entertaining movie. Terrific acting and cinematography throughout.

  Look at this exploitation style attempt to sell the movie during it's 1967 re release.

  www.imdb.com/title/tt0051666/mediaviewer/rm794113792

  Love the tagline "See How Poor White Trash Live in..." not quite representative of the movie but a fun piece of art nonetheless.

  You can find this movie on YouTube.

• Review by Roberts Kulenko ★★★★

  It's not like late 50's had a shortage of sweaty Southern tales of dysfunctional families, lust and greed but most of them were classy Technicolor extravaganzas. GOD'S LITTLE ACRE is their more filthy and weird cousin. Despite a few shortcomings, I would rather watch this again than, let's say, THE LONG, HOT SUMMER.

• Review by audrey ★½

  I'm surprised Robert Ryan considered this his best performance because I can think of several that I prefer. Not to say that he was bad (in fact he was the only saving grace), but maybe the fact that I hated the film didn't help. It felt like a conglomeration of all the worst elements of Tennessee Williams' films.

  Each and every character was incredibly unlikable and annoying and I didn't care about a single one. The women were treated like dirt, just there to be abused by the men in the film and ogled by the audience. Literally every scene with Tina Louise involved her bending over so the camera could shoot directly down her dress. I understood that the…