I love this movie so much

A Masterpiece!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Arthur Pierson, I forgive you. Now that I've finished watching Home Town Story, and figured out the back story, I'm having such a good laugh, tears are coming down my eyes. Actually, it's the viewer commentaries that deserve the credit for the latter.However, midway through, I would have strangled you, if you were still alive. It was starting to look like a real insult to journalism, a hatchet job on the so called liberal establishment press. There is nothing realistic about what this Blake Washburn character does, namely putting personal opinion pieces on the front page, along with opinionated headlines. No publisher would put a failed politician as the executive editor of a paper where he would be covering the guy who defeated him. The John Hale, Jr. character makes amends for this travesty, submitting his resignation, like a true journalist. I had to turn this off and pick it up the next day, I was so ticked off. I spent the day mystified about how such a simplistically propagandist film could come out of Hollywood. It was 1951, the height of the Communist witch hunt in Washington, started by a Congressman from California named Richard Nixon. So perhaps this film was made to appease the right wing gods who were throwing Hollywood writers and actors in jail. I was having trouble imagining someone actually paying money to watch this in a movie theater, even as a B movie second show. I just didn't make sense. One viewer may have hit the nail on the head when he likened it to the movies he had to watch in 7th grade social studies class. For this movie was actually produced by, believe it or not, General Motors, along with something called Wolverine Productions. I found this on the TCM site, but "The Deputy"'s 2004 review on IMDb has this detail: "The film production was supervised by the head of GM's film division, John K. Ford. The film was meant as corporate propaganda for GM ...." OK, now things are starting to make sense. Sure, as propaganda (or as Americans put it, PR) the movie is a bit obvious and clunky. But, hey, capitalism is entitled to pat itself on the back, as long as it's paying the tab -- about $200,000. It's not clear where this was actually shown back in the Fifties. Social studies classes? Hey, with Marilyn Monroe in a tight sweater, the guys are going to stay awake! Could that be the clever reason she's in there? The script is pretty bad, but acting by Hale, Donald Crisp and Monroe saves the film. Of course, the great irony is that Monroe's brief appearance has given this stinker -- which, for all we know, may never have been seen in the Fifties outside of GM's boardroom -- immortality. None of us would be watching this today if it weren't for her, except perhaps on a Christian propaganda station. I wonder if they are, indeed, running it? After all, it's not every day you get to see Marilyn Monroe playing a vestal virgin.

Hometown Story, a rather cheaply made film, even for a B picture and especially since it comes from MGM, is stalwart Republican Louis B. Mayer's defense of the free enterprise system. Not that he hadn't done it before, one of the most rightwing films ever made came out of his studio a decade earlier with Boom Town. But that film was a big production with some heavy duty name players in it. This one was made with frugality in mind.Jeffrey Lynn is our star who has returned to his hometown in Hometown Story a defeated State Senator, defeated by Hugh Beaumont grandson of Donald Crisp who is the biggest employer in the area. Lynn takes over the newspaper and decides to use it to gain support for a comeback bid. And who to go after but the biggest target around.And if you can't find an issue, create one. Lynn attacks what he labels the obscene profits of Crisp's firm and others like it. That sends Crisp into Lynn's office with a theory of capitalism and a defense of his business practices.At first people might dismiss this film because in this day and age we now see what corporations like Enron and investment banks like Goldman-Sachs have done. But I would quote no less than Martin Sheen from Wall Street who says there is a great deal of difference between speculators like Michael Douglas and businessmen like Crisp who started the business and put their work and sweat into it. Of course it would be interesting 60 years later to see if that Hometown Story now includes said firm moving to a foreign country or to some state with right to work laws and no environmental regulations. It's a complicated business with no easy answers.Hometown Story would be gathering dust in a tin can at MGM's vaults if it weren't for the fact that Marilyn Monroe has a small role as a secretary at Lynn's newspaper. She's not Lynn's love interest, that's reserved for Marjorie Reynolds. But she does send Lynn's best friend and star reporter Alan Hale into a tizzy. The future skipper of the USS Minow has his hormones in overdrive.Economics is not an easy subject for films and Hometown Story will not provide any answers. But it's pleasant enough viewing.

Hometown Story is one of four obscure movies in a single DVD apparently designed to showcase an early role of an eventual acting icon (in this case Marilyn Monroe).It moves very quickly and transported this reviewer back to an earlier(1951),less sophisticated,but more idealized time zone. Although the Korean War(also unpopular)was raging,and McCarthyism was poking its ugly head;the film exhibited an existing moral that made our country great. It would be good for some of our younger and more cynical citizens to study as an example.The acting was not of today's caliber but reasonably competent.Marilyn in her small role already exhibited what was to make her immortal. The lead actor,Jeffrey Lynn was a good journeyman that never quite cracked the "A" list. Marjorie Reynolds,who later starred in Holiday Inn,but not another major film,was the lead actress.The venerable Donald Crisp had an important role,and as always was excellent.A young Alan Hale Jr.(Gilligan's captain)had a delightful part and was quite good.I also enjoyed seeing the group of uncredited actors who always added to the enjoyment of the film including Byron Foulger,John Alvin,John Archer,Hugh Beaumont,Tom Keene,and Ray Teal.I give it an 8/10 and disagree with all the naysayers.

I found this a quite watchable little movie, with a moping Marilyn Monroe as „padding material". It features a pocket sized Citizen Kane and a dramatic incident which reminded me of Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter.Shot synposis: An unexperienced young man without influence who got elected senator to his state's legislature solely because of his war record, is defeated by the son of a local entrepreneur. He returns to his home town, gets hold of a newspaper (owned by his uncle) and tries to „nail" the big enterprise run by the father of the new senator in that town. The issues are environmental pollution and high profits for the owners. He doesn't succeed in getting any leverage to nail the enterprise but that does not weaken his grim determination. Then his kid sister gets trapped in a caved in mine shaft during a school excursion led by the former senator's estranged fiancée (solid performance by Marjorie Reynolds). The entrepreneur personally pilots the plane with the severely injured girl to the state capital. The girl gets well, the former senator is reformed ... and all's well that ends well.Its easy to see that Home Town Story was made for propaganda purposes. Big business is presented as something good and powered by altruism and patriotism (and a little hunger for more profit). The main character's motive is personal frustration, and yet he wants to make his newspaper spicier and more appealing for a wider public. He is an entrepreneur, too, and sees his revenge binge as a tactic for improvement. After some venomous editorials the entrepreneur visits the former senator in the newspaper building and tries to speak some sense into him. His speech and demeanor present the entrepreneur as a calm, even minded man who is open to discussions, it is a really good and convincing performance. He says, among other things, that his father in the Old Country worked from dawn to dusk, dying at 40 as an old man, whereas he himself is 60 already and feeling in tiptop shape. Today we laugh about stuff like that on both sides of the Atlantic, however, as far as propaganda goes, I've seen and heard worse.There are weird loose ends in this movie. It is made clear that the accident occurs because two workers of the big enterprise (we're always talking about the same one) were too lazy to repair a danger sign that had fallen down. So the crew of the school bus did not see it. I guess in the US of today this would be a classic case for a damage claim – as demonstrated in the aforementioned movie The Sweet Hereafter. In this movie the entrepreneur by piloting his private plane with the injured kid atones for everything that might have gone wrong, and no one investigates the incident any further. Tempi passati! Another reviewer called this an awful movie. I do not agree, I think especially the accident and the ensuing rescue operation are exceptionally well edited, probably with very little material to work with. The whole episode has a very modern feel and is really suspenseful.