Save your money for something good and enjoyable

hyped garbage

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I saw "Kings Row" years and years ago, and I just watched it again. A truly beautiful film.But boy, did you have to read between the lines.This is the kind of film my mother would have seen and not known any of the unspoken things that were going on. I have a feeling she wasn't alone.The story concerns people who grew up together - Parris, Drake, Cassie, and Randy - and what happens to them. It stars Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, and Ann Sheridan.The role of Parris was intended to be the star role and go to a big name. I wasn't around in 1942 but I know that Robert Cummings was certainly known but not one of the top leading men. In fact, the year of this film was his biggest - he did this movie and Saboteur. And Hitchcock didn't want him for Saboteur anymore than Hal Wallis wanted him for this.The role was supposed to go Tyrone Power, who would have been an ideal Parris, but Fox wouldn't lend him out -- and I have a feeling they waited until the last minute to refuse. As far as I'm concerned, that little boy Parris looked just like Tyrone Power, and Parris is the only character to get a star entrance.Anyway, the studio wound up borrowing Cummings from Universal and using some Warners players for the rest.Now, lots goes on in this town that is blatantly covered in the novel but only hinted at here. The biggest thing is the incestuous relationship between the woman Parris loves, Cassie (Field) and her father (Claude Rains), who is Parris' mentor when he returns from his studies.The only indication of this is when the constable asks Dr. Gordon who has just finished examining Cassie, if there was "anything else," to which Gordon replies, "Just something about the girl." They think the father is Drake, who claims he and Cassie were in love in order to protect Parris.That was the biggest "unspoken" though there were a couple of others. Blink and you miss it.I won't go into the whole story, I'll just say it was well-acted. Ronald Reagan did a terrific job. People always make fun of him, but in the films of his I've seen, he was very charming with a flair for comedy - and here, he shows dramatic chops. It's a strong role. Ann Sheridan has a slightly different role as well. She's a devoted girlfriend and then wife and not a sexy good time girl, coming off as intelligent and lively.Robert Cummings brought a boyishness to Parris in an earnest and sincere performance. Power would have brought it up a notch, though.Because of the casting, Kings Row does not signal that it was a huge film, which it was intended to be. It's the same as Saboteur seeming like one of HItchcock's smaller movies when it wasn't at all. He wanted Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. I'm sure no one would say it was a smaller film had he been allowed to cast them. Same here.

This is a picture about a typical, happy, small American town of 1900. There is murder, madness, premarital coitus, suicide, double amputations, poverty, alcohol abuse, and first-degree snobbery.Cummings and his best friend Ronald Reagan are young men in King's Row. Cummings is a bit on the earnest side, while Reagan is blithe and carefree. Both, we can tell at once, are good men and true friends. They live on "Union Street", full of mansions, while the other side of town is "below the railroad tracks." Ideas about propriety and convention stifle attempts at social change.It has the qualities of an epic novel that veers from triumph to tragedy on a precise schedule, rather like the railroad trains. It's like, oh, "Peyton Place" or "The Young Philadelphians." Paths cross and cross-cross. Characters come and go, but mostly go.I'd compare it to something like "Gone With the Wind" too, except that there's no menace in the offing like a Civil War. I'd like to compare it to "The Brothers Karamazov" but it's not so finely observed. It just sort of rolls along of its own weight and covers so much territory that it's not uninteresting.The plot, briefly: Cummings loses his first love, goes to Vienna, and returns as a psychiatrist. Reagan loses his first love, then loses his legs, then finds another love, Ann Sheridan, but he can't get over the fact that he's now only half a man. Fortunately, after some hesitation, Cummings cures him in about thirty seconds.Cummings looks boyish and effete throughout but isn't embarrassing. None of the performances are embarrassing. Reagan has a meaty role and does well by it. Sheridan is the blunt and practical love of Reagan's post-operative existence and she's pretty good.On the whole, I find these sprawling melodramas to be fatuous but this one is no worse than many others and better than some. The direction is efficient and the photography is in lustrous black and white.The musical score is by Eric Wolfgang Korngold and it helps the movie immeasurably. Those first four portentous notes of the main theme, like the opening of Beethoven's fifth -- except different notes, of course. I speak to you as your expert on this subject because I once audited a course in piano. Not to be immodest, but, yes, musical genius runs in my family. People came from yards around to hear my grandfather play the baritone horn in a German marching band.At any rate, this is worth seeing. You get to see Ronald Reagan, future president of the United States, waking up, looking stunned, and shouting "WHERE'S THE REST OF ME!"

Amazing soap opera. One of the best of its kind. I'm not a big fan of soaps in general and I rarely rate them high. It's a testament to how good this is that I give it such a high score. The story is long as it traces the lives of two men (Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan) in the town of Kings Row from childhood through trials and tribulations as adults. Cummings is the respectable, dependable one and Reagan the wild, reckless one. The film is probably best remembered today as Reagan's finest performance (and it is). Cummings is good, as well. Better than he's given credit for since his character is more steadfast and therefore doesn't get the meatier scenes that Reagan does. He does get some, though, and excels at them. Top-billed Ann Sheridan, lovely as always, doesn't appear until halfway. She plays Ronnie's love interest and is excellent in an emotional role. Her chemistry with Reagan was always good and never better than here. The supporting cast is made up of distinguished veteran actors like Claude Rains, Maria Ouspenskaya, Harry Davenport, Judith Anderson, and Charles Coburn in a surprisingly dark role. The only slight casting fault the film has to speak of is Betty Field. She plays her character with the usual overwrought excesses so many actors then and now bring to roles of mentally disturbed people. It's not a terrible performance. It's just so much more melodramatic than the rest of the cast that it makes her stick out. Fine cast with a juicy story and superb direction from Sam Wood. Oh, and that Erich Wolfgang Korngold score is wonderful. This is definitely a classic film you have to see.

KINGS ROW is a very good but uneven movie. However, the overall film is well worth seeing despite its shortcomings.The film is set in the fictional town of KINGS ROW towards the end of the 19th century. It begins with several children and shows their adolescent dreams and friendships. Soon, the story jumps ahead a decade and you see them as young adults--noticing how they have changed for the better or worse.Parris Mitchell (Bob Cummings) is the star of the film--especially the first half. He has grown up with a reasonably wealthy family and has a dream of going to Vienna to study with the greatest doctors in the world. However, he needs to work with a local doctor, Dr. Tower (Claude Rains) to study to have any hope of passing the entrance exams. At the same time, he's infatuated with Tower's daughter, Cassandra (Betty Field)--though they've seen little of each other since they were young. This is because, oddly, Dr. Tower took Cassandra out of school at about age 10 and has kept her as a recluse of sorts in their home. Later, Parris and Cassandra begin seeing each other secretly--with hopes of marrying.Drake McHugh (Ronald Reagan) is a brash young man with a trust fund. He's Parris' best friend and he seems to live only to have a good time. He's not particularly serious but also a generally likable fellow. However, he's fallen for Dr. Gordon's daughter--and Gordon (Charles Coburn) absolutely refuses to allow his daughter to see him. As for Gordon, he's a a sanctimonious and judgmental old man who seems to have little regard for his patients--particularly the ones he finds morally "objectionable". With these despised patients, he often refuses to use anesthesia when operating--a way to pay them back for their wickedness! Later in the film, Doc Gordon has a chance to treat the hated Drake.Only around the middle of the film do we get to see Randy Monaghan (Ann Sheridan), though oddly she gets top billing. While Ann Sheridan did great in the film and you couldn't help but admire her performance, she was not the star of the movie. Instead, she and Drake begin dating and after Drake suffers a horrible accident, she is his strength and support.The movie is a very long and involved soap opera. I heard it once described as being a lot like PEYTON PLACE, though KINGS ROW seems to have less of an emphasis on sex (at least in the movie). Oddly, the first half of the movie or so is almost like a separate film. It's good, but the second half is much more exciting and emotionally charged. The first half is mostly devoted to Parris and his relationship with the Towers. The second half is more devoted to Drake, though Parris is still an important part of the film. There are many interesting plot elements I have not mentioned because getting into the plot with any more depth would spoil the film.As for performances, although the focus was mostly on Bob Cummings, his role was relatively unexciting to watch. He was a very good man and you liked him, but his emotional range didn't need to be great. However, despite receiving third billing, Ronald Reagan really stood out in the film--even more than Sheridan's fine performance. Although initially a rather dull character, later in the film his life underwent many tragedies and Reagan displayed a very believable emotional range--much greater than you'd see in his other films. Frankly, here he is great--whereas in most of his other films he's wooden and less than appealing. It's interesting to see that when given excellent material and direction, he was a fine actor.At the beginning of the review, I said that this was a good but uneven film. Part of this I have already alluded to--how it's like two separate films and the first one is far less compelling than the second. However, the real serious unevenness is because sometimes the director handled dramatic moments beautifully--such as the scene with Reagan in bed after his accident. This and many other moments were done with such deftness and grace that they really pull you into the film. I know I was nearly ready for a box of Kleenex at these moments! Sadly, though, there were some moments here and there that were just sappy as well. In particular, the very end was just terrible. As Reagan has his big dramatic breakthrough, you hear swells of almost angelic music and this huge burden disappears INSTANTLY!! This scene was done in about one minute--and should have been done in at least five to ten. The entire ending was rushed and sloppy. Perhaps since the movie had already gone on for over two hours they felt a need to do this. I would have been much happier had they either trimmed some off other parts of the film instead or just lengthened the film more. It was upsetting to invest this much time in the movie and just have a cheap and manipulative ending.Overall, despite my many complaints about the unevenness, the great moments are so many and the film is such a wonderful showcase for Reagan and Sheridan that I strongly recommend it. My teenage daughter usually doesn't love these sort of films but she watched it with me. In the beginning, she was a bit critical but towards the end, I could see her interest increase tremendously. She also said the movie was good but uneven--that's a chip off the old block!