Sadly Over-hyped

Absolutely amazing

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Wow, what a trashy movie! This is NOT necessarily meant as a criticism, as the film makers were obviously trying to make an overwrought and sexy soap opera-style film. Subtle this is not--and if you like films like PEYTON PLACE or A DUEL IN THE SUN or TV shows such as "Dynasty" or "Falcon Crest", then you may enjoy RUBY GENTRY.Ruby (Jennifer Jones) is a sexy southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks. She's in love with one man (Charlton Heston) but her heart is broken when he marries another simply because this other woman offers him an advancement in society. On the rebound, Ruby marries a nice and very wealthy guy (Karl Malden). However, at a big social event, Ruby shows a lot of attention to her old beau and people begin to talk. Now Ruby did NOT cheat on her husband and there is no indication that she didn't care for him--but people talk. And, when the husband dies accidentally in a boating accident, people suspect Ruby killed him. In fact, they are vicious towards her. So, in a wonderful turn of events, the now wealthy Ruby sets out to use her husband's money to destroy the town. Later, she works her best to try to win back her old beau--even though he is already married and seemed like a jerk.I am not sure why Miss Jones did these sort of movies. Despite becoming famous for playing the angelic lead in SONG OF BERNADETTE, she went on to play quite a few slutty characters--such as in this film, DUEL IN THE SUN, INDISCRETION and MADAM BOVARY. Frankly, I didn't like her in these films and preferred her other roles--mostly because she wasn't all that convincing in these sort of films. RUBY GENTRY is a bit better than these other films, but it still is far from her best work. I think part of this is just because she just didn't seem slutty enough and seemed more suited to films such as PORTRAIT OF JENNY. She looked rather sweet and such roles would have worked better with actresses who specialized in these sort of films like Lana Turner or Joan Crawford. The other problem is that although I enjoy a good potboiler, these films of Miss Jones weren't particularly good films--especially DUEL IN THE SUN and INDISCRETION. Why her lover, David O. Selznick, pushed her into these roles is beyond me.Despite these complaints, there was quite a bit to like about RUBY GENTRY. The idea of a poor girl becoming rich and using this new wealth to destroy the town that persecuted her is great. Too bad, then, that after doing so much to get revenge that the film become bogged down with the silly affair with Heston late in the film. The affair made little sense and tended to deflate the juicy plot. And, sadly, almost as soon as the affair began, the film just ended very abruptly! The film is a real mixed bag. It's a decent time-passer soap but could have been so much more.

With this I've started my tribute to Charlton Heston – being also one of six planned first viewings. The film isn't one of his most renowned efforts (coming also very early in his career), in spite of director Vidor's involvement; nonetheless, it's typical of the latter (whose twilight years were marked by a mostly lean period in his career) – a fairly risible romantic melodrama of the kind D.W. Griffith was making forty years earlier and which were concurrently being revitalized in the works of Tennessee Williams! RUBY GENTRY actually looks back to an earlier Vidor title involving a forbidden liaison sparking notoriety, death and revenge – DUEL IN THE SUN (1946), with which it shares leading lady Jennifer Jones – but, at least, that one was backed by Technicolor, an epic scope and a willing all-star cast; this, on the other hand, is unconvincing and rather half-hearted – though leading to a similarly absurd climax (with Heston and Jones attacked by the latter's religious fanatic brother).Following the death of his invalid wife (Josephine Hutchinson), meek but wealthy Karl Malden (who comes off best out of the main trio of stars) allows himself to be hitched by the tomboyish and backwoods Jones; the latter had herself been spurned by well-bred Heston, who prefers to marry into money for the sake of his dream project. However, the two lovers can't stay apart for long and the two men have a big fight over her at a party (which, curiously enough, takes place off-screen). The newlyweds set out to sea the next day in order to make up, but he's thrown overboard in an accident and drowns; the locals give Jones the cold shoulder (again, much of their abuse is intimated rather than shown), but she finds herself all of a sudden the beneficiary of Malden's vast fortune (owning shares in or else being owed by, it seems, the majority of the townspeople!); the last straw arrives when she willfully destroys Heston's irrigation enterprise. Ultimately, as I've said before, the film is shamelessly overstated – but, alas, not particularly entertaining: while the talent is clearly there, it's generally operating below-par.

I saw this when I was very young and it was quite risqué for 1952. Jennifer was beautiful and very seductive. The thought of a woman being shown on the screen engaged in seduction was far from the norm for my family. I went with my friend and was afraid to tell my Mother. I need to rent this and see if it still holds up after all this time. I'm sure Jennifer will as she was a wonderful actress. I love Charlton Heston because is a journeyman actor but he bugs me. He always seems to be the same person. Karl Malden is an actors actor and never gives a bad performance. The setting was typical of that time, poor girl seduces rich boy. The other one was rich girl falls for poor boy. Sure never happened in my life. What I remember most though was the music as It is so plaintive.. I have it downloaded and it is one of my favorites.

King Vidor's head-on approach to melodrama seems to be out of fashion these days when critics are more comfortable with the self-conscious ironies of Douglas Sirk. Ruby Gentry is the last and, along with Stella Dallas, the best of his "women's pictures", a taut, almost abstract depiction of a woman's ultimately self-destructive attempt to live without restraints. The object of all men's desire, she tries to turn the tables on Charlton Heston by becoming the aggressor (in their first scene together shining her flashlight on him while she remains invisible, making him the passive object of her teasing erotic gaze). Caught between the fire-and-brimstone brother out of Flannery O'Connor and the discreet condemnation of the bourgeoisie she marries into, Ruby lashes out, taking them all (even Heston) down with her and ends up cast adrift on the sea, as inscrutable as Dreyer's Gertrud.