THIS EARTH IS MINE

US, 1959, 124 minutes, Colour.
Rock Hudson, Jean Simmons, Dorothy Maguire, Claude Rains, Ken Smith, Anna Lee.
Directed by Henry King.

This Earth is Mine is the story of an originally French family who settle in California and become celebrated winegrowers. They even prosper during the Prohibition era during which this story is set.

In the 1930s, an English cousin arrives – with the patriarch wanting to arrange a marriage with the heir to another estate and so consolidate the holdings. This is not to happen … which means the proceedings are very interesting in terms of background and winemaking and its history but rather soap-operatic in terms of the big screen colour style of the saga.

Rock Hudson had achieved stardom in the 1950s and was at the peak of his career. He had appeared in such high-class soap operas as Magnificent Obsession, in Giant and was to appear in a series of comedies with Doris Day. Jean Simmons had moved from England at the end of the 1940s and achieved a very successful career in Hollywood, appearing in many of the big-budget films of the 1950s including Young Bess and The Robe. Dorothy Maguire was always a reliable presence in films. Claude Rains, twenty years after his heyday as a villain at Warner Bros in such films as The Adventures of Robin Hood, is the patriarch of the family.

The film was directed by Henry King who had begun as an actor in Hollywood in 1913. He began to direct in 1915 and made countless films during the silent era. He had a successful career during the 1930s with such films as Lloyds of London, In Old Chicago, Jesse James. This continued during the 1940s with such classics as The Song of Bernadette and Wilson. He moved, as did so many directors, to spectacular Cinemascope style in the 1950s with Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Carousel and The Sun Also Rises. This was his third-last film. He was to make Beloved Infidel and Tender is the night, completing his work as director in 1962 (although he was to life another twenty years and died during his sleep at the age of ninety-six).

1. How enjoyable a film was this? The implications of the title - the earth, pride, possession? the people of the United States, an American saga?

2. How important was the migration background of this film? Phillipe – as beau and his arrival in poverty, his ambitions, quarreying an empire and building it up? Grant taking possession of the land? His love for the grapes, his speech and story about the grandmother's vineyard? The implications of families and their cycles and the cycles of history? Philippe as a migrant? Did the film draw out the implications of this theme?

3. How interesting was the prohibition theme? The atmosphere of the thirties, the attitudes to law, action against law, the question of drinking and grapes, waste of grapes and re-ploughing, the attitudes of good and evil towards this, the influence of syndicates and the pressures on farmers etc? What judgment on Prohibition did the film make?

4. What was the main interest of this film? The earth and vineyards theme or the family encounters? What was the attitude of the screenplay itself?

5. How interesting was the Rambeau family? the explanation of its origins, lust for power, the good which was achieved? the bad, the vandals, the relentlessness of work, the power and pride of achievement? The destructive elements of character, reputation, snobbery? Comment on the irony of the war for the family.

6. The attractiveness of Elizabeth and her role as central character? The initial hesitation, her background and its explanation? the outsider with whom the audience could identify? seeing the family and its achievement through her? The uncertainty during the credit sequences and the earth as her's at the end? The quality of her love, her love for Andre, relationship with John? Her attitude towards marriage arguments and turning into love? What did she show in her devotion towards her grandfather? The importance of her relationship Andre conversations about love with Andre? The contrast with her passionate attachment to John? Love and hate and causing John to suffer? The implications of her father’s death for her life? The dedication to work? audience sympathies for him?


7. Did the audience like John? How central was he? The explanation of his background and his telling it to Elizabeth? His infatuation with her and his jealousy? His reaction to Prohibition and the council, his advocate in unions and his getting them together? Was he right in capitulating to the syndicates and using a morality which avoided knowing what he did and they were doing? His attitude towards his mother and his future? His grandfather and whether or not he was like him?

8. How was Martha an example of what family wealth and snobbery had done? her ambitions? her frustrations? her married life, serving her grandfather, arranging Buzz’s marriage, interfering with Elizabeth, her bitter disappointment with the will? Could she cope with her future? How realistic a portrayal did Dorothy McGuire? give? Did you think she was pregnant by him? Why did she make him suffer? The dramatic impact and significance of the fight and his injury? The crisis in his life? The will and its benefit for him in building afresh, yet wanting to build like his grandfather? Would he have a successful future?

9. What did the minor characters add to the film and its understanding of human behaviour? Monica and her family relationships, marrying a Jew? Matt's being worked into the film? John's mother and her illness, and her relationships? Francis and his wealth, his relationship with Matthew with Martha, with John?

10. How did the film show the influence of Philippe on the family? His dignity of bearing, speech, going back into the past, his walking amongst the vines, his retiring to the grandmother's vineyard, his reaction to the fire?

11. Should the film have developed more the sequences with the workers, migrant rivalries, the Italian background? Buzz and her using of Italian feelings, Italian household? Luigi, the emotional involvement at home, the fight?

12. What comment did the film make on the servants in the Rambeau family?

13. How interesting was the background of the vineyards, the documentary information given by John? Should they have shown more of the raids and pressures on them to conform and sign the agreement with the unions?

14. What did the film have to say about relationships, emotions, servants, respectability, hypocrisy?

15. How icy were the sequences of the fight between John and Luigi ( with the baby crying in the background), the dramatic impact of the reading of the will?

16. Was the ending convincing? Symbolic? A repetition of the past? Dramatic or melodramatic?