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The Worst Film Ever

Great Film overall

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Beneath Pedestrian.A kind of dull Southern Gothic. Poor Jennifer Jones, her hair mussed and her jeans muddy, is from the wrong side of the tracks. The good inbred folks of Thanatopolis, North Carolina don't pay no attention to her and her hunting and traipsing round. Except high-class Charlton Heston. He finds her, well, curiously attractive. But when he returns from a spell in the big city, he seems to have acquired scruples and, however much regard he has for Ruby, he's been tied to the wealthy and somewhat snooty Tracy since childhood. They get married.In return, out of spite as much as anything else, Ruby married the wealthy, good-natured, and bulbous-nosed millionaire Karl Malden. He really loves her. And she's beginning to grow fond of him too, just before he's killed in a boating accident. The community blames her. The local paper hints at murder. But -- HAH! -- Ruby is rich now and wears sunglasses and glamorous clothes. She also buys up every promissory note in sight and demands payment, which demolishes half the town's businesses and ruins Heston's plans for the future.That's as far as I want to go with the plot, for a couple of reasons. One is that I don't want to spoil it. Another is that the climax comes virtually out of the fog, a kind of deus ex maniac.What an ordinary movie this is. I don't know if you're familiar with the song "Ruby." It was a popular hit at the time of this movie's release, sung by Nat King Cole among others. If you haven't heard the tune before, that's okay. It will become an indelible part of your declarative memory by the time this ordeal is finished. It's the only music we hear. The overscore is "Ruby" and variations on "Ruby." If someone in the film turns on the radio or plays a record, the tune is always "Ruby," usually on a quivering harmonica. It's almost a relief when somebody sloshes through a North Carolina swamp and all we hear is the weird cry of the Australian kookaburra.How dull. Except for its budget, which is quite modest, and its black-and-white photography, it could easily have been a made-for-TV number on Lifetime Movies. It was directed by King Vidor, who must have been in some sort of post-ictal twilight state throughout. He allows ALL of the principals to overact outrageously. Heston would go on to much better things as he matured, but here he's wooden and snarly. Jones could be in a silent movie, where the overuse of body language is expected. Some of the characters are so bad, they're actually amusing, though not excuse enough to watch this dreary feature.

I really enjoyed this film---didn't know what the story was going to be beforehand, so it was really a great soap opera---the kind Hollywood used to make.Did you ever watch a film today and say to yourself, "That was predictable!" Well, I never once was able to say that about this film! It was all over the map, maybe not a great masterpiece..but very well acted and cast, and looked gorgeous.Jennifer Jones was one sexy lady! If you want to see a real actress at work, then this film is for you!Why can't Hollywood remake a film like this one---maybe it is too "adult" for today's audiences!

Although the late Jennifer Jones excelled at portraying sweet and benevolent ladies on screen (Sister Bernadette in "The Song of Bernadette," Jane Hilton, the epitomized all-American girl, in "Since You Went Away," the ghostly and angelic Jennie Appleton in "Portrait of Jennie," the perfect schoolmarm in "Good Morning, Miss Dove," for example), as her millions of fans all know, she also specialized in playing lustful, self-willed and oftentimes tempestuous women. 1946's "Duel in the Sun," with Jennifer as the hot-blooded Pearl Chavez, is a perfect example of that type, but a look at "Ruby Gentry," made six years later by the same director, King Vidor, shows that Jones could be just as effective in a much smaller picture, playing a similar role. "Duel" was mockingly referred to as "Lust in the Dust," and I suppose one could give "Ruby" the tagline "Romp in the Swamp." In this one, she starts out as Ruby Corey, born on "the wrong side of the tracks" (a so-called "swamp trotter") in the modern-day, fictitious town of Braddock, N.C. Although desperately in love with well-to-do Boake Tackman (played by Charlton Heston in one of his earlier roles), she marries the wealthiest man in town, Jim Gentry (the always marvelous Karl Malden), on the spiteful rebound. A marital tragedy strengthens Ruby's resolve to avenge herself on both the snobbish townspeople and on Boake himself, leading, "Duel in the Sun" style, to even more tragedy down the line. Jennifer, it must be said, is simply marvelous here; her poor-white Southern accent doesn't slip once and her chemistry with Heston is a thing to behold. The film also features atmospheric direction by Vidor and a lovely, memorable score by Heinz Roemheld. In all, a quality production, and yet another victory for the great Jennifer Jones.

Jennifer Jones had different types of roles in the films her husband David O. Selznick made. She's a dutiful daughter in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. She is a simple, holy young woman - destined for religious greatness, in SONG OF BERNADETTE. She is one of a pair of twisted, oversexed, mutually doomed lovers in DUEL IN THE SUN. She is a doomed nurse who dies in World War I in A FAREWELL TO ARMS. Even in a film she was loaned for - BEAT THE DEVIL - she is a chronic liar and fantasist. Her title role as "Ruby Gentry" resembles her "Pearl Chavez" in that she is from a despised background (Ruby is from the "hillbilly" woods country, and Pearl is half Indian), but Ruby eventually does make it materially...but at a cost.Let's face it - RUBY GENTRY is an example of a soap opera turned into a motion picture. In fact, after watching it one wonders why Selznick chose to make this film. DUEL IN THE SUN was a western, SONG OF BERNADETTE a historical film, PORTRAIT OF JENNIE a popular novel of the day. GENTRY was a novel too, but it's plot was not as mystical and weird as PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (wherein Joseph Cotton fell in love with the portrait of a young woman, whom he gradually learned died years earlier - and whom he experiences the love and loss of by meeting her ghost). GENTRY is set in the south, and is told by an outsider (a northern doctor who just moved to the Carolina coastal town - he's also having problems getting accepted*).(*The doctor's first name is rather Jewish sounding, which may be another reason he is having problems of acceptance in the town.)The story follows how Jones fascinates most of the men she meets: she has an affair with Charleton Heston, she has been under the protection of Karl Malden and his wife, and the doctor realizes what a remarkably talented woman she is too. But she is not socially fit to marry Heston (whose business ideas require a wealthy wife at least). When Malden's wife dies she accepts his subsequent marriage proposal. But while the social swells don't knock Malden (accepted as one of them and a decent guy) they won't accept her. The marriage suffers and subsequently Malden dies in an accident. Now wealthy Jones still finds that her wealth does not buy acceptance. And her point of view begins to sour towards the "upper crust" who prove more frail facing her than they imagine.The film works. Not only do the three leads do well (watch Malden's jealousy scene at the country club, or the scene of Heston and Jones driving a convertible at night alongside the ocean on the beach - one wonders if the scene influenced the scene of Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT). Also noticeable are the actors playing the doctor (Barney Phillips) and Jones' brother (James Anderson), a religious maniac who may have certain incestuous ideas about her himself. If it is a soap opera it is a superior one, with firm acting, good directing by King Vidor (who had done the directing in DUEL IN THE SUNS), and even a memorable musical theme ("Ruby"). Jones is excellent, even if the role would have been more typical for Susan Hayward in that period.