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Wonderful character development!

As Good As It Gets

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

"Kings Row," based on the novel of the same name takes place in a small American town just before the start of 1900s. In it, a young boy, Parris Mitchell lives with his grandmother, Maria Ouspenskaya, who he thinks the world of and she him. He also has formed deep feelings for a girl named Cassie. Parris is a deep thinker and is a compassionate and empathetic soul of others' sufferings. Drake is a bold, brave and virile guy, who likes the fast girls. He is respectful to his elders, saying sir, but is not held back by their propriety. Such are the beginnings of Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan in this tale of men looking for their way in life. Parris is inspired by Dr. Tower, played by Claude Rains, who gives a very imposing and sobering performance. Dr. Tower has a very good reputation for his intelligence, but is harboring a secret in his family. Betty Field plays his disturbed daughter, Cassie. Charles Coburn is another doctor in town, but his methods are questionable, to say the least. His daughter Louise, played by Nancy Coleman, likes Drake, but she isn't allowed to marry him. Wife Judith Anderson gives a memorable supporting performance in her brief role. Ann Sheridan is "Red," who lives across the track and who likes Drake. She takes Louise's place, even though he still thinks of Louise and it gets him mad over that mad father of hers. Parris has dreams of being a great doctor, the type in books, he says, and goes to Vienna to study. This is a very moving and impressionable film for viewers. In fact, it's reminiscent of "Peyton Place." But in many ways, it's vastly superior. This contains more spirituality, is more emotionally charged and its characters are even more three-dimensional than in Peyton Place. The plots are similar in that everything is told with broad strokes and its characters are in extreme situations. But the love shared between Parris and his grandmother and also between Drake and Red keep the film rooted and we really care for and understand the people. "Peyton Place" was too distant or aloof to really invest the viewers' interest. I have seen this film several times, but I have never enjoyed as much as I did this time. I was moved to tears by Parris' inward thoughts, Louise's desperation, Red's love and devotion for Drake, and Drake's force and will to live. Tragedy strikes people in Kings Row, but a determination of not being defeated by life and others make those who live there survive. With a rousing and melodious score, this is filmmaking and storytelling at its best with all the actors given time to shine in their own role in the little slice of life shown here in "King Row."

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!"

With the passing of years and the benefit of hindsight, it seems to me that Ronald Reagan and Bob Cummings might have been better off in each other's roles in "Kings Row". Reagan doesn't strike me as the playboy type, while the impression I have of Cummings is just that from watching all those 'Love That Bob' (The Bob Cummings Show) episodes back in the day.Still, the movie tells an effective story, attempting to handle a number of different subjects. For 1942, many of them seemed to be pushing the envelope of acceptable film topics, issues like psychiatric treatment for insanity and the willful amputation of a patients' legs as a duty to punish wickedness. The entire time I felt Dr. Tower (Claude Rains) was a demon for keeping his wife and daughter under some sort of desperate control, then became shocked to learn that he was shielding them from the harsh reality of a world that would be unable to accept them. Yet it takes the form of a murder/suicide to bring that revelation to the viewer, with an intrigue that leaves one baffled until the story is revealed.Even though it happens time and again, I'm always surprised to hear a character from an old film talking about how life isn't getting any simpler. That happens here in a conversation between Dr. Tower and his student Parris Mitchell (Cummings) as they discuss the new medical field of psychiatry. I imagine future movie watchers will get a kick out of the way we whine about our complicated life today. But seriously, I can't imagine things getting much more complex. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.In hindsight, the question that puzzles me is seeing Ann Sheridan's name at the top of the film's credits. It seems to me she joined the story about half way through, so being the top Warner's star at the time was probably the reason. Sheridan is actually my favorite actress of the Golden Era so I'm not being critical here. It just seems like it's Cummings' picture all the way and he's second billed, on loan from Universal, so again it's political. Most folks consider Reagan a less than gifted actor, so it's good to see him in a role that has some range in which he does a creditable job. Excellent support here as well from Claude Rains, Betty Field and Maria Ouspenskaya, even with their limited screen time.

I just watched this excellent melodrama two nights and was very impressed with it all round. Superb acting, gripping plot, and a memorable Korngald score.It reminds me heavily of Peyton Place, with the idyllic town hiding an dark underbelly of secrets. I understand that much of the original novel had to be watered down due to the Code, but the film still manages to touch in many subjects virtually taboo in the 40's. Pre-marital sex (the tortured Cassie and Parris' embrace and fade out to Korngald's score and the lashing storm), medical sadism, madness. The book apparently also touches on father-daughter incest.I guess this is Parris Mitchell's story, and his coming-of-age, but it could also be Drake McHugh's story. In a way, Drake is more sympathetic than Parris. Parris is almost unbelievably good, while we can relate more to Drake.We have three doctors in this tale, who all (at least to me) make the crucial mistake of mixing personal feelings with medical practice. Parris is the only one who overcomes this.I find it interesting that Warners cast three actors virtually untested in dramatic films for the three central roles in this major release. Ronald Reagan is especially good in what would have to be his best film performance. He never came close to matching his work here again. His work here was ceryainly worthy of an Oscar nomination. Cummings is an actor I have grown to like more every time I see him in something new-- he was capable of strong dramatic work in this, and films like "Black Book" and "The Lost Moment". But it is Ann Sheridan who holds the film together in the second half.But the whole cast is impressive. Charles Coburn, usually lovable, is truly frightening as the sadistic doctor. Judith Anderson normally leaves the audience trembling in her eerie wake, but here she is effectively silenced by her monstrous husband. Nancy Coleman and Betty Field both give affecting, disturbing portrayals of daughters driven mad by dominance and repression. Maria Ouspenskaya is touching as Parris' beloved grandmother. Claude Rains is mysterious. And Kareen Verne is refreshing as Parris' eventual love.Sam Wood, a very competent director, leads us through this nostalgic tale with flair. A wonderful film, 10/10.