mdizio I love Anthony Mann and Robert Ryan is somewhere in the top three of my all time favorites male actors, so I watched this last night on demand. All I could think of was "over the top", "You have got to be kidding me", etc. As preposterous as this movie was to me, the reviews from people who take this movie seriously is even more so. I thought that I was watching a black and white cartoon. I agree with the reviewer who felt that the attempt of the movie's second half to switch to "Tennessee Williams mode" made it feel schizoid. This also weakens the argument of some reviewers who feel this movie is a satire because it switches to a drama. "Entertaining," does not necessarily equal good, and like a train wreck, I had to watch this movie to its satisfactory ending. Satisfactory ending because it was over! Buddy Hackett as a candidate for Sheriff? Yeah, maybe in Brooklyn! Each character seemed on the verge of laughing out loud at the absurdity of their actions and dialog, and the plot had more holes in it than the lawn around God's Little Acre. In a word, embarrassing!

MartinHafer A crazed Southern patriarch spends all his time digging on his property for gold that he insists that his grandfather hid somewhere on their property and he gets his two dim sons to him on this never-ending quest. As a result, they really do no productive work--they just dig and dig. As for the women, they are all horny and trashy and spend most of their time writhing about like they are in heat! My goodness, this is an incredibly shrill and awful movie. It's a shame, as I wanted to like it since it starred Robert Ryan (one of my favorite actors) but it was almost like watching a movie starring the characters from "The Beverly Hillbillies" played in a manner even less subtle than the comic strip! I am pretty sure that most Southerners cringe when this film comes on TV, as it's nothing but horrid stereotypes and Hee-Haw style acting! Aside from Rex Ingram, no one in the film seemed the least bit real. Robert Ryan just yelled like a moose in heat and the rest of the cast weren't much better! The movie is simply terrible and trashy from start to finish.Other than to watch sexy Tina Louise or because you detest Southerners and want to look down on them, I honestly can't see any reason at all to waste your time with this one.

dougdoepke Never mind that the front yard has more holes than no-man's land after a WWI artillery barrage. Or that Pluto's up-and-down pump appears to drive Darlin' Jill into censored delight. Or that the rotund Pluto appears to be running for sheriff of Disneyland. No, this is not the deep South of Rhett and Scarlett; it's the cartoon South of Dog Patch and Lil' Abner. Take drop-dead sexy Griselda who delivers water to sweating boys in a see-through dress. Or, patriarch Ty-Ty, God's very own real estate agent. And, of course, mustn't forget Darlin' Jill with her own ideas about how to integrate the South. Don't get me wrong—this first half is mildly amusing with its exaggerated characters and heavy breathing, much like an R-rated cartoon.And, had the screenplay followed through with this comedic style, a mildly memorable movie could have resulted. But it's like someone suddenly decided the movie needed to really "serious up". So, we get a second half that's more like over-heated Tennessee Williams than Al Capp's riotous Dog Patch. I don't know if all that contrived staging around the cotton mill is supposed to deliver a "message", but it's sure as heck heavy-handed and out of sync with the first half. Plus, there's that typical 50's ending that ties up every loose end in unbelievably happy fashion. I don't know which of the many versions (thanks to censors of the time) I saw, but I doubt any combination of this bi-polar disorder could work. Too bad, since it's a rare stab at departure for that strait-jacketed decade.(In passing—I do like how Ty-Ty's manic mining for his father's gold gets resolved. We discover that despite appearances, he knows there's no buried gold. Instead, he keeps digging in order to "keep the family together" and the memory of his dad alive. He's not crazy— he just has a wacky way of expressing his "family values". Still, I don't think I'd hire him to do my gardening.)

njack731 God's Little Acre was the very first book other than early elementary school books that I read. I would suggest that all respondents making comments read the book prior to commenting on the movie. The book is an in-depth look at the conditions of the people known as Poor White Trash in the south and was the source of animosity by many whites toward Erskine Caldwell, the author. We read of poverty caused by the Dust Bowl during the depression, but the Waldens were not poor in that sense. They, being farmers could have lived off the land quite well, but the idiosyncrasies of the hero, Ty Ty had him forsaking farming for treasure-hunting. There is also the concept of the indomitable human spirit that is sometimes lost in the incidents of adultery, etc. It is a great story by a great author and was made into a fairly decent movie.