mark.waltz So we learn from Grovers Corners drug store owner Frank Craven as he addresses the film audience (as the character did on stage) about the spirits of the townsfolk he introduces. The story covers several different years during the early 20th Century, focusing on the young lovers George and Emily, next-door neighbors, high school sweethearts, and ultimately bride and groom. We learn about each of their families, their neighbors, who will live to a ripe old age, and who will die tragically. We meet the milkman (Stuart Erwin), paper boy, the church organist who has a drinking problem, and the town's genial busybody (Doro Merande) who chats constantly throughout George and Emily's wedding. And when Emily faces her own mortality during childbirth, all of the deceased appear to her to take her through a journey to prepare either for life or death as she questions her existence. All of this happens as progress happens throughout life in Grover's Corners, daily details of even the most minor things (how the milkman delivers his goods, for example) in life. The audience comes to realize that life is never static, that change is constant, that towns will change along with the generations of the families who either stay or move away, but as long as people continue to be able to love, there will always be hope. Craven, in his best performance, is the heart and soul of the story, both through his narration and brief interaction with the young couple as they sip away at strawberry sodas in his drug store. As the mothers, Fay Bainter and Beulah Bondi offer touching performances. They seem almost mystic through the dark photography that seems to dimmer as the film moves on. Thomas Mitchell and Guy Kibbee are their husbands, quietly wise yet human. Stuart Erwin is amusing as the milkman, and hatchet faced Doro Merande as the gleeful Mrs. Soames is memorable as well. People tend to confuse her with "The Wizard of Oz's" Margaret Hamilton, but her voice is much higher pitched than Ms. Hamilton's. (Ironically, Hamilton would play that part in a 1968 Broadway revival.) Probably more revived than any other Broadway play, "Our Town" is a touching reminder that we can't go back, we can't change destiny, and that our past is a reflection of what we have become.

ericozu This movie is garbage. It's dog poop. Worse, it's an affront to all of Thornton Wilder's ideas. I'm generally against burning books and "art" in general. However, if I were Mr. Wilder, I would have encouraged a campaign to incinerate all copies of the film. Let's make a version of Anna Karenina in which she doesn't throw herself onto the tracks, shall we? Or, how about a version of Sentimental Education in which Frederic and Marie get together at the end? If you understand what Wilder was saying in the play, then it's easy to see how truly outrageously bad this movie was. All this is leaving aside the bad acting and over-aged actors (not Mr. Holden's finest hour)!

Cinema_Fan Welcome to Our Town, welcome to your town? As we are introduced into the worlds of its townsfolk of 1901 America, this three act play is opened before us with the help of "The Stage Manager", a visual narrator if you like. After his initial introductions, we are led into the homes of two particular families; The Webb's and the Gibb's.This is most definitely middle America at the turn of the century, and the progressive way of life of the American Dream and its saccharine overtones that can seem a little biased in this dream town. Here we see the everyday lives of some of its 2642 populace of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, even if there are, too, the migrant Polish workers that add another 500 to is numbers, they, never get a look-in.Once the daily lives of these families have been introduced; wives cooking, children home-working, fathers working, kids falling in love and the clean picket-fences painted white, the second act is started three years later, after young George (a young and unrecognisable William Holden, then aged 22) and Emily have fallen in love and intend to marry. Blossoming lovebirds reaching for the stars and reaching, too, a turning point in their own lives, from the nest they lived and now, into the anxieties and woes of young adulthood they nervously step. The third act is slightly more sour and foreboding, it is in this act that the movies intentions become apparent, here we see not life, not celebration but death, and it is in this predicament that the dead, as they return to revisit and reconcile their own life past, are here to remind us, to tell us, that life, and every last minute, every precious breath is not to be wasted and squandered.It is in this last third that the movies own political stance also seems more apparent too, feeling more of a propaganda stunt on the moral lecturing on, and by, middle America and how it should direct its home and how it should also put it in order. This isn't just about "Our" town, this is moral diction aimed at "Our" souls and how America can better itself if its peoples', (excluding the Poles, the Irish, the Native American and the freed ethnic minorities', and minorities' in general, plus the supporting backbone of the Americana's who, still, have not had a fair part in this narrative), such as the middle classes, can live up to the expectations of the American Dream through honest, decent living. The purveyors of the American Dream with special invitation only.I was entertained, slightly, by this movie too, but I felt that its narrative held a stronger impact than anything else that took part in it albeit the bland acting, the musical score or how well, or not, it was made. This was the movies intention to exclude other groups, and to only include the likes of the Webb's and the Gibb's, in the future of the developing country of the USA, a good movie, but also a slightly biased in its stance, I thought.Taken from the play by US' born Thornton Wilder (1897 - 1975) this Pulitzer Prize winning play, and six Academy Award nominated movie, was the focal point on the perpetual motion of life and its three main attributes; Life, love and death, the plays translation onto celluloid comes across as a slightly to the right blurb of social consciousness. Our Town starts off with what seems a lesson in pointlessness, like other towns, nothing too exciting ever happens here, if anything at all, this town only has the "right sort of people", you can still leave your back-door unlocked here, we are seeing the developing lives of these two families, but it is their moral and social stance that is more important than them themselves. Our Town may just have been "Any Town", just as long as you came from the right part of town that is.

MartianOctocretr5 Thornton Wilder's classic play is brought to the screen very well in this mostly faithful adaptation. The story is touching, the production values excellent.It's one of the most performed plays even to this day, relating the story of some ordinary townsfolk in a very ordinary place called Grover's Corners, in the early 20th century. The people depicted, of course, represent pretty much, everyone. Its sentimentality seems to have inspired similar stories; notice the parallels to "It's a Wonderful Life," for example. This story has a slightly darker outlook than Wonderful Life, however. The movie only takes one liberty on reworking Wilder's original drama, perhaps to soften the blow of an intensely tragic scene. The slight tampering does not detract from the powerfully emotional and pivotal speech by the central character, Emily, however, since her speech precedes the event that is altered. The story's simple yet profound moral is effectively communicated.The director and cast clearly had affection for each and every character, and it shows in the level of humanity brought to these characters, so that you can care about them as real people, as well as their feelings, aspirations, and fates. A beautiful tale, brought to life by a wonderful cast and expert direction. This one is definitely a classic worth seeing.