Watched this movie for the first time last night, loved it! Man alive, Natalie Wood is smoking hot, no doubt about it. I'm straight, but Robert Redford doesn't look half bad himself. Great chemistry, the characters in the town are not well developed but they don't really need to be, and Owen's character isn't too much underdeveloped, b/c the movie really is all about Alva. Good depiction of the Depression-era South, too.
Some people complain about the ending, and I agree that it is abrupt, but I don't think it is entirely insufficient. It stands to reason that Alva comes to no good end before she dies, and since it is vaguely insinuated that her mother is a prostitute herself (the way the men at the boarding house treat her, always slapping her backside), I wondered myself if this is not where she was headed when she ran out of the apartment into the rain, hysterical with shame & guilt. I hope her mother felt good that she was able to keep her daughter from becoming a better person than herself, even if that meant destroying her.
A simple, pleasant old film with good acting and two very attractive leads. Worth watching.
Some people complain about the ending, and I agree that it is abrupt, but I don't think it is entirely insufficient. It stands to reason that Alva comes to no good end before she dies, and since it is vaguely insinuated that her mother is a prostitute herself (the way the men at the boarding house treat her, always slapping her backside), I wondered myself if this is not where she was headed when she ran out of the apartment into the rain, hysterical with shame & guilt. I hope her mother felt good that she was able to keep her daughter from becoming a better person than herself, even if that meant destroying her.
A simple, pleasant old film with good acting and two very attractive leads. Worth watching.