I'll tell you why so serious

The first must-see film of the year.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a woman's picture (specifically, Barbara Stanwyck's picture). The narrative skips large portions of time. What a surprise to see in the opening credits that the screenplay is based on a short story by Vina Delmar. Surely, it seems to be based on an epic novel-- and it could easily have been stretched out to 'Gone with the Wind'-style length. The film is compromised by the constraints imposed by the production code (involving the bigamy of Joel McCrea's character and an extra-marital affair between Stanwyck's character and Brian Donlevy). But Miss Stanwyck's hard work helps pull off the story, and the flood scenes are very well photographed, especially a sequence with an overturned stagecoach and infant children. It is easily the most memorable part of the film. There is a lot of rain/water used in this picture. In one scene, the entire studio floor is visibly flooded.Some aspects of the plot are too contrived. It is a little too easy for Stanwyck to turn back instead of going on after the bridge tragedy to find McCrea. Maybe if there had been a quick scene of her attempting to locate him, but the road being washed out where she was forced to turn back, then that would have been more believable. Did anyone else feel as if the biographer was going to turn out to be Stanwyck's stepdaughter, or rather, the daughter of McCrea's character with his second wife? I suppose the filmmakers were prevented from showing McCrea as having committed bigamy, though the marriage certificate at the end proves it.

This is a mess of a movie that, frankly, should not have been made, especially not by a pro's pro like Wellman, not even as a favor to the dependably phenomenal Miss Stanwyck. Italian grand opera has never featured a plot gone this far off the rails. Nor are any of opera's leading saints or scoundrels accorded the admiration plainly directed at the leads in this film, who show less common sense, valor, or candor than Wile E. Coyote brings to a bad day on the mesa. I won't spoil this turkey for intrepid or optimistic viewers, but I will note that the story nods (so quickly you might miss it) to an entire off-screen family whose existence, if contemplated for more than 10 seconds by any character, would've given some interesting version of this film a problem and points of view worth watching. "Reefer Madness" handled continuity better than this. Many of the lavish costumes are out of place on relatively bare sets. Joel McCrea's mustache, for heaven's sake, looks like it's about to slip off his handsome face through many scenes! Turner Classic, bless them, just showed this, earning my continued thanks for gallantly refusing to do my quality control for me.

Fake history, played for bathos. On Founders Day in the thriving metropolis of Hoyt City, eager-beaver reporters swarm the home of a 109-year old woman, reputedly once married to founding father Ethan Hoyt; she's surely got a tall tale to tell, beginning when she was just a teenager in 1848 Philadelphia. Barbara Stanwyck begs, borrows, and barters to finance the future of idealistic husband Joel McCrea, who owns a great stretch of land with nothing on it but a shack. The narrative skitters over such crucial story-elements as railroad access, livestock, a water supply, financial aid--all for the sake of marital melodrama. Brian Donlevy, as a shady gambler who has immediate eyes for Stanwyck, does what he can with a character conceived as an afterthought (he plugs up the holes left behind by a screenplay spanning many years' time); Stanwyck and McCrea fare a bit better, though this story is seldom credible, and is often downright loopy. Production is handsome enough, and the intentions behind the film are apparently heartfelt, but there isn't a surprise in its entire 91 minutes. ** from ****

~~~Since I was only 12 when I saw this years ago, I was very impressed with everything about the movie-----the stars, the storyline, the costumes, the historical flavor, and the emphasis on the noble character of the leading stars----Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea who were always great in everything in which they ever appeared. It was the only movie I ever returned to see the second time before I started seeing numerous repeats on the TV Movie Channels. The movie starts and ends with Barbara Stanwyck portraying an elderly lady who tells the story of her relationship to Joel McCrea from youth through maturity. Through a series of flashbacks, Stanwyck tells her story to a pretty, young, blonde reporter who is interviewing her in the hope of getting a hot story on the day an imposing statue of McCrea is dedicated.