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.

The jaunty title song belies what lies beneath this southern Gothic drama from the ever reliable director Anthony Mann who loads this film with various subtexts.

Robert Ryan gives a marvellous performance as patriarch Ty Ty Walden who has spent years digging up his farmland looking for gold buried by his grandfather sometime in the civil war. Maybe things would had been better if Waldens farmed the land as the family might have turned out better with tighter morals.

Ty Ty has three sons and two daughters. One of the son, jealous, hot headed Buck is married to sultry Griselda but she always had a thing for Will Thompson. He lost her but ended up marrying TY Ty's daughter Rosamund but Will has always pined for Griselda and the closed down mill in the town.

Darlin Jill the youngest daughter is a fee spirited filly who is being courted by Pluto, a fat man running for the job of Sheriff.

Jim Leslie is the son who got away, married into wealth and lives in Augusta but he also has the hots for Griselda and does little to hide it. As Ty Ty comments, some of the men in the family are far from chivalrous when it comes to handling women.

Only Shaw the youngest son tries to keep everyone together but in this pot boiler with different vignettes it is Ty Ty who eventually realises that his quest for gold and digging holes in his field has crated a chasms in his family.

Director Mann brings out fine performances from his cast and I think he had the censor sweating over some of the playful and sensual scenes.

My third Robert Ryan movie of the week was the 1958 cult classic "God's Little Acre." This film was based on an Erskine Caldwell novel of some 25 years earlier, a novel that was deemed controversially racy for its time, and the film itself must have been seen as a pretty sexy outing for its day. In it, Georgia farmer Ty Ty (Ryan) obsessively searches for gold on his land by digging deep holes all over his property. His two sons, played by Jack Lord and Vic Morrow, assist, while his daughter Darlin' Jill (Fay Spain) and daughter-in-law Griselda (Tina Louise, in her first film) act bored and randy in the background. Would-be sheriff Pluto Swint (Buddy Hackett) comes by to court Jill, while in another town, daughter Rosamund (Helen Westcott) has problems with her drunken husband (Aldo Ray),who only wants to turn on the lights of the closed-down cotton mill again. The farmhand played by Rex Ingram induces Ty Ty to hire himself an albino to divine the presence of gold on the land, and that albino (Michael Landon!) is found and does the job. Or does he? Anyway, all these various plot elements come together very nicely, and many moments of amusing humor and great drama are to be had here, not to mention those racy elements. If you thought Tina Louise was nice looking on "Gilligan's Island," you've got to get a load of her in this one! Let's just say that her sweaty cleavage is prominently highlighted throughout, and leave it at that. All the performers in that most impressive cast give wonderful performances, and director Anthony Mann (who apparently DID do more than create classic Westerns in the '50s!) helms in a masterful manner, abetted by the great Elmer Bernstein's score. In all, a surprisingly winning entertainment that--if not as daring today as it must have seemed back when--holds up very well for a modern audience. More than highly recommended!