Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26460 in VHS
• Released on: 1992-12-11
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Customer Reviews

The play that startled the nation!
Director Clarence Brown's adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play is a smooth telling of a somewhat slight story of youthful indiscretion in a turn-of-the-century New England town on the July 4 Independence Day.
The material is said to be unusual for O'Neill, far more sentimental than his later darker and more emotional work. In her capsule review in the 5001 Nights at the Movies, Pauline Kael compares it to Booth Tarkington's world, and also MGM's Andy Hardy series, which allowed for a musical remake in 1948 Summer Holliday, which starred Mickey Rooney who has a small part here. The tone is set by the use of the song Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me), with Brown's establishment of the pre-war reactionary period convincing.
The film is subtitled A Comedy of Reflection, though the humour is small scale, on the level of school recital goofs, firecrackers, and a drunk relative at mealtime. As the boy who has graduated high school and plans to go to college, Eric Linden has a silent movie matinee look which works for his character, considered by his family as an anarchist because of his ideas of "new freedom", apparently influenced by reading such progressive works as the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray. This is the millieu of people outraged by women smoking and drinking, so when Linden meets a "chorus girl" at a saloon, we hear talk of "whited sepulchres" and ruined reputation. The fact that the "chorus girl" is an older woman somehow adds to her powers of corruption.
Possibly because the narrative is so domestic, Brown has no trouble in de-emphasising the theatrical source. We're never conscious of listening to a play. However he has trouble with the acting, notably Lionel Barrymore as Linden's father, and Wallace Beery as his uncle. Although Barrymore could never be accused of subtlety, he isn't as awful as Beery, whose ham ruins the extended meal sequence where he is meant to be drunk. We are given the idea that Linden's radicalism is inherited from Beery, though Linden doesn't stoop to slipping a woman alcohol, one who has rejeted his marriage proposal because of his drinking.
It's interesting to compare this film to Vincente Minnelli's 1944 Meet Me in St Louis, which approximated the same period, and where Minnelli was congratulated for his acting ensemble. Brown achieves the same effect, 10 years earlier.

Family Drama
Ah! Wilderness is basically a film about a family in the early part of the 20th Century. Eric Linden plays the eldest child named Richard. He has just graduated and is filled with all sorts of ideas he has gleaned from books, but although he believes himself to be a worldly man, he is still very innocent. His father (Lionel Barrymore) tries to lead him in the right direction, but he has the rest of the family to worry about too. His brother (Wallace Beery) is a drunk who is in love with the cook (Aline MacMahone). He has two young and energetic children besides Richard (Mickey Rooney and Bonita Granville) to take care of.

Many things happen in this film, but nothing stands out as the central most important event. It is simply the story of a family during a short period of time. It is enjoyable because of the great cast and the personalities they create through the characters.