An Old Movie Review

I'm on an old movie roll here the last couple days. I go in spurts with TCM and I'll have times where that's all I'll watch (not much else worth watching on regular tv anymore).

Yesterday evening, I had the 2 hour guilty pleasure of watching Valley of Decision. This is a great movie with Greer Garson, that other object of my old movie star desire, Gregory Peck (good grief, that man was sexy) Lionel Barrymore, Marsha Hunt, who reminds me a LOT of Lindsay Ferrier and then there was a young actress in the movie who played Hottie Gregory's sometimes girlfriend and then wife and I knew there was something familiar about her and the very last scene it dawned on me who it was....a very young Jessica Tandy. I keep forgetting Jessica Tandy was not always old like Miss Daisy and Mrs. Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes.

Anyway, the movie is about an Irish immigrant housekeeper Mary Rafferty (Greer Garson) who goes to work for the Scott's, a very wealthy family who owns a steel mill that her father (Barrymore) worked for and ultimately lost his legs because of. Paul (Gregory Peck) falls in love with the cute housekeeper and instead of his family being against the union, it's the bitter, curmudgeonly Barrymore (now there was an acting stretch...remember him as Mr. Potter in It's A Wonderful Life?) who gets pissed off, disowns his daughter and places curses on her and Paul's unborn children.

Because of a strike in the steel mill, some violence ensues, killing both Paul and Mary's fathers and Mary gets all like "I can't marry you" so he ends up marrying Jessica Tandy's character, Louise. That Louise is a snobby, bitchy sort and at the end of the movie, dumps Paul (idiot) and Mary shows up and they ride off in their carriage into the sunset. Endings like that have ruined many a woman's life, but, still, it's a great movie and to see twenty something Gregory Peck clinching that purty jaw of his and being all sweet and crazy about poor Mary Rafferty is a nice way to waste one's time.

Money, greed, love, violence, pride...this movie has it all. If it were made today, it would have a drug dealer and one of the brothers would be a flaming homosexual. Nothing wrong with the latter, just shows how times have changed since 1944.