A student falls in love with a Southern belle, but their relationship is complicated by her troubled past and the onset of the Civil War.A student falls in love with a Southern belle, but their relationship is complicated by her troubled past and the onset of the Civil War.A student falls in love with a Southern belle, but their relationship is complicated by her troubled past and the onset of the Civil War.
- Nominated for 4 Oscars
- 1 win & 8 nominations total
- Townsman
- (uncredited)
- Parthenia
- (uncredited)
- Townsman
- (uncredited)
- Jake - Bartender
- (uncredited)
- Spectator
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOn the evening of May 12, 1956, during the shooting of this movie, Montgomery Clift was involved in a serious car accident on his way back home from a party at the house of Dame Elizabeth Taylor. He apparently fell asleep at the wheel of his car while driving and smashed his car into a telephone pole. His friend Kevin McCarthy witnessed the accident from his car, drove back and informed Taylor and her then husband Michael Wilding, who immediately drove to the accident location together with Rock Hudson. Taylor entered the car through the back door, crawled to the front seat and removed the two front teeth from Clift's throat that threatened to choke him. Hudson finally managed to pull Clift out of the wreck and together with Wilding and McCarthy they protected him from being photographed by reporters until the ambulance arrived. This was necessary because soon after the emergency call had come in to the local police station, reporters were already on their way and arrived at the scene when Clift was still in the car. The accident was well publicized. After nine weeks of recovery and with plastic surgery, Clift returned to the movie set and finished this movie, but with considerable difficulties. His dashing and looks, though, were gone forever. In some scenes throughout the movie, despite the cinematographer's skill, Clift's nose and chin look different, and the entire left side of his face is nearly immobile.
- GoofsAfter Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election, the crowd sings "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". However, Julia Ward Howe wrote the poem on which the song was based for the Atlantic Monthly in 1861.
- Quotes
Susanna Drake: That 4th of July race... what happens when you win?
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Well, according to a friend of mine, if I win, a beautiful girl will place a garland of oak leaves on my sun-colored locks.
Susanna Drake: I'd like to be that girl.
John Wickliff Shawnessy: Maybe it can be arranged?
Susanna Drake: Oh, it can be arranged, all right. *I'll* arrange it.
- Alternate versionsThe longer Roadshow version was released on VHS by Warner, where it was labeled as Reconstructed Original Version. It has also been shown on Turner Classic Movies cable channel. This version contains nearly 15 minutes of additional material not found on the General Release Version.
- ConnectionsEdited from Gone with the Wind (1939)
- SoundtracksRaintree County
Music by Johnny Green (uncredited)
Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
Sung by Nat 'King' Cole
Oh my, I guess MGM had too big an investment not to release this swollen turkey. As I recall, it got a lot of hyped promotion in '57. For fans, like me, of the Taylor-Clift romantic pairing (A Place In The Sun, {1951}), this misguided sequel should be avoided like the plague. Taylor does her best in a part disjointed badly by a perforated script, while Clift struggles manfully following his traumatic road accident. Also undercutting the romantic theme is the absence of close-ups emphasizing the vital tender emotions. I suspect that was because of Clift's mid-filming disfigurement. Nonetheless, the first 2-hours of personal relationship is further pulled down by impersonal staging. And since so much of the film follows the romance, recovery is near impossible.
The movie does come alive when Lee Marvin's blustery rough-neck comes on-screen. Clearly, he's on his way up the Hollywood ladder. But pity poor Eva Marie Saint of On The Waterfront (1954) whose sterling acting chops are almost totally wasted as the lonely heart in waiting. Where the movie does shine, as others point out, is in the visuals of costuming and massed army men. In short, the sort of production features big-budget MGM typically excelled at. I also like the effort at using the Raintree symbolism to bind the film into a poetic whole. Too bad, the script muddies that with sporadic development.
Anyway, it's regrettable that such a prestige production got undercut by factors not entirely under studio control. I suspect there's a practical moral at work here, but I'm not sure what it is.
- dougdoepke
- Aug 15, 2016
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $5,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime3 hours 2 minutes