GManfred Pretty good but not great. The cast tried mightily but did not seem to bring O'Neill's story to life. I think it is because of O'Neill's skewed view of family, derived from his own background and that depicted in such as "Long Day's Journey Into Night". There as here, there is an emphasis on liquor and dysfunction and maybe he was not the one to tell such a story. It's a far cry from "Meet Me In St. Louis", or even "Father Knows Best" as far as entertainment value is concerned. As a result of his august presence in the credits "Ah, Wilderness" maybe an overrated film, and compounding this problematic circumstance is the hammy acting job turned in by Eric Linden, around whom the story revolves. Wallace Beery was excellent as the drunken uncle Sid, Lionel Barrymore was his usual competent self, and Aline MacMahon upgrades any movie she is in. Last but not least, the screenwriters did the best they could with flawed material.

atlasmb Released in 1935, when the era before WWI held a nostalgic place in the hearts of viewers, "Ah, Wilderness!" relives a spring and summer in the lives of a small town American family, especially one son who is the high school's valedictorian.Adapted from the play by Eugene O'Neill, the film is filled with vignettes that recall life in 1906. The bandstand on the town square, the new-fangled Stanley Steamer, playing the piano in the parlor. Although some characters are more like caricatures, there is a sweetness to the film that culminates in the final, poignant scene.Mickey Rooney plays the younger, rambunctious brother. In 1948, he will appear in the musical version of the story, "Summer Holiday", as the graduating student, Richard.The cast is excellent, with Wallace Beery playing Uncle Sid, a lovable souse without the willpower to live up to the moral standards of the times. You can't have a film about turn of the century America without including healthy helpings of moralizing. Things were changing quickly in newly industrialized America and society seemed very concerned about pinning down community standards for decency and probity.Eric Linden does a fine job as Richard, full of potential and full of youthful earnest, so sure that only he--having read certain books--sees truth.

drednm Eugene O'Neill's gentle comedy about an American family living in a small town in 1906 shows us that our problems haven't changed, only the way we deal with them.The story centers on Richard (Eric Linden) as he's about to graduate from high school. His summer is spent courting Muriel (Cecelia Parker) and planning to go to Yale in the fall. But he's restless without knowing why. His older brother (Frank Albertson) treats him like a kid, and his father (Lionel Barrymore) is having business troubles. And then there's drunken Uncle Sid (Wallace Beery) who breezes in and out of the house.The mother (Spring Byington) is busy with the younger children (Mickey Rooney, Bonita Granville) and the spinster aunt (Aline MacMahon). Feeling alienated and alone, Richard goes to town with a friend (Edward Nugent) and gets mixed up with a woman from another city (Helen Flint) who's passing through town. Richard has his rite of passage and learns something important about himself.Linden is excellent as the callow youth caught between adolescence and adulthood. His bravado shows itself in spouting poetry and speeches from plays. He's all talk. Beery gets top billing because of his box-office pull but plays a supporting role here. He's quite good as the boozy uncle who's sort of courting MacMahon (always good). Barrymore, Byington, Granville, Rooney, and Parker are solid.But it's Helen Flint as Belle who nearly steals the film as the fast-talking city woman. She's excellent.

theowinthrop Eugene O'Neill remains, some fifty two years after his death and some eighty seven since his first plays appeared on stage, America's greatest dramatist. This is not hard to understand - no one ever dissected our personal miseries as well by laying bare his own tragedies. It is understandable that he rarely touched on comedy (it does crop up in some forms in his plays - in HUGHIE look at the way the hotel night man has some twisted hero-worship of the gambler crime kingpin Arnold Rothstein). Twice (actually) O'Neill tried comedy. First a spoof, MARCO MILLIONS about Marco Polo. The other was AH, WILDERNESS!, which was his only successful Broadway play in the 1930s - 1955. It is a lovable look at middle class, small town American family life in 1905 (about the same time that that far more horrifying version of family life, A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, occurs). And because we know what O'Neill was going through, seeing this version is not reassuring at all. The play will amuse, but in our cynical souls we know that it is what O'Neill really needed and never got.One thing the audience never got (unfortunately) was the star of the original production. In his penultimate Broadway performance, George M. Cohan played the father, Nat Miller. The critics of 1932 raved for Cohan's meaningful and wonderful performance, but we can only read of it - he was never in the running for the movie role. He was extremely difficult to work with under other directors, and would have been hard to control. It's too bad. The original choice for the role at MGM was Will Rogers, but Rogers wanted to make a round the world plane trip with Wiley Post, and went to their joint death in a crash at Point Barrow instead. Still Lionel Barrymore is good as substitute for either Cohan or Rogers.The cast on the whole is first rate, from Barrymore and Spring Byington as the parents (note the business about the problems Barrymore has eating certain types of fish) to Wallace Beery as the inebriate uncle and Aline MacMahon as the spinster aunt. The business of the three sons, Arthur (Frank Albertson), Dick (Eric Lindon), and Tommy (Mickey Rooney), and the daughter Mildred (Bonita Granville) all helps paint a picture that is close to Norman Rockwell (although the apparently alcoholism of the uncle is troubling). But it has some terrific moments, as towards the end when Nat warns Dick about fallen women/prostitutes as "sepulchres". But with a knowledgeable audience of O'Neill fans they can put in the dead older brother who wasted his talents on booze and women, and the baby brother who died prematurely. Suddenly the glitz and glare of the 1905 small town America on the 4th of July weekend turns into the shadow world of four dead souls pursuing an endless mutual fight in a New England summer house. It is a finely made movie of MGM near it's height, but the source for all the pleasant humor of the piece has a long dark shadow that is unsettling.