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Old March 31st, 2017 #1
N.B. Forrest
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Virginia, CSA
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Default Another Part of the Forest (1948)

It made its debut tonight on TCM, and it was the first time I ever saw or heard of it: really quite outstanding. It's the little-known "prequel" to the famous The Little Foxes that starred Bette Davis & Herbert Marshall. It's set in 1880, about a despicable Southern family headed by a former "Civil" War profiteer named Marcus Hubbard (Fredric March); they're shunned by the whole town for his charging of extortionate prices for necessary salt during the war, and for their predatory lending of those dirty profits ever since. Hubbard is a self-made tyrant who has contempt for his 2 sons (Edmond O'Brien as resentful, calculating eldest Ben, and that classic weasel Dan Duryea as his younger fool of a brother Oscar), but a love for his daughter Regina (Ann Blythe) so strong it has clear incestuous overtones. They all have hatred & contempt for each other & for everyone else. They constantly scheme & manipulate to get what they want; only the gentle, neglected mother Lavinia (Florence Eldridge, March's real life wife) is good. There are many great scenes, especially one where the pretentious self-imagined man of culture Marcus (he boasts of having taught himself Greek & Latin as a waterboy in the fields) hires more-skilled-but-financially-strapped local musicians to accompany him as he plays his own mediocre compositions: the romantic schemes of Oscar & Regina come unraveled during the evening, and there is a vicious moment when the old bastard taunts the son of a respected planter family: "You all deserved to lose & have your world destroyed. You had outlived your time" (slight paraphrase from memory).

The particular knife-twisting nastiness of that moment is no doubt heavily due to the fact that the movie is based on a successful play written by jewess Lillian Hellman, adapted for the screen by another kike named Pozner. The whole movie is a "downer" - but then so is real life often enough.

Marcus finally gets his comeuppance in the end, due to the threatened revelation of a secret that would get him lynched; in fact all these human rats do before it's over (I won't spoil it).

It's full of terrific performances, especially by March, O'Brien & Duryea. I think it's rare, so BOLO & be sure to catch it if you can.
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civil war, fredric march, jews, lillian hellman, profiteer

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