MovieChat Forums > Kings Row (1942) Discussion > What's the point?

What's the point?

posted 12 years ago by don-lockwood
2 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying this film on some level, but it feels like a glamorized, glossy, admittedly well acted melodrama masquerading as high art. If I didn't read the various plot descriptions painting the picture as a critique of small-town society, I wouldn't have known immediately while watching it. Instead, I'd be thinking, where is this going? Why? And how unbelievable. It's good, but not great.

Mankiewicz on TCM said before the film that it is the Peyton Place of its day. I have that film on my DVR as well, and though I don't expect greatness, I anticipate good entertainment. But Kings Row is strange because it comes across as such an A-level production, but it's no less a soap opera, just with eloquent dialogue. When I think of the Douglas Sirk melodramas, they were so effective because they embraced their over-the-top plot elements. I also find them much more effective satires of the time period, but then again, the 1950s lend themselves so well to stories of hypocrisy, bigotry, and outward appearances masking personal dissatisfaction.

[–] thundercloud47 12 years ago

Sometime when you get a chance and if you can find it you should read the book. You will soon realize that many things that were in the book could not be done in a 1940's movie. Te book helps you understand the movie a bit better.

[–] dannieboy20906 9 years ago

Good stories need to have conflict. There needs to be a protagonist or hero, an antagonist or villain, and some conflict. Depending on the scale of the story these three principal elements may be magnified or multiplied many times, but without them there is no story. The reader (or watcher, in the case of a movie) is left watching paint dry or grass grow.

Along the way, there may be a lot of character development. In fact, some stories whittle the conflict down to a nub (the McGuffin) to allow the writer/director/actors and the reader or viewer to focus on the characters and how they interact.

I know, I am being very pedantic. But, you compare this to a soap opera. In our real, daily lives we have a great deal of conflict. However, it is seldom sufficiently dramatic to support a plot. So, fiction takes certain forms, such as adventure, suspense, horror, and so on in order to create a milieu that will support a plot of the viewer or reader's interest. War, murder, magic beans, and so on often serve to support a great plot, but we are unlikely to be involved with them in real life. When the author, director, or other artists exaggerate real life situations to support an interesting plot it is difficult to impossible for it to not seem like a "soap opera."

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