HOME FROM THE HILL: Blu-ray (MGM, 1960) Warner Archive

In the great tradition of generational sagas comes Home from the Hill (1960), Vincente Minnelli’s brooding, often intense and compelling melodrama, distinctly to capitalize on Hollywood’s then yen for probing, stark and unflattering depictions of the morally ambiguous and emotionally scarred. Based on William Humphrey’s 1958 novel, MGM’s interest in bringing Home from the Hill to the screen followed similarly-themed blockbusters made elsewhere: Written on the Wind (1956, for Universal), Peyton Place, and, No Down Payment (both in 1957, and for Fox); the cycle, ostensibly begun as far back as 1942’s Kings Row (Warner Bros.). The end of the 1950’s was a particularly heady time for Minnelli: nine films in only four years with some of his most prolific masterpieces among them. And like Hollywood’s impressions of the world outside its gilded gates, Minnelli’s art had matured outwardly from the glossy confections to have launched his career in 1943. Indeed, the director had come a very long way from the refined and coquettish elegance achieved in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).

There was still room for froth however, as Minnelli’s Oscar-winning Gigi (1958) had proven in spades. Minnelli had barely enough time to let his luggage cool from Gigi’s trip abroad when again he set off, this time for ‘another’ Paris - in Texas and then, Oxford, Mississippi to begin location work on Home from the Hill. Initially, the project held little appeal for Minnelli, having visited similar themes of hyper-masculinity and social-climbing power struggles in 1956’s Tea and Sympathy, and 1958’s Some Came Running. And further to the point, the prospect of working with Clark Gable (then slated for the role of Wade Hunnicutt) highly intrigued Minnelli; a robust and towering figurehead, avidly flawed in his desire for ‘wild game’ of varying kinds. Somewhere along the way, Gable’s passion turned, and Minnelli accepted to instead direct noted Hollywood bad boy, Robert Mitchum. By the straight-jacketed standards of the fifties, Mitchum was a real loose cannon, much sought after for his screen charisma and sex appeal, yet almost as cringe-worthy for his caustic authority-usurping disdain of directors he mistrusted. In this regard, the decidedly effete Minnelli had absolutely nothing to fear, his lithe touch and ability to wrangle a great performance from his star, leading to a mutual admiration that carried over into all phases of the production. In short, a very happy experience for both men.  

Hollywood’s distinct disconnect with, and curious disdain for, homespun and clean-cut goodie-goodie family units, once upon a time their bread and butter throughout the 1930s (Andy Hardy, anyone?) and, more recently, found its niche as the steady diet of suburban-dwelling TV audiences, played upon the public’s insatiable appetite and rank suspicion that sin and moral turpitude were a hand-in-glove affair situated much closer to home than the boob tube suggested. Having paid $45,000 for the rights to Home from the Hill, MGM brought in ole-time movie maverick, Sol Siegel to produce it, leaving nothing to chance by hiring husband and wife writing team - Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. - to iron out the narrative kinks in Humphrey’s novel and put a decidedly conciliatory spin on Wade Hunnicutt’s less than altruistic peccadilloes. In short, the rather heartless and unrepentant boorish womanizer of the novel was herein lent the proverbial heart of gold; Wade’s investment in the social welfare of his legitimate son, Theron (ineffectually played by George Hamilton) to prove his unraveling in the end. Ravetch and Frank also telescoped, what in Humphrey’s novel had been a grotesque spate of meaningless sexual conquests, resulting in half the town’s offspring being Hunnicutt bastards, into two noted indiscretions and just one offspring, Rafe Copley (superbly realized by George Peppard in his first major role, predicted as the beginnings of star-making career that, despite some more high-profile work thereafter, never entirely materialized).   

Too late, Theron realizes Rafe is his half-brother; too little to make a difference in their already pleasant friendship. As the legitimate heir, Theron is derailed by his callow confusion: fallout from that conflict of interests plaguing his parent’s tug-o-war and a scar to deny himself his one chance at happiness with ‘nice girl’ in a bad way, Libby Halstead (Disney ex-pat, Luana Patten in a role originally slated for Yvette Mimieux).  Minnelli was granted three weeks location shooting in Oxford, working feverishly to achieve his verisimilitude with a tinge of crackling, if sex-starved voracity. In Hollywood, Siegel – who had been ordered by the studio’s top brass to remain behind and attend to ‘business matters’ – had nothing but praise for the rushes Minnelli sent back for his consideration. He would be less than enthusiastic regarding the staged goose hunt, inexplicably shot on a counterfeit recreation of the great outdoors inside MGM’s stage #6. This static entre, mostly buried beneath the opening credits, is offset by Home from the Hill’s pièce de résistance: Minnelli’s miraculously staged boor hunt, stitched together in the editing process from location work lensed in Paris and Clarksville, Texas. Here, Minnelli concocts an exhilarating labyrinth, employing the virtuosity of cinematographer extraordinaire Milton Krasner’s headlong tracking shots, wending through some decidedly rough terrain and earthy locations with a smooth as silk swoop, augmented at Minnelli’s behest for some yellow smoking pots to simulate the sulfuric swamps. 

Home from the Hill opens with a luscious main title by Bronislau Kaper – one of his finest, against a rather uninspired backdrop - MGM’s sound stage #6, redressed in rotting reeds and other swampy vegetation, a painted cyclorama subbing in for the horizon. Lurking just out of view are Wade Hunnicutt, Rafe and a small contingent of hunters: Dick Gibbons (Charlie Briggs), Mr. Bradley (Denver Pyle), Ben Ramsey (Stuart Randall), Peyton Styles (Dan Sheridan) Ed Dinwoodie (Orville Sherman), Bob Skaggs (Dub Taylor) and Hugh Macauley (Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams); men, outwardly loyal to Wade, but otherwise not above indulging in a bit of gossip about his peccadilloes behind his back.  Overhead, a flock of wild geese are gathering. However, before the hunt can commence, someone takes a pot shot at Wade. Rafe’s quick reflexes narrowly avoid a murder. From out of the rushes, the men bring forth the culprit, John Ellis (Tom Gilson), whose wife has been having an affair with Wade.  On the car ride home, Wade thanks Rafe for saving his life. Nevertheless, even life itself is not worth the bequest of a new shotgun. Patched up by Dr. Reuben Carson (Ray Teal), who forewarns nothing good will come of his philandering, Wade returns home to discover his glacial cool wife, Hannah (Eleanor Parker) lingering in an upstairs bedroom. Hannah knows what Wade is, and likely how he sustained his wound. She is unsympathetic.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to the Hunnicutt heir apparent, Theron – alone and lonely on a Saturday night. Several of Wade’s men decide to play a practical joke on the boy, inviting him on a ‘snipe’ hunt. Eager to please, and quite naïve about virtually everything outside his own cloistered existence, Wade goes along, is taken to the woods, and then left behind with only a burlap sack and a whistle to recommend him. Sometime later, Wade runs into his men in the town square. Inquiring about Theron, the fellas concede their part in the prank and take Wade to the woods to collect his kin. Far from being upset, Wade is more concerned Hannah’s influence has turned Theron into a hapless mama’s boy. Wade offers to introduce Theron to the ways of the world – breaking a promise he made to Hannah when he was born, to leave his rearing to her. Under Wade’s guidance, and Rafe’s tutelage, Theron becomes a crack shot and a skilled hunter besides, emerging victorious from a wild boar hunt that has both tested and proved his burgeoning masculinity with great enthusiasm. His one unconquerable frontier – landing a date with a pretty girl. To this end, Theron implores Rafe to ask Libby Halstead to the annual dance and barbeque the Hunnicutts are giving.  After some mild coaxing, she willingly agrees to this second-hand invitation.

Alas, the girl’s father, Albert (Everett Sloane) denies the date to take place, all but chasing Theron off his front porch and ordering Libby to her upstairs bedroom. Theron is totally oblivious to the fact his father’s reputation as a notorious womanizer has tainted his own prospects with young Libby. Seizing the opportunity to deflate Theron’s hero-worship of his father, Hannah reveal’s Wade’s ugly past to her boy. Rafe is Wade’s illegitimate son; his mother, the root of Hannah’s rage against her husband all these years. Unable to fully digest the truth, at least in the moment, Theron moves out of the house, takes a job as a general laborer to support himself, and briefly sets up house with Rafe. He further denounces Wade as a terrible father and role model. Wade confronts Hannah. After all, in an attempting to shatter Theron’s love for him she has also, inadvertently, wrecked his trust and faith in her, and, by extension, all women – even Libby – whom Theron now rejects before learning she is already pregnant with his child.

A tearful Libby confides the truth to Rafe who magnanimously offers to marry her. Knowing the full breadth of not being acknowledged, Rafe is determined to spare Libby’s unborn baby the same stigma and rear it as his own. A grateful Libby weds Rafe as the emasculated Theron quietly observes from a distance. Unable to bring himself to terms, Theron retreats into his former self; hopelessly introverted, confused and bitter.  On the occasion of the baby’s christening, Theron realizes the error of his earlier decision to simply walk away from his responsibilities. However, it is too late. Meanwhile, the same gossipy men who made a mockery of his manhood earlier, now suggest among themselves that Libby’s child is actually Wade’s. Overhearing this perversion, Albert flies into a rage and skulks off, rifle in hand, to avenge the injustice. Sneaking into the Hunnicutt home, Albert guns down Wade in cold blood. With loaded rifle in hand, Theron pursues Albert into the swamp and avenges his father’s murder. Discovering Theron standing over his dead father-in-law, Rafe agrees to remain silent. The brothers embrace and Theron departs for an uncertain future, ostracized from the only home and town he has ever known. A short while later, Rafe finds Hannah at Wade’s newly erected tombstone. She points to its inscription, acknowledging Wade as Rafe and Theron’s father. Bittersweet but self-reliant, wife and son depart from the cemetery.

Coming as it did on the heels of Minnelli’s greatest artistic achievement – Gigi (1958), expectations for Home from the Hill were exceedingly high. For the most part, Minnelli did not disappoint. The picture is sumptuously photographed, skillfully scripted and, with the exception of George Hamilton’s thoroughly stilted performance, expertly played. Midway through his location work, Minnelli fell ten days behind schedule – a miscalculation for which MGM threatened to prematurely recall cast and crew back to Culver City until Robert Mitchum intervened on the director’s behalf. Indeed, the symbiotic rapport between Minnelli and Mitchum was so strong and conciliatory it marveled producer, Edmund Grainger, overheard to have commented, “I can’t remember when I’ve seen Mitchum handled so well.” Minnelli had less success wrangling George Peppard’s Method actor’s acumen, so telescopically focused it often led to shooting delays while Peppard worked himself up into a lather for a particularly intense scene. In Peppard we have one of Hollywood’s irrefutable oddities; an undeniably handsome and gifted performer, force-fed through some of the decade’s most high-profile movies, including 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1962’s How the West Was Won, 1964’s The Carpetbaggers, and 1966’s The Blue Max, only to have his reputation quietly fade into obscurity; briefly, resurrected in popularity as part of the ensemble on TV’s action series, The A-Team (1983-87).  Perhaps, ego was partly to blame, as in later years Peppard was widely known to be a bit of control freak. Nevertheless, he ought to have been more regarded more highly.

Weighing in at 150 mins. Home from the Hill is Minnelli’s longest movie and also one of his most overlooked, if not outwardly maligned. The general impression at the time was that Minnelli, despite his verve and imagination, was no Howard Hawks, the rugged landscape of small town Texas out of Minnelli’s usual depths, sophisticated jabs at the uber-citified and inbred artistic community who oft populated his cinematic milieus. Assembled by editor, Harold Kress, the picture was ready to go by mid-November 1959 – a scant six months after Gigi’s triumphant premiere. That Home from the Hill never overstays its welcome is a testament most assuredly to Minnelli’s meticulous craftsmanship. Apart from Mitchum, Peppard’s performance was singled out by the critics for its authenticity. By all accounts, the November prevue was a success. But then, for reasons only known to MGM’s top brass, the studio delayed the general release until March of the following year – enough time for all the hype and buzz accrued thus far to decidedly pass. Worse, the official release at New York’s Radio City came on the eve of a record-setting blizzard, further to blunt opening weekend theater attendance.

Without continued marketing from the studio, Home from the Hill was quietly let out of the gate where it was denounced by The Christian Science Monitor as a “mishmash of murder, adultery, misalliance and illegitimacy.” All critical flogging aside, this condemnation was actually good for business in America. The foreign press needed coaxing however, particularly as Minnelli’s quintessence of ole-time Hollywood glamour was pitted against a pantheon of nouvelle vague home-grown product debuting at Cannes. The final arbiter was Oscar – not a single nomination bestowed. Nevertheless, Home from the Hill managed to be a crowd pleaser, if not a prestige picture, earning a respectable $5,610,627 on a tightly budgeted $2,406,570. Its success convinced studio execs Minnelli could sell anything to the public; a faith stretched far beyond reprieve with Minnelli’s next studio-assigned project, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962); a Hiroshima-sized critical and financial disaster.

Home from the Hill arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive in a sparkling 1080p transfer culled from newly mastered elements. With the exception of some fleeting residual softness, particularly during transitional fades and dissolves, the Cinemascope/MetroColor image sports an impressive amount of overall clarity, sharpness and steadfastness in color density. Flesh tones are particularly pleasing, as is the saturation and depth of the color palette with ox-blood red leather, dense green foliage, and billowing haze of sulfuric yellow gases given their due in hi-def. A modicum of film grain looks very indigenous to its source and contrast is bang-on perfect. The 2.0 DTS audio is a revelation; Bronislau Kaper’s lush orchestral score coming through with gusto, dialogue sounding quite natural. The one regret herein is extras. Save a badly worn theatrical trailer, there are none.  Bottom line: Home from the Hill is an underrated top-tier Minnelli melodrama. It deserves further consideration and our renewed respect. This Blu-ray does the movie justice. Highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

0