Rousing, rollicking and ribald, God’s Little Acre is a rustic revel with the kick of a Georgia mule. The production of Erskine Caldwell’s novel is adult, sensitive and intelligent.
The direct, bucolic humor is virtually intact, and so is Caldwell’s larger scheme, the morality play he told through the artless, sometimes disastrous behavior of his foolish and lovable characters. A changed ending gives a different meaning to the story, but the ending is sound, aesthetically and popularly.
The story remains that of a Georgia farmer (Robert Ryan) who believes he can find gold on his farm. In the book it was a gold mine; in the picture it is buried treasure. Ryan has spent years of his life digging for it, all his energies and those of his two sons (Jack Lord and Vic Morrow) go into the search and the dream it represents. The hunt leads everywhere on their farm except on the one acre Ryan has set aside, in the olden way of tithing, for God.
Ryan dominates the picture, as his character should. Aldo Ray, as his son-in-law, creates a moving characterization as the husband torn between his wife, sensitively played by Helen Westcott, and the voluptuous barnyard Susannah, strikingly projected by newcomer from legit Tina Louise.
