A poor farmer is obsessed with finding gold on his land supposedly buried by his grandfather. To find it he conveniently moves a marker out of his way that designates the land on which it rests as as God's Little Acre, where anything that comes from the ground will go to God's work. Eventually he abducts an albino to help him find the gold. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law is suspected of fooling around with a labor activist out of work since the mill closed, and a local political hopeful actively seeks his daughter's hand in marriage. Written by

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budmassey (cyberbarrister@gmail.com) from Indianapolis, IN
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The controversy that surrounded this movie, along with the scandal associated with the novel upon which it is based, may not have added up to box office success, but the film has become a classic nonetheless.

Author Erskine Caldwell and Viking Press, his publisher, were actually charged and tried for obscenity for releasing God's Little Acre in 1933 after pressure by a New York literary board who wanted the book censored. A quarter of a century later, in 1958, when the movie was released, it was actually banned in some theaters and audiences under eighteen years of age were prohibited from viewing what were perceived to be numerous obscene scenes throughout. The on screen sexual exploits are rather tame by today's standards, but the sexual tension of men standing and watching naked women pushed the limits in its day.

Robert Ryan stars as Ty Ty Walden, a farmer who believes there's gold buried on his land. A devout man, he has set aside a small plot of land promising God anything that comes from it. With typical human frailty, he is prone to move God's Little Acre whenever he fears it may contain his fortune, an obvious allegory for the shifting faith we all suffer.

Ty Ty has singlehandedly raised three hot headed sons and a lovely daughter, who is his treasure and, it turns out, an almost irresistible sexual force. Throw in Grisleda, the sultry wife of one of the sons, and her ex-lover, Will, and a subtext of complex sexual entanglements and betrayals lead to tragedy and eventual destruction of the family.

Caldwell, by showing Ty Ty destroying his farm in search of quick riches, meant to comment on the destructive attitudes of the South with regard to the land. Although Ty Ty could have turned a profit at any time by farming, he does everything but farm. Eventually he enlists the aid of an albino, played by a delightfully young Michael Landon, whom Ty Ty believes has magical divining powers, and demands that he find the gold, which, of course, he cannot do, since there is none. Vic Morrow, Jack Lord and Buddy Hackett round out the supporting cast, as the entire family living around the edges of Ty Ty's dream.

The real story, however, revolves around Louise, stunning in her first major role, and Aldo Ray, a classic machismo who put the "man" in leading man. Their adulterous tryst generates more heat than the oppressive dog days of the southern summer. You've got to see the water pump scene, if you can find a copy that hasn't melted from heat of it.

Originally, the novel was intended to dramatize the strike and eventual shutdown of a textile mill in Gastonia, North Carolina. Caldwell thought of the novel God's Little Acre as a proletarian manifesto that would call attention to the plight of non-unionized textile workers, lintheads, as they were called, in the Depression Era South. That the film got made at all in the age of McCarthyism is astounding. In fact, the nominal screenwriter, Philip Yordon, was actually a front for the real screenwriter, Ben Maddow, who had been blacklisted in the Hollywood Red scare.

The Marxist ideas of Caldwell's novel are mostly lost in the film adaptation, although discerning viewers will see their remains in the brutish Will's desperate attempt to seize control of and reopen the textile mill on which the entire local economy depends. Without giving too much of the story away, this is classic transgressive fiction in which following the dark side of life leads inevitably to destruction.

Although the movie is a uniquely satisfying experience, please don't let this classic prevent you from reading the book by Erskine Caldwell. The novel, one of the best selling in history, is a literary touchstone and deserves a good read, and reading is in danger of becoming extinct. But do watch this movie, when it's hot and you're feeling a bit nostalgic.

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Lee Eisenberg (lee.eisenberg.pdx@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA
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Apparently, when "God's Little Acre" first came out, much of it was cut for the theatrical release. Watching the unedited version, one can see why (needless to say, it's all pretty tame to us in the 21st century). Part of it is Tina Louise's very presence - I mean, what man wouldn't want to be stranded on an island with Ginger Grant? - but there's also a scene where Buddy Hackett works a pump for a woman in a bathtub (if that scene isn't a double entendre, then I don't know what is!).

As for the movie itself, this story of a Georgia farmer (Robert Ryan) getting convinced that thar's gold in them thar holes in his garden does quite well. The idea of him tearing up his garden is an effective parallel for how the family gets torn up in the process. As for his friendship with the African-American guy, it's probably debatable whether they were sugar-coating race relations, or if they were encouraging tolerance. There could even be debates about how the movie portrays the South in general (the characters do come across as hicks).

But overall, I recommend this flick. Usually, it would sort of weaken the movie to know that some of the cast members later became famous on TV shows - especially since one was known for seducing romantically incompetent men on a certain island - but they all do very well here. This is certainly a movie worth seeing. And the theme song will probably get stuck in your head. Also starring Aldo Ray, Jack Lord, Fay Spain, Vic Morrow and Michael Landon.

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bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
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For whatever reason the producer's decided that God's Little Acre should be set in no specific time rather than in the dust-bowl thirties where and when it belongs, it kept the film from being a great film. It's still a good film to watch, but it misses greatness by a length.

Erskine Caldwell wrote this and set in firmly the Depression. And for rural America, the Depression did not begin when the stock market crashed. It began after World War I when the demand for our farm produce dropped with the coming of peace. Agriculture had no price support system then, it was the beginning of the end of the family farm, be it corn or cotton. The stock market crash just exacerbated the situation.

But this Walden family has its own set of problems starting with the head of the family, Robert Ryan. As Ty Ty Walden, he's digging up the farm rather than working it, looking for some buried gold left from Civil War days. He's got three sons and two daughters and one fetching daughter-in-law, Tina Louise who is married to one son, Jack Lord, but has her heart set on her sister Helen Westcott's husband Aldo Ray.

Before she was movie star Ginger Grant and a castaway, Tina Louise was quite the sex object, she's also got another son, Lance Fuller all hot and bothered over her. He's gotten away from his family of rustics, he married a wealthy widow who up and died and left him well fixed. Of course he has the least amount of character among the whole bunch.

Jack Lord and Vic Morrow are the other sons. Lord in his days before he was telling Danno to book 'em played a lot of nasty types on screen. Here he's not nasty, but he's one powerfully jealous fellow. Fay Spain had a brief career as a young sex pot due to this film as the youngest in the family and one flirtatious young thing.

This film was loaded with TV stars in the making. Michael Landon has a very nice part as an albino these rustics believe has special powers that can divine where gold is. He's captured by them and put to work tramping all over Ryan's acres looking for the buried gold. He's a true innocent that Fay Spain seeks to seduce while she's still being courted by Buddy Hackett who's a local politician running for sheriff. Michael Landon or Buddy Hackett? I mean, really, who would you choose?

Though some of the left-wing polemics were drained from the film, this was the fifties, Anthony Mann still managed to get his cast to deliver a powerful and entertaining film.

I will say this about the ending, the audience gets the message for sure about what's important in life, but it looks Ryan never will.

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Ajtlawyer from Richland, WA
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Robert Ryan is Ty Ty, a Southern cotton farmer and a somewhat crazed version of Jed Clampett. Ty Ty has spent 15 years digging holes on his farm, trying to find the gold he believes his grandfather buried there. The farm is going to waste and everyone on the farm seems to have lost any purpose for living other than trying to find the gold. Ty Ty had dedicated a piece of the farm, "God's Little Acre" to God and his church with the promise that anything found on that acre will go to God. Of course, whenever he feels anything really might be found on it, he moves the acre and tries to cheat God out of His share.

The movie has two sub-plots with Buddy Hackett, of all people, as a candidate for sheriff who is desperately in love with one of Ty Ty's daughters. The water pump and bathtub scene between the two of them is so full of eroticism and innuendo that it about melts the screen. Ty Ty's son, Buck (played by Jack Lord), is married to Griselda (Tina Louise in her movie debut) and Griselda is a magnificent sight to behold, the camera lingering over her all natural bosom so often that the temperature spikes every time she's on screen. Buck is obsessed that Griselda still has a thing for his brother-in-law, Will (Aldo Ray) who is on his own desperate mission to try and re-open the mill which has shut down and thrown the entire valley out of work.

Buck's suspicions are not without foundation because whenever Griselda and Will are together, the heat is enormous. I found the first half of the movie somewhat hard to follow but it is an interesting story. Is Ty Ty a man of faith or is he just caught up in an obsession? It is evident that the search for the gold is what is really important to him, not finding it.

Two performances stand out---Robert Ryan is very good as the demented Ty Ty and Tina Louise is excellent as the sensuous Griselda. Tina received a Golden Globe after this movie came out and her career seemed poised to really take off. She showed an acting ability and charisma which was sorely wasted on "Gilligan's Island" years later.

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dougdoepke from Claremont, USA
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Never mind that the front yard has more holes than no-man's land after a WWI artillery barrage. Or that Pluto's up-and-down pump appears to drive Darlin' Jill into censored delight. Or that the rotund Pluto appears to be running for sheriff of Disneyland. No, this is not the deep South of Rhett and Scarlett; it's the cartoon South of Dog Patch and Lil' Abner. Take drop-dead sexy Griselda who delivers water to sweating boys in a see-through dress. Or, patriarch Ty-Ty, God's very own real estate agent. And, of course, mustn't forget Darlin' Jill with her own ideas about how to integrate the South. Don't get me wrong—this first half is mildly amusing with its exaggerated characters and heavy breathing, much like an R-rated cartoon.

And, had the screenplay followed through with this comedic style, a mildly memorable movie could have resulted. But it's like someone suddenly decided the movie needed to really "serious up". So, we get a second half that's more like over-heated Tennessee Williams than Al Capp's riotous Dog Patch. I don't know if all that contrived staging around the cotton mill is supposed to deliver a "message", but it's sure as heck heavy-handed and out of sync with the first half. Plus, there's that typical 50's ending that ties up every loose end in unbelievably happy fashion. I don't know which of the many versions (thanks to censors of the time) I saw, but I doubt any combination of this bi-polar disorder could work. Too bad, since it's a rare stab at departure for that strait-jacketed decade.

(In passing—I do like how Ty-Ty's manic mining for his father's gold gets resolved. We discover that despite appearances, he knows there's no buried gold. Instead, he keeps digging in order to "keep the family together" and the memory of his dad alive. He's not crazy— he just has a wacky way of expressing his "family values". Still, I don't think I'd hire him to do my gardening.)

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alicecbr from United States
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IN this era, when sex is easy, it's great to see all that inhibited lust steaming out over the screen. Aldo Ray and Tina Louise did one jam-up job of showing their passion for one another. Actually, Robert Ryan almost upped the ante from his '7 Days in May' stint where he lectured on the devil women sucking out the vital juices from the soldiers under his command. (That's true, you know. We women would rather suck out vital juices than just about anything.) Anyway, see this back to back with Tobacco Road, and you'll understand completely why all these Yankees think we're products of incest and can barely put 4 grammatical phrases together. No wonder, I am continually fighting off the prejudices of people who are amazed that I wear shoes and didn't marry my 1st cousin.

The writing in here is great: Robert Ryan plays a beautiful balance between an obsessed redneck who is trying to find his grandpappy's gold on his property, and his restrained longing for his son's daughter. His goodness screams out in his scene with his cotton broker son, who made it big. As my own evangelist cousin says, "We call him 'MMM"...our Miserable Millionaire Miser."

And Michael Landon, as the albino teen-ager, scared of the violence from these raging men who have kidnapped him to divine the gold.....what a sight!! Jack Lord, in his pre-Hawaiian Eye days is all wrathful, as he watches his beauteous wife with the NATURAL cleavage longing for the drunken Aldo Ray. Hard to believe the change, but the analogy between the tearing up the yard and sacrificing the peace of his family for the gold hunt...and today's all materialistic, 'if it ain't business, it ain't nothing', lifestyle.....is fantastic....rite smart writin'.

Check it out for a movie that SHOULD be colorized if ever there was one. And that house looks just my Aunt Mattie Seals' home in Talbot County, jawja!!!!! Boy, do I miss it!

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marcslope from New York, NY
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What this and "Tobacco Road," Erskine Caldwell's other magnum opus, have in common is a portrait of the Deep South as populated by a people with a collective IQ of about 50. There's Robert Ryan as the clueless patriarch convinced that his granddaddy buried gold treasure on his land; he's a God-lovin' cuss but a hypocrite, forever changing his life rules to accommodate his avarice. There's Buddy Hackett (of all people) as a sheriff candidate who can't even paint an "N" correctly, in love with one of Ryan's nubile daughters. Characters have names like Ty Ty and Darlin' Jill, to make them more folksy, I guess, and the themes are greed and lust, most particularly between Tina Louise (the camera lovingly caressing her breasts at every turn) as Ty Ty's sassy daughter-in-law, desperately craving her brother-in-law, Aldo Ray. Tina Louise was sho' 'nuff all woman, and Aldo Ray all man, and I'll long remember their encounter at the water pump. The characters' collective idiocy gets on one's nerves, and the various conflicts resolve themselves entirely unconvincingly, but it's not a total loss. Ernest Haller's handsome black-and-white widescreen photography does capture the heat and grime of the cotton fields, and Elmer Bernstein's score is very good fake Copland.

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Roger Burke from Brisbane, Australia
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I saw this movie soon after it was released when I was seventeen. Recently, I caught it again on late night TV; now, over fifty years later, I still count this one as one of the most interesting collection of oddball characters ever put to film. And all wrapped up in a timeless story about human frailties, family values and impossible dreams.

Without doubt, this is the film that launched Tina Louise's lacklustre career into a series of B-movies of the late fifties and early sixties, followed by seemingly endless appearances in mindless TV drama and sitcoms over the next thirty-five years. What a shame: because I think her debut film role as Griselda Walden set a new standard for the term 'sex appeal' – and once seen, never forgotten, especially her first appearance with sunlight behind her, outlining her entire body through her thin, cotton shift. So, see this film for Tina Louise in action, if for no other reason.

Erskine Caldwell's whole story is definitely worth watching, however. Actually, there are a number of stories beginning with old man Ty Ty Walden (Robert Ryan) and his fifteen-year, frenetic search for his grandfather's gold, supposedly buried somewhere on his farm: with that underlying scenario, Caldwell satirically skewers the lust for wealth that trap too many of us in ephemeral dreams which blind us to the reality around us. Robert Ryan gives his all, in what I regard as one of his best roles.

Interwoven with Ty Ty's quest, we see unfold the bodily lust that Will Thompson (Aldo Ray) has for Griselda, the wife to embittered and jealous Buck Walden (Jack Lord). When Will has the hots for Griselda on a feverish summer night, and they stand in darkness, fingers entwined, at the corner of the house, sweat steaming off their bodies, you see one of the finest pieces of bodily eroticism ever put to film – and an image that's still used today, as the above poster on this page shows.

The lust for power is given its comic turn with Sheriff wannabe Pluto Swint (Buddy Hackett) trying to get votes from all and sundry. With a name like Pluto – on the edge of society physically, mentally and emotionally – how far can he get? Well, he's also pining for the hand in marriage of Ty Ty's other daughter, Darlin' Jill (Fay Spain). With Pluto, Darlin' Jill pulls off an open-air, erotic bathtub scene that must be seen for its bawdy humor and Freudian overtones. Not to be missed...

Wrap all that around Will Thomspon's efforts to power up the bankrupt local cotton mill again, add Ty Ty's visit to his only financially-successful son (to ask for money), Jim Leslie (Lance Fuller), and you have a succession of vignettes that pretty much cover the whole gamut of what it means to be human. Watch for very young Michael Landon (as the albino) and Vic Morrow (as Shaw Walden). Happily, with such an interpersonal imbroglio to appreciate fully, the cast fully delivers. Some argue it's over the top; and so it is, because it's mostly social satire.

One puzzlement: the mise-en-scene looks and feels Depression era, but the presence of mid-1950s autos belies that. One wonders if that was a deliberate ploy by the producer and director. The black-and-white photography is exquisite; the sound track is appropriate, given the social milieu of the times, but I could do without it.

Overall, it's a classic film which, despite winning no awards, should still be seen by all film lovers.

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kenjha
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The Caldwell bestseller about a dysfunctional Southern family becomes an entertaining potboiler. The familiar cast features at least three actors who would go on to star in popular TV series (Louise, Lord, and Landon, the last playing an albino!). Ryan has a field day as the patriarch of the family, obsessed with finding gold on his land. Louise makes a lusty film debut as Lord's unfaithful wife. Her ample bosom gets so much screen time that it should have received no lower than third billing. Using gritty black and white, widescreen cinematography, Mann does an effective job of conveying the passion and the greed of these low-life characters.

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drystyx from United States
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An all star cast delivers a potent drama based on a book, but with the definite look of a stage drama, about a poor Southern family. The main focus of the father, Robert Ryan (who excelled at roles as diverse as John the Baptist, World War Two Generals, and Western outlaws mostly) is to find a treasure he knows is buried on his property. But despite his obsession, he never loses sight of the important things in life, and he is quite aware of the subplots and the turmoil going on with a love triangle involving his oldest son. Ryan gives an outstanding performance. Of course he is helped along with excellent writing, so you have the best of both worlds. The rest of the cast is also splendid. Too many big names to mention here, but you'll be amazed at the star power. Lots of raw emotion stifle any prejudice you might have about Southerners or the treatment of Southerners. This is not an action movie. It is a thinking piece. And it is heartfelt drama.

A 1967 re-release attempted to appeal to the new generation by playing up the sex in the advertisements. The '67 poster featured the drawing of a topless woman underneath a bare-chested man on a bed, as well as a topless (but chaste) photo of co-star Fay Spain that was definitely not in the picture itself! For this re-release, Tina Louise was given top-billing and Michael Landon went from tenth billing in 1958 to second billing this time.
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Film debut of Tina Louise.
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Joan Collins originally sought for one of female leads.
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When Pluto and Darlin' Jill are parked in his truck by a field, a tree can be seen through Pluto's window. An external shot of the truck shows fencing wire in front of the tree not visible previously.
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Although the plot revolves around hillbilly family who has spent years digging dozens of holes around property looking for gold, all of the dirt surrounding holes appears moist and freshly excavated, not dried out and dusty as it would actually be if it been dug out with shovels and exposed to sun for years.
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gold|farm|mill|albino|sheriff|marriage|hairy chest|southern literature|rural setting|unemployment|superstition|small town|seduction|religion|poverty|loan|lechery|jealousy|great depression|georgia|fistfight|father son relationship|drunkenness|disillusionment|despair|debt|brother in law|african american|sex|family relationships|prospector|melodrama|infidelity|extramarital affair|backwoods|based on novel|title spoken by character|

AKAs Titles:
Austria - Gottes kleiner Acker
Brazil - O Pequeno Rincào de Deus
Denmark - Vorherres lille ager
Spain - La pequeña tierra de Dios
Finland - Luojan oma maatilkku
France - Le petit arpent du bon Dieu
Greece (transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title) - To horafi ton pothon
Italy - Il piccolo campo
Poland - Poletko Pana Boga
Portugal - Tentaçào!
Sweden - Guds lilla land
West Germany - Gottes kleiner Acker
West Germany - Wild auf Gold
Yugoslavia (Serbian title) - Mala božija zemlja

Release Dates:


Certifications:
Finland:K-16 / Germany:16 (DVD rating) / Portugal:M/12 / Sweden:15 / USA:Approved (PCA #18931) / West Germany:18 (f)