The Sea of Grass (1947)

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

First of all, Katherine Hepburn is at her most beautiful, and although the director did not like her costumes (it was too late to change them), her dresses were exquisite.This movie grossed the most of the Spencer Tracey/Katherine Hepburn movies, and the story-line was intriguing.Highly recommend!

. . . and the Historical Record shows that SEA OF GRASS director Elia Kazan deserved AT LEAST six or seven hundred Real Life stitches for that many betrayals, back-stabbings, lies, and false accusations during the U.S. Rich People Party's Fascist Witch Hunts conducted by Sen. Joe "Mad Dog" McCarthy, R-WI. They say that it's always hardest to Rat Out your two or three best friends and closest relatives, and after that you want to feel like a Big Man on Hell's Campus by making up Crazy Crap about ANYONE who has ever crossed your path. "Criss Cross," as SEA OF GRASS star Robert Walker always said before Mad Joe's CIA\NSA Black Ops henchmen gave Poor Bob a fatal "drug reaction," making him just one more of Elia's Real Life "Fall Guys" after Kazan cast him as the lead fall guy in THE SEA OF GRASS. Mr. Walker clearly was "Sober as a Judge" working with directing giant Alfred Hitchcock as the star of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, not realizing that his off-screen doom was sealed four years earlier when he rubbed elbows with Giant Rat Fink Kazan in THE SEA OF GRASS. Double Criss Cross!

Elia Kazan regretted making The Sea Of Grass, and it's easy to see why. Instead of a focus on cattlemen vs. homesteaders, we get a marital soap opera stretched out over twenty years between a never-changing stern-faced Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn and in an unusual role as a maternal figure. Kazan specialized in films highlighting great dialog and characterizations, and this film has neither. The social concerns are lost regarding the conflict between the feuding cattlemen and homesteaders without conflict development and plot progression independent of the Tracy/Hepburn soap opera. Within a half hour, one begins to realize this is all there is to the story (based on Conrad Richter's novel). The viewer gets enough stereotyped scenarios predating actual soap operas on television by more than a decade. The rejected wife has an affair, gives birth to a son of questionable birth, is rejected again by her husband, and watches helplessly as her rebellious son lives a ruinous life. Yikes! What nonsense! Hepburn, while more likable than Tracy in the film, is not really a sympathetic character, and the ending is very contrived to say the least. The Tracy and Hepburn teaming overwhelms the story, and it sinks beneath the weight of a burdensome script lacking in the realism, psychological aspects, and characterization found in later Kazan films. Robert Walker and the beautiful Phyllis Thaxter liven things up a little as the adult children, but it's too little too late. Walker only appears on screen for about twenty minutes. Edgar Buchanan and Harry Carey offer able support as Jeff, the cook and Doc Reid respectively. Melvin Douglas tries hard as the homesteader's lawyer and secondary love interest of Hepburn, but he too seems saddled by the plodding nature of the film. The film benefits somewhat from its outdoor scenes, framed in precise period detail. The film is possibly the worst of the nine Tracy and Hepburn pairings with absolutely no chemistry between the stars whatsoever. ** of 4 stars.

Considering that Sea of Grass is helmed by a director who's not familiar with the western milieu it's amazing that it comes off as well as it does. Elia Kazan is so much better in an urban setting like On the Waterfront. Yet Tracy and Hepburn do make this work on some levels.John Wayne in McLintock and Spencer Tracy in Sea of Grass have the same view of the prarie. Both films take the side of the cattle rancher as opposed to the farmer. Certainly other films like Shane make the farmer the good guy. But events here show that Tracy was right about the prarie as his arch rival in politics and love, Melvyn Douglas, ruefully points out.Tracy and Wayne also have spousal problems, although certainly Wayne handles his with a tad more humor. One thing that Maureen O'Hara does and Katharine Hepburn doesn't is share his vision of the prarie. She befriends the farmer family nearby and that is what causes the rift between her and Tracy.McLintock is a comedy and Sea of Grass is a western soap opera. Kazan was lucky in casting folks like Edgar Buchanan and Harry Carey who knew their way around a western. Robert Walker was taking some tentative steps toward a similar role in Vengeance Valley. He only appears in the last half hour of the film as the kid with dubious paternity, but you will remember him.Katharine Hepburn would have to wait another 28 years before doing another traditional western in Rooster Cogburn. Eula Goodnight is certainly light years from Lutie Cameron. Colonel Jim Brewton though is the same type cattle baron as G.W. McLintock.I think the film is more for fans of soap opera than for fans of westerns. And certainly it's for fans of Spence and Kate.