Home Town Story (1951)

People are voting emotionally.

Memorable, crazy movie

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The Home Town Story didn't win Oscars or probably rave reviews. With the exception of Marilyn Monroe playing a receptionist/secretary at a small town newspaper, the film might as well have been forgotten. The story is about an unelected state senator who returns home to run the family newspaper with help and friendship from Slim (played by Alan Hale Jr. who played the Skipper on Gilligan's Island). Blake Washburn is the main character who comes home to his mother and his 10 year old little sister, Katie, and his fiancé, her school-teacher. Blake writes harsh columns about criticizing big businesses especially McFarland whose son beat him in the election. Blake writes harshly about the industry. It isn't until a crisis that he realizes his wrongs. The film is little over an hour. You only see Marilyn a couple of times. It's not about Marilyn but you see where she starts off.

The cover of this DVD caught my eye as I was walking by the bargain bin. Being a Marilyn fan I was caught by the large "Starring Marilyn Monroe" on the cover along with an equally large photo of a young Marilyn. I decided for $3.99 it was worth buying.I'm not sure if this constitutes a "spoiler" or not, but Marilyn is in 3 scenes and speaks 3 1/2 (maybe 4) lines of dialog. Not exactly what I'd call a "starring" role. But then, she is wearing tight sweaters in her scenes, so I wasn't totally disappointed (there, I said it).It was also nice seeing The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) wearing something other then a blue shirt and a captain's hat.Being only about an hour long (it was the first half of a double feature, the other half being a James Cagney film), I didn't feel like I had wasted time seeing the movie. In fact, the story really wasn't that bad, the packaging was just a little misleading.

Hometown Story is one of four obscure movies in a single DVD apparently designed to showcase an early role of an eventual acting icon (in this case Marilyn Monroe).It moves very quickly and transported this reviewer back to an earlier(1951),less sophisticated,but more idealized time zone. Although the Korean War(also unpopular)was raging,and McCarthyism was poking its ugly head;the film exhibited an existing moral that made our country great. It would be good for some of our younger and more cynical citizens to study as an example.The acting was not of today's caliber but reasonably competent.Marilyn in her small role already exhibited what was to make her immortal. The lead actor,Jeffrey Lynn was a good journeyman that never quite cracked the "A" list. Marjorie Reynolds,who later starred in Holiday Inn,but not another major film,was the lead actress.The venerable Donald Crisp had an important role,and as always was excellent.A young Alan Hale Jr.(Gilligan's captain)had a delightful part and was quite good.I also enjoyed seeing the group of uncredited actors who always added to the enjoyment of the film including Byron Foulger,John Alvin,John Archer,Hugh Beaumont,Tom Keene,and Ray Teal.I give it an 8/10 and disagree with all the naysayers.

There are several problems with this movie. There is not much of a plot. The dialogs leaves a lot to be desired. The minor characters are not well developed or defined. And the pace is snail like. However, the main problem I have with this story is that the lead character, Blake Washburn, is not even close to being a likable fellow. While I understand he was supposed to be pushy, driven and opinionated, the plain fact is that he was just a Jackass. (Can I say that?) As a result, it is a real stretch to expect the audience to care about him. There is an accident involving his little sister, but we have not spent enough time with her to get to know and like her and you have to like before you can care. We care about this little girl's plight, but only because she is a child - any child would solicit the same response. Do we really care it was his sister? I will not say the movie totally sucked, but I will say it left me unmoved and empty. There were, however, two performances that worked Alan Hale Jr. gave a pretty good performance as ace reporter and friend of Washburn, as if this guy could really have a friend. Donald Crisp gave the best performance of the lot as industrialist John MacFarland who displayed a even balance of quiet ambition, intellect, drive and humanity to stand out from all the other characters even though he did not really have that much screen time.