This alakin movie to the Little Foxes studies a family that is essentially no-good, a bunch of mama's boy's that have never toiled for anything in their lives and are thus extremely ungrateful and selfish. Garson wearing a wig and old Hollywood stars as the matriach of this American dynasty. The plot is jump-started as the family daughter intends to get married but there is a secret which her beau has and intends to tell. This ingot might just kill their chance for marriage and happiness. As it involves financial ruin, it causes an assemblage of the remaining members of this family. Here the flashbacks begin that tells the story of the dead Patriach and the matriarch of this family, how they met at an old dingy coal town, their marriage, pits and falls and always in all these scenes Garson luminence is assured. It is said that the writer of the book so loved this adaptation and told the director Tay garnett so. But one can't avoid the fact, that in my post-TV movie of the week eyes, this movie would have made a good mini-series in the eighties. And it feels it. The ending is a good old smacking of American entreprenial values and greed. I particularly remember a scene where Walter Pidgeon promises to crush everybody who refused to show up for a dinner party. It feels like a scene out Of Kane and Abel, a book that was turned into a well-received mini-series in the eighties. Like I said, that's what it is.
Review of Mrs. Parkington
