Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Dorothy McGuire – Part 10: THIS EARTH IS MINE (1959) and A SUMMER PLACE (1959)

This week's Dorothy McGuire episode continues the trend of unusual wife and mother roles with two family melodramas from 1959, Henry King's tale of an economically and psychologically troubled viticulture dynasty, This Earth Is Mine, and Delmer Daves' frank, sex-positive look at sexual mores among the respectable middle classes during the late 1950s, A Summer Place, which had contemporary reviewers reaching for the smelling salts. Whether playing a sympathetic adulteress who has to deal with her teenage son's inconvenient libido in addition to her own or a love-thwarted wife who wants to appropriate the family patriarch role, McGuire is a far cry from the typical housewife of 50s TV. 

Time Codes:

0h 00m 45s:         THIS EARTH IS MINE (1959) [dir. Henry King]

0h 34m 03s:         A SUMMER PLACE (1959) [dir. Delmer Daves]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

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