This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Co-produced and directed by Clarence Brown, with a screenplay by married couple Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett based on Eugene O'Neill's play, this above average comedy drama about family life just after the turn of the 20th century features a terrific cast that includes Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Aline MacMahon, Eric Linden, Cecilia Parker, Spring Byington, Mickey Rooney, Charley Grapewin, Frank Albertson, Edward Nugent, and Bonita Granville (among others). James Donlan, Tom Dugan, Eily Malyon, and Jed Prouty (among others) also appear, uncredited.Barrymore is the patriarch of the family, he runs the newspaper in small town America, 1906; Byington is his wife. Beery plays Byington's live-in brother who can't find a steady job per his drinking, MacMahon plays the family's cook (?) who maintains an "on again, off again" relationship with him. Albertson plays the oldest, college aged son, whose pal is played by Nugent. Rooney plays the youngest son who's younger than Mickey's 14 years, Granville is the only daughter. Linden plays the middle son, who's just graduated from high school along with his girlfriend Parker; Grapewin plays Parker's father.It's a coming of age story primarily focused on Linden's character, whose views on life are more liberal than those of his conservative family and in their community.Richard Miller (Linden) reads books that were considered racy, scandalous, or even subversive at the time: Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Swinburne's poetry, and political tomes about the oppressed working man. This makes him somewhat out of place in the idyllic community in which he lives where his father Nat (Barrymore) runs the local paper. Richard's mother Essie (Byington) has asked Nat to take their son's subversive reading materials away from him. Regardless, Richard is the valedictorian of his class, and he's told his girlfriend Muriel McComber that he's going to use his high school graduation speech to expose the capitalist ways he deems are wrong. Fortunately for Richard, Nat is on stage to hand out the diplomas and, after reading his son's speech beforehand, interrupts his son just in time, to keep him from making a fool of himself and upsetting virtually everyone else there. Richard's odd ways have already alienated Muriel's father (Grapewin), who forces his daughter to write a "Dear John" letter to her boyfriend after he reads the corruptive poems Richard had written her. He also cancels his ad in Nat's paper, which means a considerable financial loss for the Millers.Nat's ne'er do well brother Sid (Beery), who had left their town where everyone already knows him (for his drinking and reputation) to take a job in another town, returns in time for the town's annual Fourth of July celebration. Tommy (Rooney), and the rest of the town's preteen boys, have been setting off firecrackers all day. Sid keeps the fact that he's lost his job, for presumably the same reasons, a secret by hiding his luggage in the front bushes, at least temporarily.Sid enters the Miller home to charm Lily Davis (MacMahon), who'd promised to finally marry him if he'd sober up and hold a respectable job. But after an evening of celebrating with Nat, Sid returns drunk on beer to join the Millers for dinner. Malyon plays the Miller's maid Nora. Nat says that Sid will be staying, that he's offered his brother a job on his paper. Unfortunately, Granville, playing the Miller's only daughter Mildred, isn't given much to do in this film besides laugh at Sid's drunkenness or rib her brothers, especially Richard.After receiving Muriel's letter, Richard accepts Wint's invitation to go out on the town with him and a couple of 'fast' girls. Wint (Nugent) had come by to go out with Richard's older brother Art (Albertson), but Art had another date playing tennis instead. Richard then finds himself in a hotel bar with a much older floozie named Belle (Helen Flint), who with the help of the bartender (Dugan) and encouragement from another patron (Donlan), gets him drunk and "extorts" some money from him. Richard returns home drunk, much to Mildred's delight and their parents dismay.Later, Belle gives a note describing her evening with Richard to Nat's office mate (Prouty), which leads to father and son conversation about "the birds and the bees" after Richard had insisted that nothing had happened the woman. Belle's motivation had been to get the bar's license revoked for serving a minor, after she had been unceremoniously thrown out of the place.In the end, Richard makes up with Muriel whose father has decided (for some reason) that he's not such a bad kid after all.

After graduating from high school, idealistic young Eric Linden (as Richard Miller) learns about hard liquor and loose women as he and his family celebrate the Fourth of July in 1906 New England. Renown playwright Eugene O'Neill's "comedy of recollection" was a homespun stage and screen hit, clearly and unofficially inspiring the immensely successful "Andy Hardy" film series. That, and other trivia about the film, are presently more interesting that the blandly presented "coming of age" storyline; still, it's nicely done, reflecting a combination of O'Neill's setting and MGM's glossy black-and-white production values.******* Ah, Wilderness! (12/6/35) Clarence Brown ~ Eric Linden, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Mickey Rooney

Beautifully directed by Clarence Brown, the nearly perfect cast of this rare (but not quite *only*) O'Neill comedy shines from top to bottom even as one speculates the film this might have been had a Methodist minister not effectively murdered one of America's greatest entertainers over the minister's shallow objection to the depiction of a "fallen woman." He wrote to Will Rogers, who was touring in the George M. Cohan/Lionel Barrymore role of the father and slated to do this movie version, stating that he had had to leave the theatre with his daughter rather than expose her to such smut! Rogers prided himself on never doing "blue" material, and withdrew from the film in favor of that fatal trip to Alaska with Wiley Post; one suspects the unfortunate minister saw rather more than he liked of himself in Muriel's father, McComber, in the play, and that was the true source of his offense.Starting with this film, many productions of AH, WILDERNESS! and the works based on it, like the Broadway musical TAKE ME ALONG, have top-billed the showier role of "Sid" (Wallace Beery) over the core role of the stabilizing force, the father (Lionel Barrymore), whose relationship with his son (Eric Linden) the play turns around. One wonders if it would have been that way had Rogers ignored blue nose objections and made the film, but it is hard to imagine a better performance than Barrymore gives in the role.While recognizing the vast difference between the usual depth of O'Neill dramas and this warm remembrance of an idealized youth O'Neill might have imagined wanting in middle class Connecticut at the start of the 20th Century, students of the playwright must view this play (and film) next to his more obviously autobiographical masterpieces A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY... , MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN and the sea plays (filmed collectively as THE LONG VOYAGE HOME) for a complete understanding of the author.The greatest regret in the film is the fresh, forceful performance from Eric Linden as Richard - the boy on the verge of manhood, struggling with the same essential sexual/social issues every young man struggles with, even if they may seem "quaint" and even shallow in this period telling (we only imagine it's somehow different because of the period specifics). It's a fine performance and one wonders what happened to the actor. He lived on to age 85, only passing in 1994, but never made the transition to "adult" leads and after the minor role of an Amputee in the 1939 blockbuster, GONE WITH THE WIND, only made one more minor film during WWII, and called it a career.Nevertheless, glory in superb work from a balanced cast that showcases Spring Byington as the Mother, the wonderful character actress Aline MacMahon as Sid's love interest, Lily (seek her out as the Nurse in the superb "Play of the Week" filming of Judith Anderson in MEDEA in 1959 or as Ida in Judy Garland's final film, I COULD GO ON SINGING from 1963!) and Mickey Rooney as the almost too energetic younger brother Tommy.Yes, Wallace Beery breaks Lily's heart (and ours) with his drunk scene played for laughs, but O'Neill knows whereof he's writing, and gives us a depth and subtext to these scenes which most comedies of the period or later "comedy drunk scenes" couldn't imagine, and lets us understand the deeper meaning even while we permit ourselves to smile at Beery & O'Neill's craft.A last point to be made in appreciating this terrific production: made in "glorious black & white" (as the VHS release calls it), the studio set designers and director Brown took full advantage of the more detailed visual vocabulary monochrome offered and give us so detailed a portrait of the world the play is set in you could teach a master class on the style and technology of the period just from the beautifully observed physical portrait in this film.Allow yourself a ninety eight minute excursion back to the turn of the last century - this is a trip to what was not quite the cultural wilderness some of us might suppose that you'll never regret taking.

I love period movies and this one captures the time and place as well as it is possible. The humor is gentle and very touching. The scene of the 4th of July morning, when all the young boys come out with their firecrackers never fails to put me on the floor laughing.Wallace Berry's delivery of the one word line "soup?" is almost worth the price of admission by itself.I heartily recommend this movie to anyone who has a heart. It will be touched