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Kings Row Movie Review

Kings Row is a 1942 drama film directed by Sam Wood and starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan. It is an absolutely insane melodrama.

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“Only know that you have to judge people by what you find them

to be and not by what other people say they are“

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The movie is about the dark side and hypocrisy of provincial American life as seen through the eyes of five children as they grow to adulthood at the turn of the 19^th century. This movie had a lot of problems being made, but the fact that they eventually made it in spite of the immense constraints of the Hays Code is wild to me. It was based on an already exceedingly dark, perverse novel for the time and the movie itself was significantly toned down, but still very brutal.

Although they obviously excluded the themes of incest and homosexuality, the movie did fully deal with the surgeon character, representing by far one of the darkest and most brutal storylines in this period of American cinema. Basically, he ends up amputating both legs of Reagan’s character in a very cruel act fueled by hatred and depravity. This was easily the most interesting subplot in a movie full of crazy twists and turns.

The melodramatic elements can get overwhelming at times, but they still constitute very intriguing guilty pleasure material that I mostly ate up. The cinematography from James Wong Howe is outstanding as is usual for this master cinematographer while the movie’s score and editing are also quite strong. Sam Wood’s directing is also solid. But of the three nominations that Kings Row got at the Academy Awards, one for the cinematography was the most deserved.

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Robert Montgomery is the lead here and he’s just not that good. Actually, he was never a particularly strong actor and that mediocrity was once again on display in this feature. Ann Sheridan fared much better in a more interesting role. I also found the central male friendship wonderful and the ending was quite moving. The second half was much more interesting than the somewhat soapy first one. Kings Row is also famous for the best and most important turn in Ronald Reagan’s acting career. He was very charismatic, confident and likable in the film’s most interesting role.