Martha Wilcox Ronald Reagan mentions how lonely he is to Ann Sheridan, which represents a few of the characters who are also lonely. The story itself is not that interesting, but it has the potential to be interesting. I haven't read the novel, but I think there is something lost in the adaptation from the novel to the screen. It's probably trying to do too many things rather than focusing on one thing.I like the ensemble cast of Claude Rains (who dies off pretty quickly), Charles Coburn and Judith Anderson. Reagan plays a more interesting character than Robert Cummings, but you get the sense that you are on a journey with these characters rather than engaging in an absorbing plot.

utgard14 Amazing soap opera. One of the best of its kind. I'm not a big fan of soaps in general and I rarely rate them high. It's a testament to how good this is that I give it such a high score. The story is long as it traces the lives of two men (Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan) in the town of Kings Row from childhood through trials and tribulations as adults. Cummings is the respectable, dependable one and Reagan the wild, reckless one. The film is probably best remembered today as Reagan's finest performance (and it is). Cummings is good, as well. Better than he's given credit for since his character is more steadfast and therefore doesn't get the meatier scenes that Reagan does. He does get some, though, and excels at them. Top-billed Ann Sheridan, lovely as always, doesn't appear until halfway. She plays Ronnie's love interest and is excellent in an emotional role. Her chemistry with Reagan was always good and never better than here. The supporting cast is made up of distinguished veteran actors like Claude Rains, Maria Ouspenskaya, Harry Davenport, Judith Anderson, and Charles Coburn in a surprisingly dark role. The only slight casting fault the film has to speak of is Betty Field. She plays her character with the usual overwrought excesses so many actors then and now bring to roles of mentally disturbed people. It's not a terrible performance. It's just so much more melodramatic than the rest of the cast that it makes her stick out. Fine cast with a juicy story and superb direction from Sam Wood. Oh, and that Erich Wolfgang Korngold score is wonderful. This is definitely a classic film you have to see.

Jay Raskin This movie shocked me. I have been studying film noir for a while, and they all touch upon madness to one degree or another. However, hardly any film noir of the 1940's and 1950's reached this far down into madness. I think until David Lynch's 1986's "Blue Velvet" there really wasn't such a nightmarish vision of small town America in mainstream film.Unlike many of the reviewers here, I thought Robert Cummings performance was terrific. He was able to suggest a homosexual relationship between himself and Drake (Ronald Reagan) without making it too explicit and he also shows a genuine deep love for his childhood girlfriend Cassie. Cummings shows intelligence and passion and real anguish when gets hit with a sudden tragedy.Betty Fields as Cassie was amazing. She captured insanity about as well as any actress I have ever seen. Her abrupt exit from the story is as disconcerting as Janet Leigh's abrupt exit from "Psycho".The biggest disappointment was Ronald Reagan. His character of Drake is an idiot and Reagan can certainly be credited with playing him as an idiot very well. He is totally bland and forgettable through the first half of the movie.He has a catastrophic accident that makes him a cripple and his reaction is bizarre. It is hard to believe that anyone would say "Where's the rest of me?" under such circumstances. He says the line almost as if saying, "where's my underwear?" or "where's my socks." Reagan's character doesn't really change after his catastrophic accident, he does go from being cheerful to depressed for a while, but his depression seems as much related to his losing his wealth, and his homosexual lover Parrish leaving him, as to his becoming handicapped. When he regains his wealth through a real estate scheme, he more or less regains his cheerful demeanor.We're supposed to like Reagan because although he is wealthy, he is even willing to marry Randy (Ann Sheridan), a girl from a working class family. He does not believe in class distinctions. He even shows respect for the girl's parents. He's a rich young romantic and when he loses his wealth and becomes handicapped, we do feel sorry for him, as we would for anybody in those circumstances. Yet his range of emotions remains limited and rich or broke, athletic or crippled, he remains a simpleton.Ann Sheridan is charming playing the faithful Randy, although one never believes she really loves Reagan or would marry him after his accident. She's not really given much chance to show or explain her love.. Its not a showy part for her. Betty Fields and Nancy Coleman as girls driven insane by their doctor fathers really had the meatier roles in this one.This film is the flip side of "Our Town" and shows the demented inner side of an American Town. I like to think that Grover's Corners was more like life for most Americans in the late 1800's and early 1900's than Kings Row. If it had not been for the extreme Catholic/religious censorship in Hollywood, we probably would have seen more Kings Row type towns. The mean townsfolk of Cape Briton, Nova Scotia we see in "Johnny Belinda" are sweethearts compared to the townspeople of Kings Row.There was a ban on showing Ronald Reagan films during the presidential campaigns that Reagan participated in. This was lucky for Reagan, I'm sure if this film had been shown anybody who watched it would have voted against him.

jpdoherty Warner Bros. KINGS ROW (1942) is ,without doubt, one of Hollywood's most enduring and best loved cinema classics from its Golden Age! Produced by Hal Wallis it was crisply photographed by ace Cinematographer James Wong Howe in glorious black & white and contains one of the finest musical scores ever wedded to a film soundtrack. Also, like his work on "Gone With The Wind" Production Designer William Cameron Menzies brought the small town setting of KINGS ROW to vivid life and director Sam Wood ensured Menzies approach was adhered to with his stylish direction.Based on the controversial novel by Henry Bellamann it is quiet astonishing that KINGS ROW ever went before the cameras at all! The story revolves around three children growing into adulthood in a small American mid - western town just before the turn of the 20th century and their exposure to all manner of human excesses, frailties and shortcomings. The book is peppered with a plethora of taboo subjects (especially for the forties) such as nymphomania, incest, insanity, sadism, and homosexuality. But brilliant screen writer Casey Robinson ("Now Voyager") managed, by some miracle, to skillfully skirt around these problems, defuse and avoid any elaborations and viewing the finished film it is difficult to decipher any of the character weaknesses Bellamann wrote about.The cast is reasonably good! Top billed is the lovely Ann Sheridan as the feisty and endearing Randy Monaghan. It is her finest performance and the best film she ever did! Surprisingly the usually wooden Ronald Reagan turns in a more than passable performance as the somewhat carefree ladies man Drake McHugh. And he is most convincing in the startling scene where he awakens to discover both his legs have been amputated and screaming repeatedly "WHERE'S THE REST OF ME?" (a line the actor would use later for the title of his autobiography in 1965). The weakest link in the cast is Robert Cummings (borrowed from Universal) as the leading protagonist Parris Mitchell! His one note performance reduces the character to nothing more than an uninteresting over prim and prissy bore. Cummings retains nothing of the likable personality already established early in the picture by the delightful portrayal of child actor the ill-fated Scotty Beckett as the young Parris. Excellent too is Claude Rains as Dr. Towers and Parris' mentor, Betty Field as his deranged daughter, Charles Coburn as the sadistic doctor, the great Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya as Parris' grandmother and her good friend Col. Skeffington played by the always likable Harry Davenport ("When she passes ...how much passes with her?....a whole way of life, a way of gentleness... of dignity and honour. These things are going and they may never come back to this world".) A prophetic observation no doubt!One of the great strengths of KINGS ROW is the outstanding operatic music score composed and conducted by the great Viennese composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Korngold's genius as a motion picture composer was not limited only to scoring action spectaculars like "The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938) and "The Sea Hawk" (1940) for he could, with no difficulty, underscore such character driven dramas as "Between Two Worlds" (1944), "Deception" (1946) and KINGS ROW with equal aplomb! Besides "The Sea Hawk" KINGS ROW is his finest achievement and of his 18 scores was his own personal favourite! His leitmotific approach to scoring could often be quite stunning and never more so than with KINGS ROW . The score is just chock-a-block with exquisite themes! Heard first under the titles is the powerful main theme. Brimming with bravura brass fanfares the music is decidedly heroic! The composer hadn't yet viewed the film when the magnificent piece was first conceived. And thinking the story concerned historical royalty because of its title imbued the theme with a distinctive monarchical flavour. However when he saw the script and learnt the film was set in small-town USA he offered to change it but Hal Wallis liked it so much he persuaded the composer to retain the piece and a blessing it is too. Heard in different guises throughout the picture it is particularly engaging as a scherzo variation near the film's opening as the young Parris Mitchell and Cassandra Towers skip home by the river after school. Other superb cues are the poignant theme for the grandmother, the melancholy music for Cassie's ill attended birthday party, the frolicsome variation of the main theme for the children playing on the rings in Elroy's Icehouse, the ravishing theme for Randy and the Finale music - a reiteration of the main theme - which bursts forth upon us near the end but this time with a mixed chorus intoning a line from W. E. Henley's poem "Invictus" - I AM THE MASTER OF MY FATE - I AM THE CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL. A marvellous soulful and uplifting finish to a marvellous film! KINGS ROW - a work of cinematic art! "Now...if you turn your face to that wall!"An interesting footnote:It is notable that Korngold's main theme from KINGS ROW was used for both of Ronald Reagan's inaugurations!