Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945)

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945)

Directed by Roy Rowland

Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel For Our Vines Have Tender Grapes by George Victor Martin

Runtime: 1 hr, 45 min

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes is a movie that, I will admit, I judged by its title.  I figured that it would be a story about parents and their children, probably in a rural community.  It would probably be charming but too precious, and ultimately would be a coming of age story.  Well, it turns out that I was mostly correct.  Except for the last, plot-related guess, my uninformed prediction was on the nose.  This means that I was not disappointed with the film, but it also means that it rarely deviates too far from pleasant.

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes is a slice-of-life story set in a Wisconsin town of Norwegian immigrants.  Martinius Jacobson (Edward G. Robinson), like most of the townsfolk, is a farmer with dreams of a new barn.  He’s also a doting father, for he loves his seven-year-old daughter Selma (Margaret O’Brien) above all else.  The film follows the family through the school year, along with a host of other characters: Nels, the editor of the local paper (James Craig); Miss Johnson, the new, Milwaukee born schoolteacher (Frances Gifford), etc.

There is some interconnectivity between the vignettes.  Nels wanting to marry Miss Johnson and Selma raising her own calf are two prominent examples.  For the most part, though, Our Vines Have Tender Grapes eschews a central narrative.  This film wants to capture an assortment of moments that add up to a collective whole.  One could argue, seeing it was made during WWII, that its purpose was to present audiences with a wholesome, quaint view of everyday life to be had once the war was over.  Or it might have its goal regardless of real life circumstances.

The town life shown on screen is certainly wholesome, at times a bit too Rockwell-esque.  Selma’s younger cousin Arnold (Butch Jenkins) says “shucks” to just about everything, and a Christmas pageant sequence goes on for far longer than necessary.  These sorts of things do make life in town charming, but it also seems to be longing for an era that was never around to begin with.  I will say that making the town specifically of Norwegian ancestry adds a certain texture to the goings-on—more so than if the town had been generic white-bread America, anyway.

The town as a whole may be a foreshadowing of 1950s sitcoms, but the individual townsfolk are a bit more varied.  Robinson brings to Martinius a perhaps overly-loving streak; he’s unwilling to punish Selma when she misbehaves, and one can see the pain in his face as he sends her to be without supper.  His wife, Bruna (Agnes Moorehead), while a bit cold at times, shows genuine concern for her husband’s well being, and has a damn good point when she argues against him building a new barn.

Margaret O’Brien’s performance as Selma is bit harder to evaluate.  O’Brien herself is fine, able to portray both a naïve and caring little girl and an egocentric child who won’t give others a turn on her skates.  She speaks with an appropriate hesitancy during the pageant yet is carefree throughout the film.  The problem comes in how she is written.  Her dialogue is far too sophisticated for a seven-year-old to be saying.  I just can’t buy a child that young getting philosophical so damn often.  Blame writer Dalton Trumbo for this tension.

The characters in Jacobson family are sweet, and others, such as unfortunate farmer Bjorn Bjornson (Morris Carnovsky), are lively and amusing.  Other characters are, shall we say, uncomfortable.  The way that Nels is constantly asking for Miss Johnson’s hand goes from funny to “leave her alone already” territory rather quickly.  Meanwhile, the way the mentally disturbed Ingeborg Jensen (Dorothy Morris) is handled, and how quickly she is disposed of, comes across as exploitative and mars a good portion of the film’s proceedings.

Finally, at 105 minutes, the movie is far too padded.  It’s not that the vignettes told aren’t interesting; in fact, ones such as the roller skate affair allow for explorations of the characters’ interior emotions.  The problem is that, since the connective tissue of the film is virtually nonexistent, after awhile Our Vines Have Tender Grapes begins to feel like a vacation slide show.  A few anecdotes from your relatives are fine, but there’s a point where it all just blurs together.  That about sums my viewing experience: “Well, that was nice.  When’s dinner?”

I don’t mean to imply that the film is of poor quality, because it isn’t.  In fact, I wouldn’t even say that Our Vines Have Tender Grapes isn’t entertaining.  It’s not as if watching it was excruciating or boring.  The film achieved what it set out to be: an inoffensive look at farm life in Wisconsin.  Hell, if I were living during WWII, I’m sure I’d want a pleasant distraction from the events of the world.  That the filmmakers succeeded, however, results in a movie which does not promise a lot of re-watch value.