Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Robert J. Maxwell Beneath Pedestrian.A kind of dull Southern Gothic. Poor Jennifer Jones, her hair mussed and her jeans muddy, is from the wrong side of the tracks. The good inbred folks of Thanatopolis, North Carolina don't pay no attention to her and her hunting and traipsing round. Except high-class Charlton Heston. He finds her, well, curiously attractive. But when he returns from a spell in the big city, he seems to have acquired scruples and, however much regard he has for Ruby, he's been tied to the wealthy and somewhat snooty Tracy since childhood. They get married.In return, out of spite as much as anything else, Ruby married the wealthy, good-natured, and bulbous-nosed millionaire Karl Malden. He really loves her. And she's beginning to grow fond of him too, just before he's killed in a boating accident. The community blames her. The local paper hints at murder. But -- HAH! -- Ruby is rich now and wears sunglasses and glamorous clothes. She also buys up every promissory note in sight and demands payment, which demolishes half the town's businesses and ruins Heston's plans for the future.That's as far as I want to go with the plot, for a couple of reasons. One is that I don't want to spoil it. Another is that the climax comes virtually out of the fog, a kind of deus ex maniac.What an ordinary movie this is. I don't know if you're familiar with the song "Ruby." It was a popular hit at the time of this movie's release, sung by Nat King Cole among others. If you haven't heard the tune before, that's okay. It will become an indelible part of your declarative memory by the time this ordeal is finished. It's the only music we hear. The overscore is "Ruby" and variations on "Ruby." If someone in the film turns on the radio or plays a record, the tune is always "Ruby," usually on a quivering harmonica. It's almost a relief when somebody sloshes through a North Carolina swamp and all we hear is the weird cry of the Australian kookaburra.How dull. Except for its budget, which is quite modest, and its black-and-white photography, it could easily have been a made-for-TV number on Lifetime Movies. It was directed by King Vidor, who must have been in some sort of post-ictal twilight state throughout. He allows ALL of the principals to overact outrageously. Heston would go on to much better things as he matured, but here he's wooden and snarly. Jones could be in a silent movie, where the overuse of body language is expected. Some of the characters are so bad, they're actually amusing, though not excuse enough to watch this dreary feature.

showtrmp Inescapably wholesome Jennifer Jones tries once again to get low-down and trampy in this strange melodrama--it doesn't have the trashy splendor of her previous camp classic "Duel in the Sun", but the comparative restraint of "Ruby Gentry" somehow makes it seem even more absurd. Jones is supposed to be the daughter of a family of swamp-dwellers, but her hair, makeup, and costumes remain flawless from beginning to end--her idea of "backwoods tramp" is somewhere between Helen Hayes and Doris Day. She's caught in a doomed romance with rake Charlon Heston (just like the one with Gregory Peck in "Duel", although Heston is slightly more convincing)--the two of them spend their scenes twisting their bodies into increasingly distorted positions, mashing their mouths together, clawing at each other's hair, etc. Jones' fundamentalist brother occasionally blathers on at her about her "unforgivable sins", although the unforgivable career damage is not mentioned; the romance abruptly ends in an extended shootout scene in that pure-Hollywood "swamp". All of this happens because Ruby was "born on the wrong side of the tracks" (an offscreen narrator reminds us of this fact about seven hundred times). Next time, move the tracks.

MartinHafer Wow, what a trashy movie! This is NOT necessarily meant as a criticism, as the film makers were obviously trying to make an overwrought and sexy soap opera-style film. Subtle this is not--and if you like films like PEYTON PLACE or A DUEL IN THE SUN or TV shows such as "Dynasty" or "Falcon Crest", then you may enjoy RUBY GENTRY.Ruby (Jennifer Jones) is a sexy southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks. She's in love with one man (Charlton Heston) but her heart is broken when he marries another simply because this other woman offers him an advancement in society. On the rebound, Ruby marries a nice and very wealthy guy (Karl Malden). However, at a big social event, Ruby shows a lot of attention to her old beau and people begin to talk. Now Ruby did NOT cheat on her husband and there is no indication that she didn't care for him--but people talk. And, when the husband dies accidentally in a boating accident, people suspect Ruby killed him. In fact, they are vicious towards her. So, in a wonderful turn of events, the now wealthy Ruby sets out to use her husband's money to destroy the town. Later, she works her best to try to win back her old beau--even though he is already married and seemed like a jerk.I am not sure why Miss Jones did these sort of movies. Despite becoming famous for playing the angelic lead in SONG OF BERNADETTE, she went on to play quite a few slutty characters--such as in this film, DUEL IN THE SUN, INDISCRETION and MADAM BOVARY. Frankly, I didn't like her in these films and preferred her other roles--mostly because she wasn't all that convincing in these sort of films. RUBY GENTRY is a bit better than these other films, but it still is far from her best work. I think part of this is just because she just didn't seem slutty enough and seemed more suited to films such as PORTRAIT OF JENNY. She looked rather sweet and such roles would have worked better with actresses who specialized in these sort of films like Lana Turner or Joan Crawford. The other problem is that although I enjoy a good potboiler, these films of Miss Jones weren't particularly good films--especially DUEL IN THE SUN and INDISCRETION. Why her lover, David O. Selznick, pushed her into these roles is beyond me.Despite these complaints, there was quite a bit to like about RUBY GENTRY. The idea of a poor girl becoming rich and using this new wealth to destroy the town that persecuted her is great. Too bad, then, that after doing so much to get revenge that the film become bogged down with the silly affair with Heston late in the film. The affair made little sense and tended to deflate the juicy plot. And, sadly, almost as soon as the affair began, the film just ended very abruptly! The film is a real mixed bag. It's a decent time-passer soap but could have been so much more.

iblinders I saw this when I was very young and it was quite risqué for 1952. Jennifer was beautiful and very seductive. The thought of a woman being shown on the screen engaged in seduction was far from the norm for my family. I went with my friend and was afraid to tell my Mother. I need to rent this and see if it still holds up after all this time. I'm sure Jennifer will as she was a wonderful actress. I love Charlton Heston because is a journeyman actor but he bugs me. He always seems to be the same person. Karl Malden is an actors actor and never gives a bad performance. The setting was typical of that time, poor girl seduces rich boy. The other one was rich girl falls for poor boy. Sure never happened in my life. What I remember most though was the music as It is so plaintive.. I have it downloaded and it is one of my favorites.