Roseanna McCoy

It's down to the old guard of Charles Bickford ("Hatfield") and Raymond Massey ("McCoy") to inject a bit of personality - bigoted and curmudgeonly - into this old feud western. Grudges galore have prevailed for generations between these two families until "Johnse" (Farley Granger) and the eponymous "Roseanna" (Joan Evans) start to fall for each other. Over their respective dead bodies, say the oldies, but the youngsters are made of solid stock and opinions and entrenchments are going to have to be reviewed if there is any chance of peace breaking out. Massey stands out for me here, he always did manage to portray the puritanical character rather well and he clashes well with Bickford's bloody-minded character too. The rest of this features the odd gunfight but is mostly a rather ponderously paced romantic drama with little chemistry between the lovers nor skill from them as actors either. Frank Loesser wrote the title song, and some of the dialogue is quaintly effective - like in a "Wile E. Coyote" cartoon but the rest of it is little better than standard afternoon feature fayre.