What a cast! What a movie! What a gem! Several reviewers discuss the fine roles and performances in this movie. It's a slice of small town America in the early 20th century. It's the only comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play was a huge success, and so was this film. MGM promoted it like mad for the Oscars, but it didn't even receive a single Academy Award nomination. The cast is a fine mixture of prominent actors of the day and some young performers whose careers were just beginning. This film is adapted from O'Neill's play, "Ah, Wilderness: A Comedy of Recollection in Three Acts," that debuted Oct. 2, 1933, at the Guild Theater on Broadway. The story takes place on the Fourth of July, 1906. The place is New London or a similar town in Connecticut. The cast are mostly members of the Miller family and the story revolves around the middle son. Richard, who is 16 years old. Early writers often found inspiration for their works in classical literature. Some would use snippets from the tomes of time for phrases or titles of plays, stories or novels. O'Neill's title for this film came from Edward Fitzgerald's translation, "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." Richard recites quatrain 12 as a favorite poem of his. It reads: "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"

I read somewhere that playwright Eugene O'Neill never saw this film version of his play, "ah, Wilderness." That's a crying shame, for I think he would have enjoyed this dandy film. Any film that features Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery and Mickey Rooney has to be worth a watch. All of the male and female actors in this movie would have made O'Neill proud. The action takes place in a small town in Connecticut, a few years after the turn of the century. WW 1, Prohibition, the Great Depression and WW 2 are all safely in the future. The USA is still a young, innocent and hopeful nation in the early days of the 20th century. It a time of trolleys, pianos in the parlor, first kisses in the and and 4th of July picnics. It is a time long lost and forgotten. The movie makes the viewers wish that they could go back into the past to a simpler time and place.

MGM's four big movies of 1935 were "Mutiny on the Bounty," "A Tale of Two Cities," "David Copperfield," and this one. It's the quietest of the four but to me the most impressive, a distillation of Eugene O'Neill's memory play (not his childhood, he said, but his childhood as he wished it were) that's bathed in nostalgia that's more potent and poignant than ever. Screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett get it past the Hays Office without really whitewashing its racier aspects (and Helen Flint's superb as the floozie who nearly corrupts our hero), and Eric Linden, who's entirely up to it, never again had this good a part. Top-billed Wallace Beery perhaps overdoes his drunken- charmer shtick, but Lionel Barrymore nicely underplays opposite him, and Aline MacMahon, always perfection, has one of her best roles--watch her reactions, how she plays love, disgust, and pity simultaneously. The rest of the family--Spring Byington, Mickey Rooney, Frank Albertson, Bonita Granville--are all exactly right. The MGM engineering--always-appropriate music, photography, costumes--helps rather than standardizes the material, the pacing's beautiful, and the warmth is unforced. You can weep at it and not feel like you're being manipulated.

Eugene O'Neill wrote only one comedy, and this screen version of it is delightful. It treats some of the same problems as his tragedies, like alcoholism, but treats them lightly and with compassion. The cast is great. I especially like Lionel Barrymore as the father, Wallace Beery as Sid, and Aline MacMahon as Lily--but Mickey Rooney as the little brother dominates every scene he is in. My favorite scene is where the family is at dinner and Uncle Sid comes home drunk. They are concerned for him but can't keep from laughing at the nutty things he says.After seeing this movie, I bought a CD of the Broadway musical version, "Take Me Along," and a video of a Hollywood musical version, "Summer Holiday." This is such a great play, they can't do too many different versions of it.(My brother-in-law - who doesn't even LIKE movies - liked "Ah, Wilderness!" when I showed it for him and my sister on a recent visit.)