Rating: 
Summary: A Truly Unusual and Effective Star Performance
Review: This film resurfaced briefly about 15 years ago when the movie "Frances", detailing the fall of actress Frances Farmer, was released and did so much for the career of Jessica Lange. I saw "Come and Get It" around that time, and while I appreciated the double role played by Farmer, the performance that impressed me most from this excellent movie was that of Edward Arnold. Why so? Because Arnold is a stout middleaged man, but so powerful that he rivets your attention to himself. Arnold plays Barney Glasgow, an ambitious logger who schemes to become the richest man in Wisconsin through the lumber business--partly by planning to marry the boss's daughter. He is almost derailed by a barroom singer, dark wigged Lotta/Frances Farmer. He stays around long enough to earn and throw away her love before setting off to achieve his object and leaving her to marry his sidekick, Walter Brennan in an Oscar-winning role. All Barney's plans come to pass, except that he's not happy in his marriage and has a rocky relationship with his handsome son, Joel McCrea. A trip back to logging country brings him in contact with Lotta's daughter and namesake, blond wigged Frances Farmer. He becomes obsessed with trying to recapture the love he spurned years ago by pursuing the young girl, with serious ramifications for all involved. I'm glad that Edward Arnold, usually seen only in supporting roles as in "The Hucksters", gets the chance to display his full range here in "Come and Get It". He really runs the gamut from bare-knucked fighter to tender lover to distant father to passionate old fool. Few roles offer so much variety to an actor in one movie, and Arnold rings true in every scene. The expression on his face in the final confrontation he has with his son as Lotta makes a crushing remark about his age is dynamite. In my opinion, Edward Arnold really ought to have won an Oscar himself for this superlative performance. I also thought they had a really good idea for this "through the generations" movie: Rather than cast a young man to play a young man at the beginning and then wear old makeup for the rest of the movie, they opted for the opposite approach. Edward Arnold has a little shoe polish in his hair for the first part, and then a title card announces that 20 years have passed and he's now 50. He then proceeds to perform a part that is written for his own age. (This same trick was used a few years ago in "The Mask of Zorro" with Anthony Hopkins to great effect.) Take my advice about this movie and "Come and Get It' as soon as you can.
Rating:
Summary: LOVE HER TENDER.......
Review: Yeah? So, where IS the FRANCES FARMER Award or Scholarship?
Everyone's profited from her - so? [Then again, there were/are so many ...... since then.]This rather staid adaptation of the Ferber novel [and here's another lady who should be canonized! Brilliant novelist- should be mandatory reading for any immigrant] hit the screen with Greats, Edward Arnold [that final close-up!]; Walter Brennan [unfulfilled career - Award winning here]; FRANCES FARMER [it's that John Wayne/Mae West swagger that gets you in the first incarnation - two roles here - mother and daughter - very subtle/economic] - THEN devastating as the daughter - just imagine what Frances would have done to 'Basic Instinct' or "Klute"? As we now know - A RARE talent way ahead of her time. The DVD is excellent - try watching it in German - with English subtitles - now that's an experience, and it brings a freshness to this quirky work. The title? Frances pre-dates Mr. Presley with this song .......... very authentic, but then we do have an artist at work.
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