This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It's interesting reading the reviews here. I don't quite agree with them because I think the film misses the mark by a bit. To me there are two problems here. First off, I just don't quite buy Van Johnson in this role. It would have been great for Jimmy Stewart, but then again, Jimmy occasionally did Westerns and such. But seeing Van Johnson in the one big fist fight here...well, it just didn't sync with me. And, at times, the film tried to be just a little folksy. To some degree that was called for, but I would have eliminated 90% of Van Johnson's singing because not only was it out of place (at least to the extent it was included), but he also didn't have that good a voice.SPOILER ALERT! However, those two issues aside, the plot was a good one. A stranger (Van Johnson) shows up at a homestead right after the Civil War. The homestead is owned by supporters of the Confederacy, headed by veteran character actor Thomas Mitchell. And there's his wife (Selena Royle), lovely daughter (Janet Leigh in her first film role), and young son (Dean Stockwell). The stranger doesn't let his sympathies with the North be known, but he begins working at the homestead of his own volition. To be honest, it was pretty clear right from the very start that this stranger knew the homesteader's son who died in the war, and that he would eventually wed the daughter. But, there's a lot of interesting story in between your realization that's what will happen and when it does actually happen. The Civil War may be over, but the animosity between Northern and Southern sympathizers in Missouri isn't, and that fuels terrorism and mistrust in the settlement.Van Johnson is "satisfactory " here. He doesn't ruin the film by any means, but it's too far outside his typical casting for me to feel comfortable about him here. Thomas Mitchell is mostly pretty good here, although there were occasional scenes where I felt he sort of flubbed it. He seemed to old for the part, although he was actually only 55...just right for the role. He certainly needed his eyebrows trimmed!!!!! I actually found that quite distracting. Janet Leigh, not one of my favorites, was actually very good here in her first film role. We don't see Marshall Thompson as the son until a major flashback toward the end of the film; I usually liked him in his younger years. THe best acting here is actually done by Selena Royle, who plays the mother. Royle was once a real-life love interest of Spencer Tracy. She really very strong here. The young son is played by Dean Stockwell, who was one of the great child actors of the era, although he doesn't have a lot to do here, other than being present. There are a number of other famed character actors here that you'll recognize, including Guy Kibbee.The worst part of the film was the fist fight, which was waaaaaaaaaaaaay over-choreographed. Nevertheless, I'm glad I watched this film...once...but I don't think I'd want to see it again. It does show a side of the post-Civil War era that is not often covered in film.Recommended with reservations.

Just two years after the end of WWII comes this film about the end of the American Civil War. The conflict pitted neighbors against neighbors and ill feelings persisted after the war, as the republic was trying to adapt to new laws and trying to forget old grudges. But some wanted to hang on to their prejudices and hatred.In the Missouri Ozarks lived a farming family like most--a father, mother, daughter and son. The elder son disappeared on the battlefields up north. Like the aftermaths of all prolonged wars, there was a shortage of manpower, and the crops needed to be harvested. How fortunate then that a stranger--tooting on a mouth organ just as happily as you please--wandered down the backroad to their farm on his way to no place in particular.Young Dean Stockwell plays the young son in his ninth film role, while daughter Lissy Anne is played by Janet Leigh in her film debut. She is perfect in her portrayal of the innocent farmer's daughter. In fact, the entire cast is just wonderful. Van Johnson is the stranger with a song on his lips, who brings an element of hope and happiness to the lives of those on the ridge.The writing captures the vernacular and the feelings of the country folk. The music--both incidental and performed--lays a perfect foundation for understanding their simple way of life. And the story is bursting with heart and sweet as the summer rain. This is a film worth seeing for its uncommon humanity.

This film, based on a story by the author MacKinlay Kantor (who was very popular in the 1930s-1950s period), is a delightful change from the urban tales usually emanating from Hollywood. It is possible that the film's title matches that of the original story, but I must point out that Rosy Ridge is never mentioned in the film itself, not that it matters (it is presumably the name of the location of the story). This film is set in the edge of the Ozarks in Missouri in 1865, amidst the seething tensions and hatreds of the locals who fought on the northern side of the Civil War and those who fought for the south. For those who don't know, there were two American states which were forced by the awkwardness of their geographical positions to remain officially neutral in the Civil War, and they were known as 'Border States'. One was Kentucky, whose sympathies were with the South but which did not dare declare for the South, and the other was Missouri, where sympathies were more evenly divided. This film was largely shot on location somewhere like Missouri, and it might even have been Missouri, who knows. There is a singular amount of authenticity to this film, especially in the flowery old-fashioned dialect used by the supporting actors. The script by Lester Cole (1904-1985, his last script being BORN FREE in 1966) therefore deserves a lot of praise, although that dialogue may have been lifted from Kantor's original. This was Janet Leigh's first film, and as the heroine, she makes a fresh-faced, smiling ingénue with doe eyes who leapt into everyone's hearts, and it made her a star. She would eventually appear in 86 films, the last one being released the year after her death in 2004. She was one of America's best-loved film actresses. Janet Leigh's father, somewhat too gruff and over-acted by Thomas Mitchell, is a fanatical Southern sympathiser who hates all Yankees. He and his wife and daughter and young son wait forlornly for the return of the older son, Ben, who may never be coming back from the War, and whose fate is unknown. They are poor arable farmers who live in a log cabin. Their next door neighbours supported the northern side, and they don't speak to one another. There is a lot of barn-burning going on, attributed whether rightly or wrongly to vicious Yankees, since all the barns which are burnt belong to Southern sympathisers. A different complexion is put on this towards the latter part of the film. A lot of Southern supporters are thus driven out and leave Missouri for good, going out West to what are called 'the Territories', which have not yet become the Western and Middle Western states. One evening a mysterious man, played by the ever-cheerful Van Johnson, walks down the lane near the log cabin playing the harmonica to himself and carrying a few belongings over his shoulder. He is clearly a former soldier, though of which army cannot be determined. He strikes up a conversation with Leigh's family the MacBeans and is given supper, then invited to stay the night, and he stays on and helps with the harvest. He and Leigh fall in love. But there are many complications and twists to the story, such as how and why did he happen to turn up at the MacBeans. I don't wish to spoil any of the mystery of this fine country tale, so I say no more. But this is a very wholesome and refreshing story of real country folk which is very ably directed by Roy Rowland (1910-1995), a New Yorker by origin and no countryman, who directed Margaret O'Brien the next year in TENTH AVENUE ANGEL (1948), directed Van Johnson the year after that in the film noir THE SCENE OF THE CRIME (1949), and is best known as the director of the later film noir WITNESS TO MURDER (1954) with Barbara Stanwyck.

Former MGM queen Norma Shearer was vacationing in the Sierras in California and at a ski lodge took notice of the owner's beautiful daughter. She thought that she ought to be in pictures and got her old friends at MGM to give her a look over. They did and signed the girl to a contract and Janet Leigh made her debut in The Romance of Rosy Ridge.During the Civil War both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis spent a lot of time worrying about the fate of those border states like Missouri where this story takes place. There was considerable public opinion for both sides and a lot of neighbors fought each other. Into one Missouri town comes stranger Van Johnson and helps out a Confederate family which lost a son, Marshall Thompson, during the Civil War. Father Thomas Mitchell is suspicious, but his wife Selena Royle and children Dean Stockwell and Janet Leigh take to Johnson right off.Of course Johnson takes to Leigh right off as well. The people of the area can't seem to reconcile because a whole lot of bad things keep happening and only to Confederate families. Someone has a vested interest in keeping the Civil War going long after Appomattox. I won't say any more about the plot, but film fans will take one look at the cast and know who's responsible for all the bad things. But also a secret about son Marshall Thompson is revealed before all are reconciled.The Romance of Rosy Ridge was an auspicious debut for Janet Leigh. You could easily tell what Norma Shearer saw when she served as talent scout for her former studio. Van Johnson gives Janet a lot of support here, very generously allowing her to gain maximum exposure, he seems to have made an effort not to steal any scenes. Van and Janet have a good cast of supporting players as well.The film has a kind of nostalgic quality like some of John Ford's work. It might have really been a classic had Ford been the director. It's still pretty good as is.