The Worst Film Ever

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This touching movie is about what may be the best loved figure from Idaho history. Her ranch, now a members only recreational club, is just over 40 miles from where I'm writing this. The movie takes considerable license with the actual facts of Polly Bemis' life, but that is seldom the point of a fictionalized movie based on a novel that is based on a true story anyway. Much of this movie winks and nods at the history, but packages what there is of it into a very charming and moving portrayal of the difficulties of life for Chinese immigrants on the Idaho frontier, not on the cattle producing prairies, but in the gritty gold mines of Warren and Florence in the mountains of 19th century Central Idaho. The Chinese Exclusion Act caused much upheaval and misery among the Chinese immigrants as was depicted in the movie, in which the Bemises were caught up. (spoiler alert) Although the movie ends just as life is beginning on the Main Salmon River in Central Idaho, much of the charm of Polly Bemis' life that has made her such a beloved figure in Idaho history had yet to occur. That might be a good idea for another movie to follow up this one.

Although I haven't seen this since it was on TV over fifteen years ago, its memory came and struck me again tonight right out of the blue while I was eating dinner. I was so supremely impressed with this at the time I saw it on PBS that I have no trouble now remembering the title immediately, along with the names Rosalind Chao and Chris Cooper, even after all these years. So, I just had to come here now while I'm thinking of it and register my approval.If this were available on DVD, I'd buy it today. But it seems to me that what America really needs, entertainment-wise, is an American Playhouse anthology on DVD. If The American Film Theatre can put out a fourteen-volume anthology (in three sets), and if we can get "Fifty Years of Janus Films" in one giant collection, why not American Playhouse?

This is a movie I have seen on TV twice - an inspiring movie about one woman's determination and industry. There is also a touching love story. But one of the most amazing parts of this very interesting film, is that it is based on a true story and, if I am not mistaken, shows a picture of the real heroine of the story at the end. This is an important story for women's "herstory". The acting is fantastic, and the story is compelling. My only real challenge with this movie, is that I decided I wanted to see it again and can not find it anywhere! But I will continue my search for this important historic film until I find it - I believe it is worth the effort :-)

Gritty social realist story of Chinese woman Lalu who is sold into slavery in the late 19th century, and taken to a rough mining town in the American west. There she faces a series of humiliations, rejections and triumphs before finding at least a degree of happiness with a sympathetic saloon keeper. By turns both gloomy and sentimental (not necessarily a bad thing) issues of racism and feminism are very much to the fore.