Review of Tree Grows In Brooklyn, A

Introduction

Elia Kazan is probably best known for his 1950s classics, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and East of Eden. His first film as a director, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, is probably less well known, but is hailed by many as a classic.

The main details about the film are all outlined up above for you, so I won`t repeat them now.

Video

A black and white transfer in the academy ratio (that`s 4:3 or 1.33:1 to you and me). It doesn`t look too bad considering that it`s 60 years old, but it definitely looks its age. It looks very old, but then it is a film shot in 1947, trying to look like America in the early 1900s. So it is easy to believe that it`s 100 year old action up on screen.

Audio

A DD2.0 mono soundtrack, which definitely sounds like its 50 years old, but it has probably been reasonably looked after. It all comes across clean and clear for the most part, with the odd nastier moment.

Features

There are a few extras here, but they are all of the same format. So there`s a photo gallery, biographies, some old adverts and promotional material, and reproductions of old reviews all of which you have to tediously click through with the remote control.

Conclusion

One critic described this as "perhaps one of the ten best films ever made", but I think I`m just too cynical to agree with that. I`m afraid I found it dull and tedious, a story that should have remained within the confines of its original novel. The film tries to be "real" but it never feels real.

The whole "tree growing in the harsh landscape and then being cut down" metaphor for Johnny Nolan`s life is just too heavy-handed and clumsy for me. And the supposedly Oscar winning performance of Peggy Ann Garner who plays Francie is terrible, hamming up her lines and just going far too over the top.

A gentle film from a bygone age, but one that just washed over me. If you`re into these old time weepies, then there might be something here for you, but I don`t think this film will win too many new fans nowadays.