HUNGRY HILL

HUNGRY HILL (1947). Director: Brian Desmond Hurst.

Episodic family saga based on a novel by Daphne Du Maurier. The Brodricks and the Donovans have been feuding for years over a piece of property and matters aren't helped when the patriarch of the former family builds a copper mine on the very spot. The rivalry over the Brodrick brothers (primarily over Fanny Rose, played by Margaret Lockwood, pictured) is taken up by the next generation when the two sons of Fanny and John Brodrick also come to blows over a woman. Jean Simmons plays Jane Brodrick with her customary charm. Despite mine floods, riots, explosions, fires, love triangles and fights, the movie is slow and dull, dull, dull. It's like a Hollywood epic without the big names, charismatic stars, and that certain panache, although a few scenes are well-staged and its not badly acted. It seems to run three hours long, however.

Verdict: Could replace your sleeping pills.*1/2.