I sat through this mess only last night, on TCM. Crass and maudlin are kind words compared to what I could say about this movie. The characters are so archetypal so as to be laughable, and this is not in any way a comedy. There's the town bad guy in a black shirt, his indolent posse of ne'er do wells, and the hooker with a heart of gold. It's really too bad, considering the level of talent available to the production. Van Heflin is seriously miscast as a man who prior to his religious conversion was supposedly a brawler and serial lady killer. Well, that's only half right, as he gets into two fistfights only 30 minutes into the movie. In fact the fighting becomes really tedious very quickly, and seems to exist only because the writers couldn't come up with anything original and just wanted to increase the action. Don't get me started on the bickering between Heflin's and Joanne Woodward's characters. Woodward is adorable, but shrill. And her haircut is so anachronistic that I began to wonder if Vidal Sassoon got his start during Reconstruction.
Review of Count Three and Pray
