Cannery Row Dvd

Cannery Row : DVD Talk Review of the DVD Video

THE MOVIE:

The 1982 film Cannery Row is an adaptation of the writings of John Steinbeck. Brought to the screen by writer/director David S. Ward ( The Sting , King Ralph ), it's meant to recreate the feeling of Golden Age Hollywood, like a movie the film's characters might have gone to see back in the 1930s. Unfortunately, it hits the ball far beyond the bleachers, landing somewhere in a cornfield of overindulgence--emphasis on the corn.

Nick Nolte plays Doc, a marine biologist who has moved to the Northern California coastal town known as Cannery Row, so named for the once thriving cannery businesses that have now fallen on disrepair. It's the kind of place people end up in when they have nowhere else to go or when they'd rather forget whatever place they've come from. Doc has a past he has traded for a quiet life collecting specimens of sea creatures, and he's become a kind of intellectual leader around the town, thanks to his kindness toward the slightly defective mystic, the Seer (Sunshine Parker), and his adoption of the local bums. This group is lead by Mack (M. Emmet Walsh), a genial schemer, and also features Hazel (Frank McRae), the typical Steinbeckian dumb giant.

As happens in these kinds of stories, Cannery Row starts buzzing when a new face comes to town. Suzy (Debra Winger) shows up with nothing but a suitcase and a lot of moxie, and she soon takes work at the local brothel. The madame who owns the place, Fauna (Audra Lindley, best known as Mrs. Roper from "Three's Company"), not only sees that Suzy doesn't belong in an establishment like hers, but she also picks up on sparks that fly between her and Doc. The two bicker whenever they get together, and Suzy realizes she knows who Doc is from his old life. Naturally, Fauna is going to want to push these two together, and naturally there will be some trouble in making this mismatched pair into a a real couple.

For about the first hour of Cannery Row , I was totally with the movie. Ward started out making a fine little slice of Americana, with very slight touches of magical realism and a sense of the oral tradition of small-town U.S.A. brought to life through the narration of John Huston.

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