Theron (George Hamilton) comes of age in the family of macho Texas patriarch Wade Hunnicutt (a sleepy Mitchum). The boy has been coddled by his mother (played with a wondrous Hollywood Texas accent by Eleanor Parker), the price to pay for Wade’s extra-marital cavortings. But now Wade wants to take him hunting and make a man out of his son, whom he would like to resemble cowboy helper Rafe (a very cool George Peppard). The film starts tipping towards delirious melodrama once Theron discovers Rafe’s true relationship to his father, leading to mind-boggling violence and destruction.
Although Minnelli shot on locations in Texas and Mississippi and Milton Krasner’s photography contributes to the film’s psychotic beauty, the director seems more interested in showing the sadness of the Hunnicutts’ ravaged marriage and the ultimate emptiness of Wade’s patriarchy. As he did four years earlier in Tea and Sympathy, Minnelli digs at society’s perception of virility with troubling precision, showing scenes almost never seen in classic Hollywood cinema.

Philippe Garnier