I read the novel when I was a lad but was never able to lay hands on the film until recently. The movie is far worse than I had imagined it could be. The acting is very bad - the female lead, played by producer-writer-director Cornel Wilde's wife - is among the worst actresses I've ever seen. She's right up there with Mrs. Tom Laughlin in the horrendous "Billy Jack" movies. The rest of the film is also poorly cast - though it was fun to see one or two familiar faces pop up, among them a prominent actor from "Citizen Kane." The film seems to have been so badly under financed that Wilde was forced to pad the film with stock footage of belching smokestacks, polluted rivers and dead animals. The garishly colored flash forwards are a miserable idea, as is Wilde's narrowing of the frame in scenes of childbirth and particularly gruesome animal carcasses.
Review of No Blade of Grass
