Many years ago I saw a 50’s movie on tv that I really liked, but I can remember only the plot - no title, no actors. Is there some way to look it up? In case anyone here saw the same movie, here’s the plot as I remember it:
A large Italian family moves to California & buys an orange grove. They know nothing of growing oranges but are willing to learn. A woman (social worker?) helps them & gives advice. She finds herself falling in love with the oldest son, but doesn’t want to because she is offended by his “old world” attitude towards women. In the end, she helps save the orange grove from a killing frost & falls in love for good.
Can anyone help me with this? I’d really like to see it again.
Sometimes you can use IMDB.com even if you don’t have specific details. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to work here. I did a search under “plots” using orange and grove and turned up only three movies: It’s a Gift (1934), Smudge (1922), and The Two Jakes (1990). I’m assuming you’d remember if your movie had W.C. Fields or Jack Nicholson in the cast. And the plot of Smudge doesn’t sound like what you described.
I’m recalling a vineyard owner who was opposed to his son being involved with the young woman. A Change of Winds, perhaps as a title? There was no killing frost in the movie I recall, only a fire that consumed the vineyard except for a few choice plants.
I recall that they lit fires to warm the plants because of the frost. Don’t recall whether the fires got out of control, but it would make a good scene, so maybe that did happen :o)
It couldn’t have been the '95 movie, because I saw it on tv sometime in the '70’s. I was pretty sure it was oranges, but I could be wrong! I do remember they had to light the smudge pots to keep whatever it was from freezing.
There was also a cute scene in her efficiency apartment. He says the kitchen is too small, how would she use the oven if she was pregnant. When he wasn’t watching, she pretended to be pregnant to check if she could use the oven.
Check your local library for The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures. Each volume has a subject/keyword index. You might want to look under the keywords Italians, Italian-Americans, vineyards or oranges.
Look in vol. F4 (features, 1941-1950) and vol. F6 (features, 1961-1970). Vol. F5 (features, 1951-1960) will be published in a few months.
If it makes you feel any better, you aren’t crazy; I have a vague recollection of the smudge-pot scene in black and white. But I’m pretty sure it was grapes (though maybe for raisins, not wine) and maybe the family was Armenian? Other than that, I got nothin’.
All this talk about Armenians and grapes in California reminds me of an episode from a series called The Great Adventure:
The reason I remember it is because Walter Koenig (aka the true Ensign Chekov) was in it. He played an Armenian grower of grapes in (I think) California.
Sorry, it’s been been more than fifty years since I last saw the show, so I can’t offer any more details. Is it possible what you saw was a rerun of it?
If you go to IMDB and click on “Connections,” you’ll find this was a remake of an Italian film from 1942 that had already been remade in 1956. This is probably what the OP saw.
No, probably not, because in each case, the plot diverges significantly from the OP’s description–the Italian’s family is his own (not hers) and the girl is not pregnant but rather an external consultant. Plus, both of those “Connection” movies were made in Italy. There’s no indication in the OP that this was anything other than an English-langauge film.
Zombie threads like this I don’t mind, except when the person who revived the thread didn’t even bother reading the handful of posts that preceded it (which already eliminated the Keanu suggestion).
I do remember they had to light the smudge pots to keep whatever it was from freezing.