Handle with Care (1958)

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Excellent 82 minute story which plots justice, morality and law against a small community's mayor whose "accounting methods" (during a very distressed economically period) become questioned by a mock Grand Jury proceeding held by studying local Law Students.Particular note was a very enjoyable ending which ultimately leaves the viewers to decide where their boundaries of law, justice and morality would reside if tasked with leading a community through a period of economically induced suffrage.For this viewer "Handle with Care" was an elegant (Thomas Mitchell) depiction of a conundrum.

!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!! There are many fine character actors, particularly from the glory days of the Hollywood studio dynasties. But beyond the many fine character actors are a few who are deservedly legendary. Thomas Mitchell is in that league. Whether he was the father of Scarlett O'Hara, or the failed banker Uncle Billy of "It's A Wonderful Life", or the just-a-bit crooked chap in "Lost Horizon", Mitchell stood out in just about any film he appeared in...and that was quite a few. And, Mitchell was the first actor to win the holy trinity of acting -- an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony. Mitchell had turned mostly to television in the early 1950s, so this was one of his last film roles, and although he continued working for 3 more years in both television and a few films, his performance here would have been a fitting conclusion to his career. His performance is simply brilliant, and far more nuanced than many of the roles he typically played.Here, Mitchell is the mayor of a small town who agrees to take part in a mock grand jury for the local law school, unaware that there is one student -- Dean Jones -- who is out to prove himself. Jones digs up a potential scandal and malfeasance. Things began to spiral out of control as the beloved mayor looks like he is guilty of something very serious.Of course, you kinda know that Dean Jones (who is very good here, although occasionally borders on a youthful intensity that almost spills over into over-acting) is going to learn a hard lesson before the film is over...although just what the lesson is going to be remains a mystery for most of the film. However, unlike some films where something convenient is just pulled out of a hat at just the right time, this mystery is totally logical -- the mayor wrote fake tax receipts for farmers who would have otherwise lost their homes during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. Ultimately, all of the money was paid back to the town coffers, but still, a law had been broken.There are also some good, solid (though not outstanding) performances by other character actors here, most of whom you'll recognize as soon as you see them: John Smith, Walter Abel, Anne Seymour, Royal Dano, and Ted de Corsia.Is this a great film? No. But it's far better than a lot of big-name pics, and well worth your time.

I saw this old film while I was lying in bed recovering from a leg injury, and it was a surprising treat. Dean Jones, in one of his earliest movie roles before he became a Disney stock player, is an earnest young student pursuing the popular mayor of a small town for his apparent embezzlement of tax funds. He earns the open hostility of the townspeople, his fellow students, and his girlfriend as he continues his quest for truth and justice. So the ending I was expecting was that he'd uncover the popular old mayor's crime, and the entire town would be apologetic and grateful, and his girlfriend would return to him, right? Well, NO! Not at all! Nice plot twist at the end, and the short dialogue between the mayor and Dean Jones when they inadvertently meet at very end of the movie, involving the morality of the mayor's actions, provides a very nice little additional mini-twist at the end. If this movie is shown on your local station, and you've got some time, check this one out.

'Handle With Care' is not a great film but certainly an interesting one, at least in terms of its subliminal politics. A young, brash law student (Dean Jones, later a Disney regular) investigates city hall and uncovers a skeleton in the mayor's past. It seems that, back in '32 and '33, when the mayor (Thomas Mitchell) was county tax collector, he signed receipts for a lot more money in tax payments than was actually deposited, which suggests embezzlement. Come to find out, the good mayor signed phony receipts so that destitute farmers could keep their land during the worst years of the Great Depression. The crusading young lawyer, who happens to be an outsider to this close-knit community, is a stand-in for all leftist muckrakers and outside agitators who wish to discover the worst about "The American Way." The mayor, a kind of proto-FDR figure, bends the rules but still works within the system to assure the common welfare. Naysayers get their comeuppance and the system, though flawed, is vindicated in this classic repudiation of Thirties radicalism that came out at the tail end of the Fifties "Red Scare."