RUBY GENTRY—Camp Town is a-racin’ somethin’ fierce in this 1952 wallow, 82 minutes of down-South marshland melodrama overheated to the point of molten lava. Steered by usually astute veteran director King Vidor, wobbled by the inanity-meets-leers quotient of Silvia Richards script, Jennifer Jones, 33, and new jaw on the block Charlton Heston, 28, rip into hard-breathing histrionics like famished cannibals. Bring a bib because the sin & spite saturation threatens to surge spittle right off the screen.

“I saw how you looked at me…before you turned wildcat and marked me up.”

‘Braddock’, North Carolina. Humble origins and hot blood make for fateful chips on the bared shoulders of wounded wanton ‘Ruby Corey’ (Jones) who marries well-off & just-widowed ‘Jim Gentry’ (Karl Malden)—besides being a besotted benefactor he’s also her sort-of stepfather—after her tru-luv & and randy roll-in-the-mud ‘Boake Tackman’ (Heston) dumps her for a rich gal. Boake Tackman!? Not just hunky heartbreaker Boake, but much of breed-snooty Braddock will pay a toll for putting Ruby down. Vengeance Vixen alert! Man the sheets!

“There are things you can change with money, Ruby. The way you fix your hair, the way you dress. You can buy houses, dogs, guns, cars. You can even buy some people….but you can’t buy your way out of the swamp!”

Homegrown reviewers disparaged it as pulpish friction, but foreign critics and auteur boosters saw/see deeper meaning beneath it all. Uh…well. Box office-wise it wasn’t high on the hawg at 63rd place of 463 releases that year, but since it only took $525,000 to cook up, a take of $4,900,000 compensated for sneers from the press.

Jones flaunts sex appeal in the horizontal-bop manner she previously displayed in the mega-hit Duel In The Sun  and also undergoes an instant transformation from rustic country gal to foofy high-fashion cougar, white trash department. Heston’s redneck rascal is the earnest young riser at his rawest. He’d loosen up on the grimace bag as time went by, but this role may be the one that SCTV’s Joe Flaherty used for his impression of the eventually iconic star. Malden gets license to bellow and look pop-eyed with jealousy. *

Russell Harlan’s black & white camerawork is commendable, especially in the wild finale and Heinz Roemheld’s score provides the lush title theme (with lyrics by Mitchell Parish it became a jazz and pop standard) to help make the bad doin’s good fun to watch.

Chawin’ on whatever scenery the leads left un-chomped are Tom Tully, Barney Phillips (also stuck with the awful follow-dots narration), James Anderson (a meatier-than-usual role for him, as Ruby’s evangelical nutjob brother) and Phyllis Avery.

“Start the pumps.” Yes, ma’am.

* Vidor: “I had complete freedom in shooting it, and Selznick, who could have had an influence on Jennifer Jones, didn’t intervene. I think I succeeded in getting something out of Jennifer, something quite profound and subtle.”  Um…

After two more thuds (Indiscretion Of An American Wife and Beat The Devil) resilient trouper Jones rebounded with three hits (Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, Good Morning Miss Dove and The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit). ’52 was good to Heston, snagging The Greatest Show On Earth, the year’s biggest hit.