Frontier Menage a Trois

 

Author: GManfred from Ramsey, NJ

7 February 2013

 

Actually the film is nothing as racy as my title would suggest. It is a story of a frontiersman recently widowed, and left with a 9 year old boy. No wife, no mother, no one to do the laundry or cook dinner (this was the frontier, remember). What to do? Well, you could go buy an indentured servant. But don't let your best friend and neighbor find out.

 

There is a great deal of purity and scruples to be found in "Rachel And The Stranger", but not a lot you can get your teeth into. No nuance here, just a straightforward story propelled by the star power of its principals.Holden the farmer first marries the servant(Loretta Young who must be the best-looking indentured servant ever to milk a cow )to keep up appearances. Then they sleep in separate rooms. Mitchum is the neighbor/vagabond who takes a keen interest in Holden, and especially his new servant.

 

There are no emotional highs or lows or tense moments to be found, and the three stars must have had an easy payday with this one. By the same token, it is a very likable, crowd-pleasing family picture which might have gone over even better in color. Holden was just two years away from "Sunset Boulevard", Mitchum fresh from "Out Of The Past", one of Hollywood's best noirs, and Loretta Young had recently won an Oscar for "The Farmer's Daughter" - three stars in their prime.