Come and Get It, 1936
A lumberjack named Barney Glasgow (Edward Arnold) is eager to make his fortune any way he can. Eventually, this leads to him casting aside his girlfriend Lotta (Frances Farmer) in favor of his boss's daughter, Emma (Mary Nash). Twenty years later, Glasgow is wealthy and by chance discovers that Lotta had a daughter (also called Lotta, and also played by Farmer). Glasgow becomes obsessed with claiming Lotta for himself, except that his son Richard (Joel McCrea) also becomes smitten with her.
I don't know what it is about some films that they kind of end up feeling like work to watch. That's how this one felt.
I think that it largely comes down to just how uncomfortable the whole premise is, and the way that even the likable characters come off as really questionable in certain sequences. Walter Brennan won an Oscar for his role as Swan, the man who married the elder Lotta and the younger Lotta's father. Swan is a fun character . . . except when he gives Glasgow permission to kiss Lotta on the mouth, despite the fact that Lotta is CLEARLY not into it and looks really alarmed at the idea. In fact, the way that a lot of the adults around Lotta seem to ignore Glasgow's very obvious and creepy obsession with her gave the whole film a very off feeling for me. Lotta is so frequently uncomfortable, and I really couldn't tell if the people around her were meant to be oblivious or if they were letting it happen in some terribly gaslighting scenario.
The blooming romance sequences between Lotta and McCrea have kind of a fun but funky energy to them. There's one part where he accuses her of being a gold digger and she slaps him only for him to slap her back and then they stare at each other in stunned silence. An hour later they're pulling taffy together (um, not a euphemism) while he lectures her about the history of paper.
A lot of the film is spent with the elder Glasgow. The film knows that his pursuit of Lotta is wrong, but watching him manipulate her and bully his way to what he wants got kind of old after a while. The whole thing is underscored by the ick factor of a man not only wanting to sleep with someone his own children's age, but specifically the daughter of a woman he was formerly in a relationship with.
Fine, but didn't really click with me on any deep level.