How others will see it. Like so many 'family' movies, the film's real appeal is to older folks who can appreciate its nostalgia. There's no content that is objectionable to children, but there's little here to hold their attention, either. Those who enjoy classic movies will appreciate the 'moment' for Margaret O'Brien, whose child star celebrity crested for this movie. Robinson doesn't play a gangster, which I'm sure he found pleasing.
How I felt about it. A disclaimer first. Some bad things do happen in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. The character of the beautiful but addle-headed young woman (Dorothy Morris) runs into a brick wall. There's a disastrous fire. Arnold and Selma take an ill-advised boating tour of Fuller Junction.
But mostly, the film presents a slice of rural America that probably never really existed, as it is shown. That's not to say that little boys weren't precocious, that little girls didn't pine for their livestock, and farmers may well have been generous to their neighbors in need.
Still, it is a little rich. Everyone's a little too perfect. Even the little boy finds the proper limit to his brattiness. Most tedious of all is the newspaper editor, who is so perfect in all categories (except he's not rich, cynics might add) that eventually, even the perfect (aside from some big-city snobbishness) school teacher finally gives in to his snail-paced and spectacularly respectful courtship.
Although Robinson gets first billing, the star of the movie is the second billed O'Brien, fresh from her audience pleasing appearance in Meet Me in St. Louis. MGM was clearly hoping that she would be the next Shirley Temple, and would charm her way through whatever family literature classics starring little girls that could be dredged up by the studio producers. But it didn't really work out that way, for MGM and O'Brien.
She is a capable actress, and if her delivery is a bit cutesy-wootsie at times, this can surely be blamed on the director. Her halo dims only once, when she refuses to lend her skates to the typically assertive Arnold. But as in an episode of the Brady Bunch, there's a moral to be learned. In this case, don't be selfish. And if you're a farmer, be sure to have property insurance.