THE TIME IT NEVER RAINED

Charlie Flagg won't accept government allotments for feed for his dying cattle and sheep; he'd rather lose land and switch to goats (they go anywhere and don't hardly need nothing to eat) out in Rio Seco, Texas, in the worst drought since '13. Events vindicate him as the government in its bureaucratic farm-program confusion does what six years of no rain haven't: Charlie's more prosperous ranching neighbors collapse like playing cards as the endless bank loans and mortgages are called in and the land is taken over by conglomerates and accountants to whom the touch of good soil means nothing -- spelling, you know, the end of that wonderful era of Rugged Individualism. A sentimental parable of hard times bringing out the best (and worst), slow and dry like the empty plains -- a myth about as outdated as the America we used to know and love -- with a bit of contemporary racial reference (gringos vs. greasers) just to keep the young 'uns innerested.