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Simply Perfect

Really Surprised!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Major Disappointment

My husband asked me if this was a Disney movie, and I wasn't sure. It was a little too lite for a serious drama and then had some moments that were definitely to dark for Disney. Jimmy Stewart is good at chewing up the corn rows but most of the supporting younger actors were working with undeveloped characters and said little and woodenly when they did talk. A few complaints: Why did the Father take seven of his kids, including a daughter, to find the lost son, and leave the homestead protected by only one son, with a wife and baby. It would have been wildly dangerous to be traveling back and forth across battle lines at the end of the war. Better to have a few riders, and certainly not a young woman along. More dangerous was to leave such a wealthy home insufficiently protected. A fine home like that would have been ransacked and burned by both sides. Speaking of the house. That was one very fine home for that era and location. A single farmer who had to clear his own land with a growing family would have had a more modest farmhouse with more common interiors. That was mansion for a man who was a politician or lawyer. Fine millwork, big rooms, nice furniture. Were there really mansions like that in the Shenandoah in the 1860's for a farmer? I'm surprised that the Confederate Army hadn't already seized his stock and crops earlier in the war. Cold Mountain was more realistic. So was Friendly Persuasion for that matter. The scene where the scavenger trio go after the young wife was dark for a movie that up to that point had treated the female characters with delicacy. Again, it was the middle of the war, both armies are in the Valley. Yet the door is unlocked, and she didn't have a gun at hand to protect her baby? Costumes were nice, and close to realistic, for a Hollywood film, no hoop skirts. It just felt like a made for TV movie, or a John Wayne movie.

A mildly interesting take on the American Civil War, and its effect on the civilian population. Poses some good questions on the morality and reasons for the war, and picking sides. More particularly, not picking sides, and the consequences thereof. Problem is, it doesn't really answer these questions. Maybe that is the answer, that there is no solution, but some degree of attempting an answer would be good.So-so plot. Historically inaccurate at times, and many of the battle scenes seem quite contrived and/or flawed. Could also have been grittier - sometimes felt overly folksy and idealistic. Being made in 1965, however, I guess the producers couldn't be too graphic or tough-minded.Decent performance by James Stewart in the lead role. However, hardly anyone else gets a word in...

Jimmy Stewart plays a dumb rancher who tries to find his lost son (named 'Boy').After his half-wit load puts on a confederate cap, wanders around in the soldier-filled woods, and expectedly gets conscripted, Stewart must search for the little numbskull, though the better deal would be to let the Yankees have him.It soon becomes evident that 'Boy' got his stupidity from Stewart. Jimbo takes four of his sons with him and leaves only one to watch the considerably large homestead along with his wife and infant.Other goofy elements include Stewart preparing a 'honeymoon suite' for his daughter and her idiot husband while her father and four brothers sit quietly in the next room.Ultimately silly Civil War film; Kevin Hagan ('Doc Baker' on "Little House on the Prairie") is terrifying as a murdering thief.

Virginia patriarch James Stewart tries to keep his family out of the civil war as it rages around them, but wars aren't like that.This beautifully filmed 1965 western doesn't have a plot so much as a series of events which take place as Stewart takes most of his children looking for one son who was taken prisoner. These events serve to challenge Stewart's (and our own) perceptions of the value of trying to avoid a war which is taking place in your back yard. From a moral position this makes the film a powerful statement, albeit one of mixed viewpoint. From a narrative position, the film is less successful: it does not meet the conventional story beats one expects (the 3 marauders, for instance, are no more than convenient contrivances to deliver an emotional event: this has no subsequent follow-up or payoff).For all that, this is a good film with a powerful performance - one of his best - from Stewart.