Watch I Walk the Line For Free

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Moral ambiguity would never have been a problem for Atticus Finch, which is why it was so disconcerting to see Gregory Peck get entwined with a hillbilly moonshiner's daughter portrayed here by Tuesday Weld. I wouldn't say that the story lacked credibility entirely, but can you just imagine something like this occurring for real with an otherwise upstanding citizen/sheriff and a gal who could pass for his daughter? I suppose it's happened before, but man, how would one look in the mirror in the morning? The soundtrack, mostly performed by Johnny Cash, lends particular resonance to the story. Being a fan, I was somewhat surprised that the only song I'd heard before was the title tune; all the rest complemented the story well but don't appear on any of Cash's big hits albums. The one that really clicked for the conflicted Sheriff Tawes (Peck) was 'Face a New Day Dawning', one of it's lines described his angst in relation to his marriage to Ellen Haney (Estelle Parsons) - "She knows that something's wrong and I don't care". You could feel the palpable tension in the sheriff who didn't even try to sort out his feelings once the young temptress made her move.The one scene that creeped me out though was the tease that occurred by Alma's (Weld) bedside when her father Carl (Ralph Meeker) sidled up along side her to offer comfort. If he'd have kissed her I think I would have jumped out of my chair. There was this feeling I had throughout the picture that some form of incest might have been going on, but it was more provocative to offer it up as a possibility rather than a fact. Could you just imagine the sheriff if that had been the case? With the character of the Federal man Bascomb (Lonny Chapman), I had to chuckle a bit as it brought me back to my childhood days reading the L'il Abner comic strip. Exposing moonshiners for unpaid taxes was always a favorite theme, and would have been that much more comical here if someone had called Bascomb a 'revenooer'. Why didn't someone think of that?

I recently viewed this film for the second time, having seen it perhaps twenty years ago. I found out why I remembered it fondly. A fairly true-to-life depiction of a back-hills country town and it's people. The characters are strong and played superbly by the great cast. The cinematography is wonderfully nostalgic. It makes you feel as if you are there, living the story. I remembered numerous details from this movie which made me realize how closely I paid attention the first time around. I've seen dozens of movies in the last year and can't remember half as much about them. Modern movies offer great things with special effects and bigger than life color and sound. Movies like this one are timeless classics without any of the production bells and whistles. Just a good if not great, honest movie.

It may have seemed at the time a novel idea to pair Gregory Peck slightly past his prime, with Tuesday Weld on the brink of womanhood. The assumption being that there would be an intriguing chemistry between these polar characters, who both in life and on screen symbolize solid upright morals versus the wild spirit of youth.The film could only have worked had this assumption be proved true. Unfortunately this totally backfired entirely due to Gregory Peck whose tendency towards wooden acting has never been more evident. He is simply hopeless in the role. Director John Frankenheimer amongst his many misses in the latter part of his patchy career has been known to elicit some truly memorable performances from his actors. He is at a total loss with Peck, who makes what should have been a conflicted interested character, a hollow, vacuous entity. Tuesday Weld, never more beautiful, is as always, terrific. Whereas she gives herself completely in each scene, Peck is less than half hearted about the whole thing. No matter how convincing a performance, it needs the interaction of the other players to be fully realized. You cannot go it alone. Weld does her best, but Peck is an unwilling or incapable partner. He simply should have turned down this one. In an interview Weld mentions that in what was supposed to be an erotic love scene, Peck insisted on keeping his shoes on in bed; need one say more? There are what seem to be pointless and endless shots of the rural south to the songs of Johnny Cash, which serve as "fillers" for the directionless narrative. There's good support from Estelle Parsons and Ralph Meeker, but the boring (and probably bored) Peck deflates everything, leaving a film of missed opportunities.

Peck does a nice job playing a middle age crazy sheriff who meets and goes over the edge for a rawboned hillbilly girl. He has a decent, loving wife at home but his discontent with his life leads to his making one stupid mistake after another in not only his private life but his professional as well. Well played out film with top notch performances by the entire cast and a sound track by Johnny Cash which intertwines nicely with the picture.