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Touches You

Load of rubbish!!

Brilliant and touching

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

If you combined The Quiet Man with Sergeant York, you'd mostly have The Shepherd of the Hills. But in this case the end result is far weaker than constituent parts. The setting, characters, grudges, romance and violence is all very similar to that in the first half of Sergeant York. There are two aspects of this movie that should be recognizable to any fan of The Quiet Man. The first being the name of the piece land that the wealthy stranger buys to the chagrin of fearsome locals. In The Quiet Man, it's "White O'Morn". In this movie it's "Mourning Meadow". The other is the way John Wayne says "Thanks" for unhelpful input form well meaning outsiders when he's in a big fight. Incidentally, Ward Bond who plays a supporting role in The Shepherd of the Hills was in both The Quiet Man and Sergeant York.Clearly a lot of money was spent to make this movie. Technicolor in 1941 was itself a budget buster. The cast is amazing. I don't think there's another movie that includes Margorie Mane and Beulah Bondi. There are some very wonderful moments where it all comes together. But overall, it's a disappointment. The story is choppy and the ending is just hokey.

" . . . in the good, clean dark," laments Granny Becky at the climax of THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS. Can it really be as bad as all of that? viewers may wonder. It's not as if Becky has just announced that Generalissimo Franco is Ted Cruz's Grandpappy. And even if Ted actually WERE descended from a long line of Foreign Fascists, Americans enjoy the Audacity to Hope that Ancestry won't be held against them in an Election Year. 2016 is a good time to be watching THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS, as it takes place in the Heart of Cruz Country, so all of its characters Talk Like Ted and his campaign surrogates, as seen on Fox "News." John Wayne channels the future Sen. Cruz here as young Matt, the sort of guy who feels that he's a walking curse and was born to take extreme measures against the Universe, such as shutting down the U.S. government and killing Americans by the thousands as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security all fail due to some superstitious "Blood Oath" from the Dark Ages (or Grover Norquist). Actor Harry Carey's Good Shepherd title role finally has to fire a bullet into young Matt to knock some sense into him, but consider further parallels to our Present Day situation at one's own risk.

I first saw "The Shepherd of the Hills" outdoor drama when we visited Branson for the first time, in the late 1970's. My family and I were totally unfamiliar with this southwest Missouri area, and this was only a few years prior to the Branson area's "explosion" onto the entertainment scene. It expanded from 6 or 8 theaters, then, with perhaps 5,000 seats, to several times this number today, with more seats than all of Broadway. It's possible there now for someone to attend something like 50 or 60 shows for a month - one every evening and a number of breakfast or matinée performances - and never see the same one twice, with additional ones available if one wishes to begin a second month.From earlier days, and continuing today, two of the cornerstone attractions in the Branson area are Silver Dollar City theme park (modeled after an 1880's silver mining complex, but with 21st-century New York City or Hollywood pricing) and The Shepherd of the Hills farm, the original cabin, the large outdoor amphitheater which presents a lavish production of the story, a restaurant, gift shop, etc. They also have all the information about characters upon whom the book is based, and Harold Bell Wright, that one could possibly want to know (and then some!).This film's "version" of the book and story is well-played, the scenery well-photographed (especially since footage was done 65 years ago), and the characters interesting. However, the story here represents the book about as well as if John Wayne's film, "Red River," had been presented with this title and its characters renamed to coincide with this story.First, the elder Mathews were not a female moonshiner and her wimpy husband. They were leading citizens, operated the mill, and were an asset to their rural community and their fellow residents.Young Matt and Sammy, as a "couple", were more like characters from "The Waltons" than those portrayed. The "Shepherd" was also a model citizen-type, no gunfighter or ex-con, and was no relation to Young Matt whatever.Actually, the Shepherd was the father of the young man who had fathered the mentally-challenged young Pete, the son of the Mathews' late daughter. His son had loved her, had returned East not realizing he had left her pregnant, and was prevented by his father (the Shepherd) from returning, and subsequently disappeared.The Shepherd had come to the area to view the situation and attempt amends. During the actual book (and the drama as still presented in Branson today) the unknown "specter" character appears throughout, is shot, and dies, but before passing, is discovered to be the Shepherd's lost son, and there is a heartfelt resolution of matters towards the end.The Shepherd also achieves rapprochement with Old Matt, who had threatened mayhem should he ever encounter the man he blamed for his daughter's broken heart and death.Wash Gibbs is a nefarious character, with designs upon Sammy, and a rival of Matt - in both versions - but in the book he is still a "Baldnobber" and gangster. The "Baldknobbers" were vigilantes who had done worthy things for the citizenry in the post-Civil War period, with carpetbaggers and others attempting to plunder the areas - but like a lot of such groups, when there was no further need for their good works, they turned their prodigious physical strengths to illegal, self-serving ends.Several interesting, key characters from the novel are missing from this film; e.g., Jim Lane (Sammy's father) is more of a key element than shown here. And the Marjorie Main character, with the over-the-top scene where she regains her sight, represents no key element of Wright's story. The name "Moanin' Meadow," and its representation in the movie have no part in Wright's book. While in both presentations, the characters were simple "hill folk," neither sophisticated nor educated - the film provides many with a far greater "bumpkin" image.Again, this is an excellent film, but I would have enjoyed even more seeing the same characters presented as actually portrayed by Wright.

man i may be young in 2006 but sometimes i wish i was young in 1941 because Betty Field is so so beautiful and i wonder what she would have been like to know well and to talk to and to discuss the world with why is life so mind numbing the way time moves and passes and cruises and saunters and ignores and slithers and compensates and reacts and promises and lies and creates and breaks and takes and gives and whispers and yells and how certain things but certain things and no things but everything.Anyway, Betty Field , makes me crazy when u watch this movie..... but at this point I've only seen her behave incredibly and with great intention for emotion.... incredible.