- Film Review
- Reviewed By Tony Sloman
-
4 out of 5
This marvellous and moving late western features a superb performance from James Stewart as a widower trying to ignore the Civil War until the tide of history washes over his whole family. Unusually, the deliberate sentimentality works, and the scene in which Stewart offers a moving soliloquy beside his wife's grave ("I brought some flowers, Martha...") was so popular that it was released on record. Director Andrew V McLaglen (Victor's son) achieves a real sense of scale here, and the supporting cast (including many veterans from John Ford's repertory company) is particularly well chosen. Dustin Hoffman's Graduate co-star Katharine Ross made her big-screen debut here.
Plot Summary
Western starring James Stewart and Doug McClure. Loner Charlie Anderson keeps his family out of the Civil War, even though there is fighting a few miles from his Virginia farm. But when his new son-in-law joins the Confederate army and his youngest son is captured by Federal troops, Charlie finds he can no longer ignore the conflict.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Charlie Anderson
- James Stewart
- Sam
- Doug McClure
- Jacob
- Glenn Corbett
- James
- Patrick Wayne
- Boy
- Phillip Alford
- Ann
- Katharine Ross
- Jennie
- Rosemary Forsyth
- Nathan
- Charles Knox Robinson
- John
- Jim McMullan
- Henry
- Tim McIntire
- Gabriel
- Eugene Jackson Jr
- Dr Witherspoon
- Paul Fix
- Pastor Bjoerling
- Denver Pyle
- Colonel Fairchild
- George Kennedy
- Jenkins
- Harry Carey Jr
- Engineer
- Strother Martin
Crew
- Director
- Andrew V McLaglen
- Share this episode
-