Verfluchtes Land

Fine adaptation of Harold Bell Wright's novel; lots of Hollywood character actors in this one. Marjorie Main, Fuzzy Knight, Ward Bond, John Qualen, and a whole slew of others.

John Wayne plays the son of a woman wronged, at least in the eyes of the Ozarks people, whose only purpose in life is to kill the father that disgraced his mother and himself. Harry Carey Sr. plays the stranger, Mr. Howitt, who comes to the hills and leaves nothing but kindness and friendship in his wake. Betty Field is luminous as the girl who loves Wayne, but can't stop him from avenging his mother's disgrace. Beulah Bondi is Wayne's bitter and self-deceiving aunt, who raised him after his mother's death, and continually feeds his hate for his father. Marc Lawrence is the revelation in this film; known mostly for gangster roles, he is marvelous as the handicapped cousin of Wayne, and the catalyst for Bondi's eventual repentance.

A wonderful, period film in gorgeous color, with a beautiful soundtrack. Harry Carey is so good in this that I'm surprised he isn't a more well known actor.

Set in the Missouri Ozarks, the film follows Daniel Howitt (Harry Carey), a stranger in town who is looking to buy some land. He befriends Sammy Lane (Betty Field), who tries to help him navigate his way around the peculiar locals, such as the moonshiner family ruled over by the disagreeable Aunt Mollie (Beulah Bondi). One of Mollie's boys is Matt Matthews (John Wayne) who doesn't take kindly to this newcomer trying to take land that used to belong to Matt's long-dead mother.

This was John Wayne's first color film, and it would make a great double bill with 1936's The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. The cast is very good, from Carey as the world-weary gunslinger looking to settle accounts, to Betty Field as a backwoods gal pining for more out of life. Beulah Bondi is terrifically witchy, but ultimately more than a cartoon, displaying real character depth by the shocking ending. The biggest surprise to me was Marc Lawrence. Most classic movie fans will recognize the face if not the name, a pock-marked weasally countenance who played dozens of gangsters and low-lifes from the 1930's through the 1990's. Here he plays a slow witted man-child, slightly deformed and more pitiful than menacing. It's a performance quite unlike anything I'd seen from him before, and he was excellent. If not for the slight cop-out ending, I would have rated this even higher.

Beneath the somewhat awkward narrative lies an affecting spiritual parable, about hate and redemption. The hatred Matt (Wayne) and his aunt Mollie (Bondi) have towards Matt's dead father is poisoning their lives and those lives around them. Never mind that they don't know the details surrounding the father's absence while Matt's mother and Mollie's sister dies alone and unattended. Now Matt has sworn a blood oath to kill his father whom he's surprisingly never seen, having been adopted instead into Mollie's family. Meanwhile, Mollie spews venom around her household that's affected her husband and everyone else.

Then, into this backwoods den arrives a mysterious stranger Howitt (Carey) with a load of money and city ways. He doesn't preach any kind of redeeming sermon. Instead, he selflessly ministers to the sick, puts moonshiners to work at a better wage, and buys Matt's now abandoned cabin site for an outlandish price. He's got "good man" written all over him. In short, he's a transformative figure to all but Mollie and Matt who persist in their poisonous grudge.

It's easy to see Howitt as a religious symbol though the movie's spirituality is pretty much limited to revealing beams of sunlight from above. (Rather surprisingly, no mention is made of biblical religion among Ozark folks known for their literalist beliefs.)

But, to me, the real spiritual symbol is the apparent simpleton, Pete (Lawrence), one of Mollie's sons. The story is that he was normal until a bolt of lightning struck him at the same time Matt's mother died. Now, I suspect the story and its timing suggest some kind of mysterious passage from dying mother to nephew Pete. It appears, however, to be a curse on Pete, since from then on he behaves like a grunting primitive, unable to speak coherently.

But consider two things. It's Pete's fateful struggle with Mollie, his mother, that finally forces her to consider the error of her ways, something not even Howitt has been able to achieve. Second, is the movie's central scene, at least in my little book. That's the powerfully moving shot of Pete alone and wordlessly picking at motes amid a glowing beam of sunlight through a small window. The message seems clear. Pete alone is in contact with something more ethereal than the Ozarks and moonshine or even Howitt. Whatever that communion is must remain both symbolic and mysterious. I also expect it's no accident that the movie cast the darkly colored Mark Lawrence in the role since he looks nothing like the rest of Mollie's family.

Now, I'm neither particularly religious nor spiritual. But I do appreciate this aspect of the film, which I believe is both intelligently and artistically implied.

The movie itself is a photogenic marvel as others point out. The colors are so lush I hardly recognized the Big Bear locations, where as an LA resident, I used to hike. Moreover, I really like the way the movie refuses to glamorize the casting of Sammy, the ingénue. Betty Field is perfect for the part, with her average looks but uncommon liveliness. She injects real spark into the proceedings. Carey too is well chosen. With his easy smile and affable manner, he wins us over quickly, making his showdown in the meadow with Matt something of a shocker. Somehow, it's odd seeing Wayne without a cowboy hat and with his real hair. Still, he's fine in the part, showing why he's generally underrated as an actor. I guess my only complaint is with Bondi who spreads the bile on pretty thickly. Then again, maybe that's what it takes in a family with a bunch of strapping roughnecks.

All in all, the movie's something of a sleeper, even though it never made it into Wayne's canon of classics, probably because Wayne is not the central character, despite the poster depiction. Too bad. Because both the story and the visuals deserve to be better known, inasmuch as the humane message remains as enduring now as it was then.

THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS was made into a silent film in 1919. Harold Bell Wright, the author of the story, was a popular novelist of the day, and a number of his stories were turned into films. He usually concentrated on stories regarding people who lived in mountainous regions (one hesitates to call them hillbillies as they are usually shown to be non-stereotypes). As was mentioned in another of the comments here, Wright also wrote the story that was the basis for the Henry Fonda / Fred MacMurray film THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.

John Wayne is not the central figure of this film, although considered the star nowadays. In reality this film should be considered one of the best in the career of Harry Carey Sr. A leading movie cowboy actor in the silent period and early sound years, Carey had slowly moved into character parts after 1933. Possibly his best recalled non-western role is the Vice President of the United States in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. As a Western star, he proved to be Wayne's own model of the perfect western film actor. In fact, in the shooting of John Ford's THE SEARCHERS, Wayne purposely honored Carey by copying a mannerism he had (holding his arm with his hand in a particular position) in Wayne's last visible moment in that film.

In the movie Wayne is a member of a family centered around James Barton and Beulah Bondi (Wayne's blood aunt), and his cousin Marc Lawrence. Bondi has never forgiven Wayne's father for abandoning the family, and indirectly causing the death of her sister. She has instilled in Wayne a hatred of the father. At the same time, the death of the sister is tied to the other tragedy of the family - that Lawrence is a mute. He has been unable to speak since he survived the fire that killed his aunt (Wayne' mother). The only one who occasionally stands up against Bondi's vicious hatred is Barton, but he admits in his best scene in the film that he really lacks the nerve to openly condemn her behavior.

This is a great film for character actors. Besides Barton, Bondi, and Lawrence, please take note of Marjorie Main in one of her most prescient performances. She is blind, and she requires expensive surgery to have a chance for the restoration of her sight. At a critical moment Carey will lend her the money for that surgery. When her eyesight is restored everyone in the community rejoices, until Main recognizes somebody in the crowd she did not expect to ever see again. Her comment when she reveals this person's identity, and realizes the tragedy she may have unwittingly caused, is devastating in it's simplicity and ironic truth.

Carey is a newly arrived rancher in the area, who (as witness his assistance to Main) gets involved trying to do good for his neighbors. And all usually benefit. Yet he too has his secrets, and they nearly rip him and several others apart.

THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS is a movie about redemption and forgiveness, and it's cast shows the difficulties faced by common people when presented with these seemingly simple acts of behavior. All of the stars of the movie gave first rate performances in it, and for Wayne it was the first big follow-up to his overnight success in STAGECOACH. But the best performance remains Carey's, who in the end has to commit an act of violence in order to try to save his last chance for acceptance from those who count the most.

A marvelous, if little known, early John Wayne film. There are so many wonderful moments in this film that I can only list a few: Harry Carey splendid as the mysterious man who comes to the Ozarks to purchase a piece of dirt land and settle down, and ends up purchasing Moanin' Meadow. A gorgeous, seamless, seemingly effortless piece of acting.

Betty Field, always in bare feet saying that she nearly stepped in a cloud and reveling in the mud between her bare toes.

Marc Lawrence trying to catch dust motes in a sunbeam coming through a dirty windowpane.

Beulah Bondi making a circle of candles and lamp oil!!

Marjorie Main seeing for the first time in her life.

And John Wayne moving from bewildered and embittered young man with a curse on him, to a man in love who can't express his feeling because of the curse, and finally coming to terms with his real, inner self for the first time in his life.

Anyone who thinks John Wayne could not act, should see The Shepherd of the Hills. He is not only beautiful to look at, but he brings charm, power and sympathy to a very difficult role.