Stars in My Crown

It gets high marks because of Joel McCrea right off. Then, it is a Western and there is always so much to learn about the early wild days and how towns got started along with laws, rules, regulations and all the rest. I always notice how the buildings of these start-up towns were built one right next to another. One fire takes them all out. I wonder how many times a town was actually re-built from fire losses? Notice too the streets and roads. Good community flick with everyone knowing everyone else and helping each other too. What an interesting way to live and grow up in. You got characters both good and not so good, the Klan, greed, fever, love interest, and a nice, happy ending. Such clean, fun and wholesome entertainment. Even if it is not true to life it can be and restores faith in human-kind just by watching. Warm and fuzzies will visit with you guaranteed. Narrator does an excellent job helping us to get the flick and not work too hard. Pay attention to Uncle Famous and his attitude on life. He lives simply, has all he needs, bothers no one likes everybody and is thankful just to be here. What a role model if there ever was one. This movie shows you what life can be like if we just let it. Good sandwich movie and tasty drink with a snack to follow will keep you happy and content to the satisfying end

An almost plot less piece of Americana and one of Jacques Tourneur's very finest films, "Stars in My Crown" is set in a small American town in the aftermath of the Civil War and it follows the daily happenings in the lives of the townsfolk, principle of whom is Joel McCrea's parson, (it's a wonderful performance). Then there's the parson's wife, the young doctor, the school mistress and the boy, (Dean Stockwell), who as a man, (an unseen Marshall Thompson), narrates the film. They are all beautifully played as are Ed Begley's greedy storekeeper, Juano Hernandez's dirt farmer and Charles Kemper's magician.

It's a very simple piece, a series of scenes on which there hangs the thinest thread of a plot, in feeling and in structure not dissimilar to John Ford's "The Sun Shines Bright". It's also one of the few really good 'religious' pictures yet one in which religion isn't centre stage but something that's just there infusing every scene and it's not at all sentimental yet ultimately it's very moving. It's cult status is thoroughly justified.

And they didn't get one.

"Stars in My Crown" was Joel McCrea's favorite film. He's cast against type here, playing the parson, Josiah Gray, who settles with his wife (Ellen Drew) and her nephew John (Dean Stockwell) in a small town.

At first he's accepted by the community, who help him build his church. However, not everyone is crazy about him, including Daniel Harris Jr. (James Mitchell) who has taken over his late father's practice.

There are some dark forces at work, including an attempt to take land owned by a black farmer (Juano Hernandez). The violence against him escalates, but he stands firm.

What was interesting to me about this film was that citizens of the town become infected with typhoid. The first one hit is John. When Josiah attempts to continue to work in the community with his flock, the doctor accuses him of spreading the disease as more and more people become ill. The family become pariahs.

This isn't the exact scenario with COVID, though some of the sentiments are the same as people play the blame game and deal with suffering and death in their families.

"Stars in My Crown" is family entertainment, a story of the power of prayer and the need for courage in the face of difficulties. It's a lovely film, and while some may think Joel McCrea was miscast, I don't. Tough, charismatic, and plain speaking, he makes Josiah the kind of pastor any community would be proud to have.

'Stars in My Crown' is over 50 years old, yet in it's humor, it's message of brotherhood, and it's depiction of small-town Western America at a time when religion was the true center of everyone's lives, this film has rarely been equaled!

The story is told through the observations of young John Kenyon (sensitively portrayed by Quantum Leap's Dean Stockwell, with Daktari's Marshall Thompson voicing Kenyon as an adult), who lives with Soldier-turned-Minister Josiah Dozier Grey (Joel McCrea, in one of his finest performances) and his wife, Harriet (Ellen Drew). Grey is kind, warm, and totally sincere, with a penchance for telling funny stories with a Message, rather than being 'preachy'...in short, the kind of Parson who can win hearts, as well as souls!

Grey's congregation includes some of Hollywood's finest character actors, including Lewis Stone (Judge Hardy) as a crusty old doctor, James Mitchell (Days of Our Lives) as his doubting physician son, Alan Hale (The Adventures of Robin Hood) as a Civil War buddy with a large family (including 'Matt Dillon' James Arness!), Amanda Blake (who would costar with Arness in 'Gunsmoke') as the schoolmarm, Arthur Hunnicutt (The Big Sky) as a local character nicknamed 'Chloroform'(!), Oscar-winner Ed Begley as a rich mine owner, and, in a remarkable performance, Juano Hernandez as 'Famous Uncle Prill', a Black farmer who experiences with dignity the racism of the time.

Director Jacques Tourneur, best-known for his gothic classic 'Cat People', shows patience and restraint, allowing the story to build under its own steam, which gives the climaxes (a typhoid epidemic and a Klan near-lynching) an emotional wallop. McCrea's scene with the incensed Klan members foreshadows Gregory Peck's confrontation with the lynch party in 'To Kill a Mockingbird', and is truly unforgettable.

'Stars in My Crown' is a rich, wonderful film that your family will cherish. It is on the short list of my favorite films, and is one that you can enjoy for years to come!

Yes this was a good film mostly on the strength of its ensemble cast. You really can't do much better than Ed Begley, Jim Arness, Arthur Hunnicutt and the great Alan Hale (Sr). The leads McCrea, Drew, and Stockwell are good also.

I didn't see the script as being particularly realistic. Maybe a preacher could talk a clan mob out extreme violence? This would not have happened in a film like "To Kill a Mockingbird" which came along about ten years later, also involving a child narrating the film as an adult like "Stars in my Crown."

But I liked the film's dealing with their health crises and the conflict between medicine --such as it was in that time period-- and the idea that prayer had a factor in the healing process.