All the Way Home

Set in the turn of the century, this is a wonderful period piece. Micheal Kearney as Rufus, the couples little boy is sweet and realistic. His father, Jay Follet played by Robert Preston is a top- notch, Oscar caliber performance. His interaction and love for his family is the most realistic that I have ever seen in a movie. Jean Simmons is great, too, her character is heartbreaking and moving. If you get a chance to see this, do it. I don't want to give away the story, but the tragedy she has to deal with will make you think about your loved ones and what it would be like if they were taken away suddenly. A real tear-jerker but a beautiful film.

Why didn't someone tell me to bring 5 boxes of hankies for this one? I just watched (or rather re-watched after some 30 years) All The Way Home, (1963), based on the James Agee play "A Death In the Family". This story has seen other versions, but this one is by far the most outstanding.

Robert Preston was in his element as a loving husband and father of a young son, played endearingly by Michael Kearney. Jean Simmons gives yet another incredible performance as the wife, and Aline MacMahon shines as Aunt Hannah. She was an old woman in 1963, but still, how that woman could act. She was great in the 1930's, she was great in the 1960's. She's just great! It was also neat to see John Cullum the musical star in an early role in a non-musical. He was memorable as the brother who comes to tell the bad news, and not being able to face the wife, bursts into tears and hugs Aunt Hannah instead, and this is how the wife learns that her husband has died. An effective moment, not maudlin at all, but very natural. Do we always learn about the death of a relative in an ideal way? Not at all. I learned about the death of my mother after coming home from the grocery store, my arms filled with packages. It was like someone had kicked me in the stomach and the groceries suddenly felt like dead weight.

This film's actions take place in America during the World War One era, a time period shamelessly neglected by today's filmmakers. I guess they don't like its outright sentimentality, they'd rather foist gore and sex on us instead.

The film's credits are fantastic for the silent film fan, because the credits roll and are interspersed with shots of the young son and the father in the theater laughing at a Charlie Chaplin movie (sorry, Charlie fans, I didn't recognize which one it was but it had Charlie trying to get through a door in which a fat man's rear end was stuck). The "audience" is laughing like mad. It was eerily reminiscent of the last scene in the silent classic The Crowd (1928), only this film begins with such a scene. You hear a tinny piano in the background and it puts you immediately in the correct frame of mind to watch such a picture.

You are lulled into thinking you will be watching a simple tale of an early 20th century American family, but slowly you find yourself getting deeper and deeper into pathos and drama, a story filled with universal truths which are often hard for us to bear. A really wonderful film. It needs to be out on video or DVD.

I caught this movie on TV many years ago and was so touched by it I wish it was available on DVD but sadly it seems to be one of those movies that disappears into the ether. Strangely enough the people who make the decisions as to what to program on broadcast and cable and those who market DVDs etc. are in lockstep with one another, offering the big hits and so called "classics" as well as truckloads of trash from the last quarter century. This film is an adaptation of James Agee's "A Death in the Family" and is beautifully filmed and acted and it's one of those films that seems somehow better on the home screen because of it's intimacy. If you think as highly of Robert Preston as I do you must see his performance in this movie.

Like some of the other commentators, I saw this movie when I was young -- perhaps 11 or 12. I was babysitting the boys next door in 1964, and I think it was on the old NBC Saturday Night at the Movies back in the 1960s. A few years later, I read James Agee's "A Death in the Family" and recognized it as the original source. But years, then decades, went by before I saw the film again.

I remember being entranced by the opening scenes, where I see a father taking his young son into a saloon ... doing the Charlie Chaplin dance ... then going home together. Years later (for me) I had buddies who rented rooms on Forest Street in Knoxville while they attended UT. They knew nothing of the book, nor how families there once lay down on cotton comforters on the grasse of the backside lawns to gaze at the stars. Heck, back in the late 1970s, I could even find in Knoxville the railroad yard and roundhouse mentioned in the book. Probably not now.

It's a wistful movie. Some photography and audio was a little too artful ... a departure from the main scenes. But, like everyone else, I cherished the scenes where Rufus spends time with his Aunt -- especially when he dons that outrageous cap.

You can learn things from movies. For me, an enduring lesson was gained when Robert Preston uses his hands to warm the sheets before his wife gets into bed. I did this for years on cold winter nights when I was a married man for 25 years ... and discovered, after divorce, how such a small act is still appreciated by others.

I also feel fortunate to have met Robert Preston in -- of all places -- the Richmond VA airport somewhere around 1980. Not your normal venue. But we were both trapped by planes diverted by a monster storm. We shared several drinks, he told hilarious stories -- but I stopped him (clearly) when I mentioned that All the Way Home was my favorite movie in which he was featured. "What? Not Music Man?" He feigned to be indignant ... but, perhaps because so few people even knew about this movie, or ever mentioned it to him, he realized I was sincere. He spoke of how much he enjoyed the story, made a few untoward comments about the director and Jean Simmons ... but he clearly liked the role he'd played. He was a very warm and charming and gracious man.

All the Way Home is a terrific movie ... so rare these days to see a film focused on family, love, and the ways youngsters see the world.

40 years have gone by since I saw "All The Way Home", the movie. When the World premier debut of this film occurred in Knoxville, TN at the Tennesse Theatre, I was fortunate to be included with my parents to meet Robert Preston at Knoxville's McGee Tyson Airport and travel with him to downtown Knoxville's Tennessee Theatre. Robert Preston played the part of Jay Follet, who in real life was Jim Agee, my father's uncle. I saw the Tad Mosel adaptation of Agee's "A Death in the Family", play "All the WAY Home" at the University of Tennessee' Clarence Brown Theatre last night and that made me long for a chance to see the Robert Preston version again.

I want to thank all those who have added these wonderful comments in the IMDb.

sincerely, john a