Amber Waves

I agree with all the other reviewers in that this is quite a well made movie, however you don't have watch too closely to see that actually not a lot of wheat gets cut by these custom cutters. In scenes with the combines, they spend most of their time just driving aimlessly around an already cut field in the dark or even worse making it appear like they are cutting wheat by in fact just driving the machine through some scrub grass. Some minimal stock footage was used of combines in wheat but it amounts to seconds of the film.

Its sad that the movie could not have had the chance to get some decent shots of the machines doing the job.

This is the only major factual fault in what really is a well produced, directed and acted TV movie.

This is an excellent television movie with much to say that was made during the peak of the made-for-TV era. It's the story of a widower (Dennis Weaver) and his kids who travel around the farm belt hiring out as professional wheat harvesters. Kurt Russell signs on reluctantly to help. Weaver's performance is one of his best and the rest of the cast shines as well. Top notch writing, directing, photography and score. I saw this film during a very dark time in my life and it inspired me to press on and make changes. I recommend it to anyone in need of inspiration. They don't make these kind of intelligent, sensitive and involving films for television often anymore. But these are exactly the kind of films we need today.

I saw this made-for-TV film when it aired 38 years ago. I recall it being much better than anticipated with cinematography featuring stunning landscapes and competent dramatic performances.

Everything about this movie is "classic," as far as custom combining movies go. About the only thing wrong with it is maybe too much licentiousness. Weaver and the others do excellent acting. Custom combining is an American tradition since World War II. In the late '70s and early '80s, there were a lot of combining crews, as combines were getting bigger and more comfortable to operate, yet they weren't as modern as today's combines. And a lot of those combines were Canadian-built Massey-Ferguson 760s. This was an ABC TV movie. It was filmed in Canada, though the movie is supposed to occur in the U.S.A. Weaver's character almost kills himself and loses a combine, but the harvest must go on.

Amber Waves is a rarely-seen TV movie about wheat harvesters in the American midwest. As an Englishman, I found much of the film interesting purely because it is about a way of life totally unfamiliar to me. The landscapes are very nicely photographed, and the leading performances from Dennis Weaver and Kurt Russell are pretty engaging.

The story is about a grizzled old harvester named Bud Burkhardt (Weaver) who learns that he is dying from lung cancer. His attitudes to life are simple: work hard, be reliable and fight for your corner when you have to. However, he finds himself in a peculiar position, since he needs an operation desperately if he is to have any hope of survival, yet he doesn't have the time to be recuperating on a hospital bed when there's a harvest to be gathered. Should he put his life first, or his responsibility to deliver the crop? He hires an extra harvester in the shape of a young, failed magazine model (Russell) who initially hates hard labour, but soon comes to realise that the responsibility and drive of honest hard work is good for the soul.

There's nothing remarkable about the plot, which has elements of disease-of-the-week cliches and lots of long, loving sequences showing men driving around fields in combine harvesters. However, the engaging performances and the lovely photgraphy keep you interested. The film isn't as moving as I thought it might be (given the potentially tear-jerking storyline). There's one moving scene where Weaver phones his long estranged son and begs him to come home, but other than that the opportunities for powerful emotional scenes are generally missed.

On the whole, Amber Waves is a run-of-the-mill TV movie which has some nice touches and agreeable, interesting moments but doesn't quite hit the emotional level that it seems to be aiming for.