Angel City

This movie reflects (with dramatic license) the real thing, and still happened around the time the movie was made. In Zellwood, Florida, the same situation existed with the shanty homes and the company store,; where the migrants also cashed their paychecks. The only untrue part of this movie was the fence. The rest is true to life. You can go there now and see the shanty houses. Still occupied.

Made for TV movie about a dirt poor family who pack all they have into their beat up pick up truck and head out in search of something better. They find work as migrant farm workers picking crops. They also quickly learn that their employment comes with a cost. They are held as virtual prisoners on what could be described as a cross between a slave plantation and a concentration camp. The corrupt head honcho has also developed a system to keep his employees from fleeing.

Ralph Waite best known for playing yet another scratching to keep his family fed character John Walton from The Waltons is featured as the head of the down on their luck family. Mitch Ryan is cast as the sinister head of the migrant workers camp. Paul Winfield co-stars as another Angel City inmate and Elvis Presley buddy Red West as one of the camps Bulls. An interesting original thriller.

Ralph Waite is best known for his role as the father on The Waltons tv series. He plays a similar character here, a good decent man with simple values of love and family (watch the scene where his family and him pray over their dogs grave). He is a good decent salt of the earth type who unwittingly stumbles into hell! Mitchell Ryan plays the plantation owner who is a real wolf in sheep clothing. He offers him a job and then he and his family are held prisoner in a virtual concentration camp. Paul Winfield gives a fine performance as a fellow inmate and this was one of Jennifer Jason Leigh's first roles as well. I remember the scene where they were picking cotton in the fields and started singing a spiritual, it reminded me a lot of Gone With The Wind. Waite and his family are such wonderful people that you feel so angry and sad at their terrible prediciment. The ending of the film is what I enjoyed the most where they revolted against Ryan. I loved the scene where Waite beat the *$#@ out of him with that pistol and was going to shoot him! It was as if this good man was pushed to the brink and finally backed down. I hated Ryan's character so much that I wanted him to shoot the son of a bitch, after all he had raped his daughter and kidnapped his baby! He sort of reminded me of Jim Jones. Maybe this is a parable about the importance of family love and staying together against all odds, and about the importance of freedom and what would happen if it were suddenly taken from us. Angel City is a first class tv film and it has got a great and satisfying ending that leaves you feeling wonderful. When it comes down to it, what more could you ask of a film!

The man who wrote the book on which Angel City was based - Patrick Smith - was the PR director at a community college in Florida, and I worked for him for a year. To research the story, Pat went undercover in a camp and lived in the horrible conditions for himself, so he could tell the real story.

It's been so long since I've read the book and seen the movie, I don't remember how they compare, but Pat's book was based on things he really experienced, and I believe the movie was fairly true to that. People who feel the movie wasn't realistic might want to reconsider, or do some research for themselves.

I'm one of those people that enjoys Ralph Waite in everything. I am sure it has to do with the fact of watching him for so long on the Waltons. I also prefer older films to anything new, so I tend to really scour titles looking for things to watch that I have never seen. In comes this title, I read the description, saw the actors and said - sure let me give it a try.

Wow. You can kind of say it is a 70's version of Grapes of Wrath (somewhat). The story line is as old as time and if you know about migrant workers you have a little background on what can happen. The acting is believable....it truly is, and at a couple points in the film you actually are on the edge of your seat - and will really get you thinking.

Hard to write something really descriptive because I don't want to give anything away - since EVERY scene in the movie grabs you and is important.

Grab the popcorn, a blanket and tell everyone to leave you alone one evening and watch it!