THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS FULL
However, the truth about his full identity takes a while to reveal. But Howitt proves a gentle presence in the community, with some medical knowledge and peacemaking skills. Howitt (Harry Carey), Matt is furious and tries to chase the outsider away. When Matt’s brittle, angry aunt and doddering uncle sell the parcel of land his mother lived on to a stranger named Mr. Shadowed by a sense of rootlessness and lack of family honor, Matt carries a chip on his shoulder, is fiercely protective of his mother's memory, and doesn’t feel as though he can wed the lovely Sammy (Betty Field) despite their obvious love for one another.
Set in the Ozarks, the film stars John Wayne as rugged Matt, raised by a family of moonshiners following the disappearance of his father and death of his mother. The narrator on this version was excellent.Henry Hathaway’s 1941 version of this oft-filmed adaptation of Harold Bell Wright’s 1907 novel is an early Technicolor production that truly looks sublime in this Blu-ray presentation. I loved the natural setting, the character development and the story of love, grief, hardship, and forgiveness. The characters are multi-faceted, unique, and flawed, the belief each one has in a creator God is evident throughout the book but not in an overly preachy way. He becomes an integral part of his new community, but that “something” is still looming. The basic plot is an older city gentleman moves to the Ozark mountains seeking to escape “something”, to relieve the burden he carries, and to make amends for the “something”. I love the writing style of this era with its long, detailed descriptions, painting pictures with words. It sold over a million copies when it was released in 1907 and I can see why. One of the things that jumpstarted Branson as a tourist destination was this novel, The Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright. This tale of life in the Ozarks continues to draw thousands of devotees to outdoor performances in Branson, Missouri, where visitors can also see the cabin where the real Old Matt and Aunt Mollie lived.ĭoes a book ever surprise you? This one certainly surprised me! I was planning a trip to Branson and reading up on the history of the area. Through the shepherd and those around him, Wright assembles here a gentle and utterly masterful commentary on strength and weakness, failure and success, tranquility and turmoil, and punishment and absolution. There he encounters Jim Lane, Grant Matthews, Sammy, Young Matt, and other residents of the village, and gradually learns to find a peace about the losses he has borne and has yet to bear. The shepherd, an elderly, mysterious, learned man, escapes the buzzing restlessness of the city to live in the backwoods neighborhood of Mutton Hollow in the Ozark hills. Refusing to yield to the oft-indulged temptation of painting for the reader the simple life of country innocents, Wright forthrightly shows the passions and the life-and-death struggles that go on even in the fairest of environments that man invades.
While Wright rejoices in the triumphs, grace, and dignity of his characters, he has not naively created a pastoral fantasyland where the pure at heart are spared life's struggles and pains. His Eden in the Ozarks has a bountiful share of life's enchantments, but is not without its serpents. In The Shepherd of the Hills, Wright spins a tale of universal truths across the years to the modern-day reader. Originally published in 1907, The Shepherd of the Hills is Harold Bell Wright's most famous work.
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