Reviews of Friendly Persuasion & Shenandoah

In this blog I will be talking about not only current cinema but classics as well, and we all know that time can create barriers between a contemporary audience and the worthy labors of producers, directors and screen writers long departed from the land of the living.  I wish to keep as many of these old flames alive and burning as time and space will permit.  Many of you reading had not been born when the two following gems were released.  I would be most pleased if you discovered them.

FRIENDLY PERSUASION

(2 hrs & 18 min, color, 1956)

SHENANDOAH

(1 hr & 46 min, color, 1965)

Neutrality in a war zone becomes a serious moral and ethical issue for a peace-loving family in each of these gems.  Though made a decade apart and by different people and released by different distributors, both of them face into the subject with unabashed confidence, honesty and pluck.  Both become something other than preachy parables.  Each one places us inside the comfort zone of a farming family during the American Civil War, people who live off the fat of the land and do not consider the armed conflict going on around them to be of any direct concern to them.  Theirs is not the white flag of surrender, rather the plain mantle of preferred non-participation, though for different reasons.

“Friendly Persuasion” is based upon a novel by Jessamyn West.  It tells a good-humored, amiable story of a Quaker family residing in Indiana in the early days of that War.  Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire are the parents of three children, one of whom is a teenage boy (Anthony Perkins in his screen debut) who must choose either to adhere to his elders’ teaching about non-violence or lend his manhood to the defense of his community against the encroaching Rebs.  There is much more to the picture, however, than his struggle of conscience.  Most of it captures the rhythm of the family’s daily lives and their incessant struggle to match their idealistic faith practice with their erratic natures and quirks of character.  That struggle engenders some heartwarming and thoroughly entertaining moments of comedy, though in a couple of places it lapses a mite too far into cartoon farce.  But we have the brilliant Director William Wyler to keep things on a steady course despite the digressions.

Cooper plays against type as a man of peace, and McGuire is choice casting for a matriarch who must officiate over the souls as well as the bodily care of her offspring and spouse.  Not the least of the film’s charms are the thee’s and thou’s and thy’s that are a staple of these beautiful peoples’ conversation.  By the time the War reaches their front yard in the film’s third act, you come to care exceedingly about their welfare and survival.  Through it all we are urged to think about the gap between the perfection God allegedly expects of us and that which we expect of ourselves.    

“Shenandoah” is an original screenplay by James Lee Barrett, the film directed with driving energy and sensitivity by Andrew V. McGlaglen.  James Stewart is a patriarch, whose northern Virginia farm sits astride the North and the South, but his refusal to get involved in the combat is based upon apolitical principle and rugged individualism, not any religious fervor.  He is, in fact, almost an agnostic but sticks to the religious education of his six sons and one daughter out of his promise to his deceased wife to do so.  Against overweening pressure from his neighbors, the Confederacy, his oldest boys and his pastor, he stands his ground as a non-combatant, reasoning that since he owns no slaves the War does not involve him or his.  He is content to sit it out and go on about his business, until the inevitable  circumstances you just know are going to occur jerk him out of his malaise.

Quite a moving tale emerges from his predicament.  And you can count on Stewart to wrap himself around your heart.  This is one of his most distinguished pieces of work, and he dominates just about every scene, even if his character is somewhat snobbish and snappish and not the most likeable individual.  There are several other notable players in the drama, but he is so strong a figure that he overshadows them all.  The movie is a mixture of tender mercy, heartbreak and the joys of reconciliation.

Neither film attempts in any fashion to provide a pat answer or resolution to the argument posed.  We simply watch, as well crafted characters come to life, take on authentic flesh and blood and become slowly entangled in the consequences of the choices they make.  Both films celebrate family values without being patronizing but with unsparing affection and intelligence.  And either or both would open up rich discussion about when to take up arms and when to seek other solutions – no measly question for the early days of the 21^st century.   My advice: Do not choose between the two.  See them both.