Stars in My Crown
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Written by Margaret Fitts from a novel written and adapted for the screen by Joe David Brown
1950/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] I don’t believe in anti-heroes. Duke Wayne played a mean guy but never an anti-hero. — Joel McCrea[/box]
This is a nice family film about a preacher in a small Southern town. Kind of against type for director Tourneur but solid.
The story is narrated by a grownup John Kenyon looking back on his childhood. Josiah Grey (Joel McCrea) is the town’s beloved preacher. His family consists of his wife Harriet (Ellen Drew) and her orphan nephew John (Dean Stockwell), whom they have adopted. John enjoys a fairly idyllic childhood consisting of school, church, and backwoods adventures with Uncle Famous Phil (Juano Hernandez), an elderly black man who seems to have entertained generations of white children.
As the story begins, a vein of ore has been found to extend under Uncle Phil’s property. He is under serious pressure from Lon Backett (Ed Begley) to sell. Uncle Phil refuses to give up his home.
The rest of the story consists of incidents from John’s childhood including a romance between the schoolteacher and the local atheist doctor, a typhoid epidemic and an attack of the local KKK on Uncle Phil’s house. Josiah handles these situations with leadership and wisdom. With Alan Hale and Lewis Stone as townfolk.
My love for Joel McCrea is well known and I was disposed to like this picture. The story could be really corny but is so heart-felt and well-done that I had a tear in my eye and was humming the hymn that gave the film its title by the end. Nothing amazing but worth seeing if you like this kind of thing.
Trailer
