Dreadfully Boring

Captivating movie !

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie had every emotion in it. It has everything. I will put it in my top 5 movies. It has slipped past four of my all-time favorites, Casablanca, Shane, The Searchers, and is bigger than Gone With The Wind. It has strength of character, it has humor, it has honor, and it has deep sadness. It will play the harp of your soul and will leave not a note untouched........and it has, in the end, ........faith...to go on. It is undefeated.

Released in 1965 and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, "Shenandoah" is a Civil War drama/western starring James Stewart as a curmudgeonly widower in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, trying to keep his sons out of the war because (1.) his big farm needs them since they have no slaves and don't believe in slavery, and (2.) he feels the war isn't his concern; at least, not until his youngest boy (Phillip Alford) is captured by the Yanks. Glenn Corbett and Patrick Wayne are on hand as his other sons while Rosemary Forsyth and Katharine Ross play his daughter and daughter-in-law respectively. The former is romanced by a Confederate soldier, played by Doug McClure. Mel Gibson & Roland Emmerich took the basic plot of "Shenandoah" to forge 2000's "The Patriot," which is okay because they changed more than enough to make it stand on its own. The only problem I have with "Shenandoah" is that it substitutes California & Oregon for Virginia and you can always discern the difference when the movie shows the decidedly coniferous hills in the background. Other than that, they do a pretty good job of making the locations look like the Shenandoah Valley.The movie was released during the Centennial of the war's end. It doesn't focus on conventional Civil War-type battles, but is dramatically-driven within the war's context and effectively so. Stewart easily carries the movie. Unfortunately, there are some dubious or eye-rolling elements, like the kid wearing a Confederate cap he finds and his dad & brothers not objecting to the folly of this with Yanks operating 5-12 miles away. There are other obvious examples, but the film accomplishes what it sets out to do: It entertainingly brings the viewer into the midst of the conflict and the inherent challenges thereof. But the movie will likely drive erudite sticklers nuts. The film runs 105 minutes. GRADE: B

Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, and written by James Lee Barrett, this Civil War film stars James Stewart as the father of six sons and one daughter he'd raised solo for the past 16 years since his wife died giving birth to their youngest son.The war is raging and though Stewart's family lives in Shenandoah, Virginia, he wishes not to get involved. Though not really a pacifist, Stewart's character thinks that his family has worked hard, by themselves without any slaves, to earn what they've got, so why should they fight someone else's battle. As the war gets closer to their farm, they are drawn unavoidable into the conflict when his youngest son is mistaken for a "Johnny Reb" (Southern) soldier and taken prisoner by the Union Army.Though the movie succeeds on some levels, it fails to make the emotional impact it was striving for such that leaves one with a sense of what it could have been, instead of what it is. It was nominated for a Best Sound Oscar and marks the film debut of Katharine Ross.Charlie Anderson (Stewart) has six sons including Jacob (Glenn Corbett), James (Patrick Wayne), who is married to Ann (Ross), and one daughter Jennie (Rosemary Forsyth), his eldest who is as good a shot, rider, and just as tough as his sons. His youngest son, whom he calls Boy (Phillip Alford), is sixteen, which marks the number of years since his wife died giving birth to him. Though the Civil War, and particularly the Southern Army, beckons, the self made farmer refuses to get involved. Denver Pyle plays the community pastor. A lieutenant in the army, Sam (Doug McClure), courts and eventually marries Jennie. James & Ann have a daughter, they name Martha after Charlie's long deceased wife. Paul Fix plays the doctor.The Andersons successfully defend their horses from being acquired by the Southerners, but Boy gets mistaken for a soldier in the South's army by an ambushed Union patrol, which then takes him hostage. Anderson then leads the rest of his family on a quest to find his son, leaving James and Ann at home to care for his granddaughter. Tragically, the Andersons suffer casualties much like the rest of the families during the "war between the states".George Kennedy plays a Union colonel he meets on the journey; Strother Martin plays a Union train engineer; James Best plays a rebel soldier who befriends Boy; Harry Carey Jr. plays another rebel soldier; Kevin Hagen plays a rebel deserter.

Jimmy Stewart plays a dumb rancher who tries to find his lost son (named 'Boy').After his half-wit load puts on a confederate cap, wanders around in the soldier-filled woods, and expectedly gets conscripted, Stewart must search for the little numbskull, though the better deal would be to let the Yankees have him.It soon becomes evident that 'Boy' got his stupidity from Stewart. Jimbo takes four of his sons with him and leaves only one to watch the considerably large homestead along with his wife and infant.Other goofy elements include Stewart preparing a 'honeymoon suite' for his daughter and her idiot husband while her father and four brothers sit quietly in the next room.Ultimately silly Civil War film; Kevin Hagan ('Doc Baker' on "Little House on the Prairie") is terrifying as a murdering thief.