Touches You

Great Film overall

Best movie of this year hands down!

The acting in this movie is really good.

Stranger Daniel Howitt (Harry Carey) arrives in an Ozarks mountain community and has a positive affect on those around him, including Matt Matthews (John Wayne), who is bent on killing his father who abandoned his mother when he was a baby. John Wayne's first color film is more of a starring vehicle for Harry Carey, despite the billing. Wayne gives a very nice performance. Carey is excellent and has a commanding presence throughout the film. He just owns every scene he's in, even when he's not saying anything. Pretty Betty Field is all kinds of adorable and likable as the girl in love with Wayne. The supporting cast is terrific. Beulah Bondi is great as Wayne's evil aunt. You can't really have a hillbilly movie without Marjorie Main, so she's here. It also wouldn't be a proper John Wayne movie without Ward Bond and John Qualen, so they're here too.There were quite a few hillbilly movies in the '30s and '40s. Some outright made fun or were judgmental and some were just that way incidentally. This is one of the rare ones that doesn't look down on the Ozarks people, although they do make use of stereotypes. It's a very pleasant movie, slow and soft throughout most of its running time. The climax leaves a little to be desired and the central twist you'll see coming immediately but it's still a good movie worth checking out, especially if you're a fan of the actors involved.

I believe that the final climatic scenes music is the base notes for Jaws! The movie was shot in one of the most picturesque locations ever seen on film and it was shot just an hour away from Mr. Wayne's home in Balboa Island (at least his boat was docked there later on in his life). I was particularly struck by the dark satanic overtures and the Ozark verbiage which was great to listen too throughout the film, very down to earth with simple rules to follow in life. In general the storyline never wavered and the simple yet complex characters of the Master's family (kinfolk) was as real as any modern day dysfunctional family "as there ever was!" Aloha, Bobby Z

THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS was made into a silent film in 1919. Harold Bell Wright, the author of the story, was a popular novelist of the day, and a number of his stories were turned into films. He usually concentrated on stories regarding people who lived in mountainous regions (one hesitates to call them hillbillies as they are usually shown to be non-stereotypes). As was mentioned in another of the comments here, Wright also wrote the story that was the basis for the Henry Fonda / Fred MacMurray film THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.John Wayne is not the central figure of this film, although considered the star nowadays. In reality this film should be considered one of the best in the career of Harry Carey Sr. A leading movie cowboy actor in the silent period and early sound years, Carey had slowly moved into character parts after 1933. Possibly his best recalled non-western role is the Vice President of the United States in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. As a Western star, he proved to be Wayne's own model of the perfect western film actor. In fact, in the shooting of John Ford's THE SEARCHERS, Wayne purposely honored Carey by copying a mannerism he had (holding his arm with his hand in a particular position) in Wayne's last visible moment in that film.In the movie Wayne is a member of a family centered around James Barton and Beulah Bondi (Wayne's blood aunt), and his cousin Marc Lawrence. Bondi has never forgiven Wayne's father for abandoning the family, and indirectly causing the death of her sister. She has instilled in Wayne a hatred of the father. At the same time, the death of the sister is tied to the other tragedy of the family - that Lawrence is a mute. He has been unable to speak since he survived the fire that killed his aunt (Wayne' mother). The only one who occasionally stands up against Bondi's vicious hatred is Barton, but he admits in his best scene in the film that he really lacks the nerve to openly condemn her behavior.This is a great film for character actors. Besides Barton, Bondi, and Lawrence, please take note of Marjorie Main in one of her most prescient performances. She is blind, and she requires expensive surgery to have a chance for the restoration of her sight. At a critical moment Carey will lend her the money for that surgery. When her eyesight is restored everyone in the community rejoices, until Main recognizes somebody in the crowd she did not expect to ever see again. Her comment when she reveals this person's identity, and realizes the tragedy she may have unwittingly caused, is devastating in it's simplicity and ironic truth.Carey is a newly arrived rancher in the area, who (as witness his assistance to Main) gets involved trying to do good for his neighbors. And all usually benefit. Yet he too has his secrets, and they nearly rip him and several others apart.THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS is a movie about redemption and forgiveness, and it's cast shows the difficulties faced by common people when presented with these seemingly simple acts of behavior. All of the stars of the movie gave first rate performances in it, and for Wayne it was the first big follow-up to his overnight success in STAGECOACH. But the best performance remains Carey's, who in the end has to commit an act of violence in order to try to save his last chance for acceptance from those who count the most.

**possible spoilers**Although it has John Wayne in the cast it is not really a western. It is more a study of the Ozarks and the people who live there. Although some scenes are filmed in the studio you do get a feeling of the landscape of the area and the kind of people it produces; sturdy, suspicious, superstitious, kindly, ignorant and wise. Much like any isolated community around the world. The film is surprisingly good. The acting is solid all round. John Wayne makes a good attempt at the Young Matt role, bringing out well the confusion and conflicts in his mind. Beulah Bondi is riveting as the bitter Aunt Mollie. Harry Carey is good as ever. Betty Field as Sammy Lane is excellent and it is her who holds the film together. It is through her eyes we mainly see things. She is also quite sexy in her tight jeans and short tops. Some of the scenes are exceptional; when Daniel Howitt is cashing a never seen before cheque, when Granny Becky has her eyes uncovered after an operation, when Young Matt talks about how love is so complicated, when Daniel Howitt takes possession of the old house in Moaning Meadow, when Aunt Mollie cremates her dead son and herself, when Pete the mute brother is discovered in a stream of light pouring through a window trying to catch dust motes. All directed without sentimentality but with real feeling.It is one of those films which did not promise much from the TV listings but actually delivers much more than one expects.