The Shepherd of the Hills (1941)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Henry Hathaway

Writers:

Stuart Anthony (writer)
Grover Jones (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

18 July 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Fury in the wild Ozarks! Hatred unleashed on the "Trail of the Lonsome Pine"!

Plot:

Young Matt Masters, an Ozark Mountains moonshiner, hates the father he has never seen, who apparently deserted Matt's mother and left her to die...

Plot Keywords:

Remake | Based On Novel

Cast

John Wayne	...	Young Matt
Betty Field	...	Sammy Lane
Harry Carey	...	Daniel Howitt
Beulah Bondi	...	Aunt Mollie
James Barton	...	Old Matt
Samuel S. Hinds	...	Andy Beeler
Marjorie Main	...	Granny Becky
Ward Bond	...	Wash Gibbs
Marc Lawrence	...	Pete
John Qualen	...	Coot Royal
Fuzzy Knight	...	Mr. Palestrom
Tom Fadden	...	Jim Lane
Olin Howland	...	Corky
Dorothy Adams	...	Elvy Royal
Virita Campbell	...	Baby
Fern Emmett	...	Mrs. Palestrom
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert Shayne
Hank Bell	...	Man with mustache (uncredited)
Henry Brandon	...	Bald Knobber (uncredited)
Jim Corey	...	Bald Knobber (uncredited)
William Haade	...	Bald Knobber (uncredited)
John Harmon	...	Charles, the deputy (uncredited)
Selmer Jackson	...	Doctor (uncredited)
Carl Knowles	...	Revenuer (uncredited)
Bob Kortman	...	Bald Knobber (uncredited)
Charles Middleton	...	Blacksmith (uncredited)

Directed by
Henry Hathaway

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Stuart Anthony		writer
Grover Jones		writer
Harold Bell Wright		story (novel)

Produced by
Jack Moss	....	producer

Original Music by
Gerard Carbonara

Non-Original Music by
Johannes Brahms		(from "Wiegenlied")

Cinematography by
W. Howard Greene
Charles Lang		(as Charles Lang Jr.)

Film Editing by
Ellsworth Hoagland

Art Direction by
Roland Anderson
Hans Dreier

Art Department
Henri Jaffa	....	associate color art director: Technicolor
Natalie Kalmus	....	color art director: Technicolor

Sound Department
John Cope	....	sound recordist
Harold Lewis	....	sound recordist

Production Companies

• Paramount Pictures

Distributors

• Paramount Pictures (1941) (USA) (theatrical)
• Paramount Pictures (1955) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• MCA/Universal Pictures (1958) (USA) (TV)
• Critics' Choice Video (198?) (USA) (VHS)
• Universal Home Video (1997) (USA) (VHS)
• Universal Studios Home Video (199?) (USA) (DVD)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #7339)

Filming Locations:

Big Bear Lake, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

John Wayne's first film in Technicolor.

Goofs:

Continuity: About 13 minutes before the end of the movie, when Young Matt leaves the house where Old Matt, Aunt Mollie and Sammy are tending to Pete after Pete was shot, Sammy follows, shutting and latching the door behind her. A few minutes later when Old Matt leaves, the door is standing wide open.

Movie Connections:

Remade as The Shepherd of the Hills (1964)

The Gorgeous Technicolor Ozarks

The Henry Hathaway-directed 1941 Shepherd Of the Hills is worth seeing if for nothing else its color, which is as glorious and gorgeous as one will find in a film. Each outdoor shot is like a landscape painting. Along with Gone With the Wind and The Four Feathers, this is the finest use of color I have seen in a movie, and it should be used as a textbook on how to shoot a film in color. Otherwise, the picture is just a pleasing and old-fashioned revenge tale, adapted from a now forgotten novel, and set in the Ozark Mountains at about the turn of the twentieth century. It is nicely written in the idiom of the mountain folk, and features John Wayne in an early, rare non-western role, which he handles proficiently. Betty Field is his spunky love interest in what would now be an Amy Madigan part. Miss Field is lovely in a non-conventional way; she shines as never before or since. The combination of her quiet, almost mousy beauty in an otherwise talky, assertive role is fascinating to watch. Also on hand are Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, Marc Lawrence, who gives an amazing performance, and Harry Carey, whose pleasantness and plainness I find tiring, though I suppose he's well-cast. There's a ritualistic feeling to the film, with its clearly defined notions of good and evil, the almost formally informal dialect the characters use, the leisurely, strolling pace by which the story unfolds, all contribute to its pastoral quality. The chief problem is that there's no suspense. One senses early on how the thing is going to end, and the characters behave as one would expect.