Stars in my Crown (1950)
If you don’t like the hymn “Stars In My Crown”, you’re not going to like the 1950 movie. It’s repeated so many times, through choir singing and instrumentals during different scenes, I had it stuck in my head for several weeks after I watched this movie. Joel McCrea stars as a preacher in a small, western town with an unusual approach, and in addition to the incessant music, there’s an overriding religious tone to the movie.
I’m not the biggest fan of Joel’s, so I was watching it for Dean Stockwell and Juano Hernandez, who made a splash the year before and became a popular supporting actor throughout the 1950s. Dean plays an orphan boy taken in by Joel and his wife, and Juano is a recently freed slave—this movie is a period piece—proud of his land and property. There are quite a few people in town who don’t want Juano to stick around, and as they don white sheets, they harass him to try and get him to either sell his land or leave town penniless. Joel believes he can get through to everyone, and he shows Dean a good example by striving to interfere with words rather than violence.
If you think I might be making this movie sound better than it is, you probably won’t like it. I wasn’t too happy with it, since it felt a bit too Hallmark-esque to be taken seriously. I’m sure Juano was glad to have so much screen time and to be one of the first actors to be given non-offensive roles in old Hollywood, but I’m also sure he knew firsthand how unrealistic the script was. If you like Joel McCrea and want to see his version of Atticus Finch, you can give it a shot.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Cinema Central" for posting!
More Lewis Stone movies here!
I’m not the biggest fan of Joel’s, so I was watching it for Dean Stockwell and Juano Hernandez, who made a splash the year before and became a popular supporting actor throughout the 1950s. Dean plays an orphan boy taken in by Joel and his wife, and Juano is a recently freed slave—this movie is a period piece—proud of his land and property. There are quite a few people in town who don’t want Juano to stick around, and as they don white sheets, they harass him to try and get him to either sell his land or leave town penniless. Joel believes he can get through to everyone, and he shows Dean a good example by striving to interfere with words rather than violence.
If you think I might be making this movie sound better than it is, you probably won’t like it. I wasn’t too happy with it, since it felt a bit too Hallmark-esque to be taken seriously. I’m sure Juano was glad to have so much screen time and to be one of the first actors to be given non-offensive roles in old Hollywood, but I’m also sure he knew firsthand how unrealistic the script was. If you like Joel McCrea and want to see his version of Atticus Finch, you can give it a shot.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Cinema Central" for posting!
More Lewis Stone movies here!