Southern Mountaineers Filmography
This is a listing of known films about mountaineers. The W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection owns only a few of the following. They are found within the Jerry Wayne Williamson Papers (viewable only via Internet Explorer 5.0+).
Compiled by J.W. Williamson
Films from 1904 - 1995
1904 THE MOONSHINER / BIOGRAPH Directed by WALLACE MCCUTCHEON Comments: The earliest known treatment of mtn people by the movies, filmed in New Jersey. The last scene, "The Law Vindicated," features--ironically--the shooting of the law in the back by the moonshiner's wife. A big hit in the early nickelodeon trade.
1905 A KENTUCKY FEUD / BIOGRAPH Directed by WALLACE MCCUTCHEON Comments: The first known treatment on film of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, though this story is made of whole cloth, featuring a "Jim" Hatfield and a "Sally" McCoy. Violence is set in motion when little Buddy McCoy shoots the Hatfield matriarch in revenge for a thrashing he has received for stealing Hatfield apples.
1907 DANIEL BOONE: OR, PIONEER DAYS IN AMERICA / EDISON Comments: The earliest known coonskin-capper. The plot featured many Indian fights. The native-Americans ("savages") abduct Boone's daughters and at one point have Boone tied to a stake, torturing him. He is rescued by his faithful horse and kills the Indian chief.
1908 THE MOONSHINER'S DAUGHTER / KALEM Comments: The 1st movie to introduce a love interest between the revenue agent and the moonshiner's daughter. Set in north Ga., the destruction of distillery equipment at the courthouse in Atlanta supposedly based on eye-witness account. The revenue agent is killed at the end and the moonshiners are not brought to justice, a fairly unique plot innovation.
1908 THE MOUNTAINEERS / LUBIN Comments: A movie photographer happens to capture evidence of a crime--a mountaineer robbing, murdering, and tossing a victim off a precipice. Includes moonshiners and a revenue agent and unconvincing special effects: "The dummy used in the fall is the worst stuffed affair even shown on a screen."
1908 A MOUNTAIN FEUD / SELIG Comments: Plot not found, but apparently a "typical feud story" set in "natural surroundings."
1908 THE JAMES BOYS IN MISSOURI / ESSANAY Produced by O T CRAWFORD Comments: The 1st known movie about Jesse James, the highlands bandit. Featured "some excellent work by genuine cowboys who know how to ride." When O T Crawford died in1917, this film was remembered as having had considerable success. Based on a popular stage play.
1908 IN THE NICK OF TIME / SELIG Comments: The first known two-men-and-a-woman plot type (in which at least one of the three is "mountain" in some decisive sense). Bessie Barton, a young girl of the Ky mtns, is loved and courted by Robert Clayton, a wealthy young man from the Bluegrass. Jack Martin, a mtneer, is also in love with Bessie and resents Clayton. Martin attempts to kill Clayton, and Bessie is rejected by Bluegrass society. Features a set with a chasm and a drawbridge and a thrilling conclusion.
1908 THE ORPHAN, OR, A MOUNTAIN ROMANCE / VITAGRAPH Comments: Another romantic triangle movie, this one featuring two women and a man. The orphan of the title is a girl "reared in the mtns, [who] is wild and ungovernable, and rebels against her protector," yet wins his hand in the end.
1908 THE MINER'S DAUGHTER / VITAGRAPH Comments: A coal miner's daughter first marries a humble miner, then is wooed and taken away by a wealthy New Yorker. The humble miner reclaims his wife with decisive physicality and takes her back home to the hills, "and the recent desolate home is once more filled with happiness."
1908 THE FEUD AND THE TURKEY: A ROMANCE OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS / BIOGRAPH Directed by D W GRIFFITH Comments: An ancient struggle between the rather aristocratic Wilkinsons and the Caulfields. A Romeo/Juliet love develops between a son and a daughter of the warring clans, and the young lovers are disowned. Reconciliation effected at Christmas time over a stolen turkey and two kindly though comic black servants.
1908 THE MOUNTAINEER'S REVENGE / LUBIN Comments: A young mtn wife proves unfaithful to her husband by running off with a city man in his auto. The mtn husband gets revenge by stealing the motorist's daughter and making him realize his great crime. The mtn man gets his wife back, and the city man is better for his comeuppance.
1908 THE MOLLY MAGUIRES, OR, LABOR WARS IN THE COAL MINES / KALEM Comments: A decidedly anti-union treatment of the coal- mining unionization struggles of the 1870s in Pennsylvania. In this version, the secret "Molly Maguires" "used their power over the simple miner folks for their own selfish ends."
1909 A DREAM OF WEALTH / VITAGRAPH Comments: In 1849, a Ky mtneer strikes out for the Calif gold rush with his family, encountering great adversity on the way. The only survivor of the trek is the mtneer's little daughter, who is discovered by Indians and rescued. Fifteen years later, as the girl is about to be married, she recognizes an aged Indian--who is being roughed up by whites--as the Indian who rescued her on the desert, and she becomes the means of his rescue in return.
1909 MAID OF THE MOUNTAINS / ESSANAY Comments: Revenue officers search for an illicit still, which is located in a cave. The deputy sent to investigate instead falls in love with the moonshiner's daughter. The deputy must eventually decide between love and duty, and he tears off his badge and throws it away rather than arrest his girlfriend's father.
1909 THE MOUNTAINEER'S HONOR / BIOGRAPH Directed by D W GRIFFITH Starring: MARY PICKFORD, JAMES KIRKWOOD, KATE BRUCE Comments: Story of a mtn girl (Pickford), wronged and abandoned by a valley man. The girl's brother kills the valley man, is himself caught, and is about to be hanged for murder when his mother kills him with a single shot, rather than see the family dishonored.
1909 THE SINS OF THE FATHERS / VITAGRAPH Comments: A story of Tenn feudists. A son of one family goes away to the city, gets educated, comes back home as a teacher (an educational missionary), falls for the daughter of the rival family, is forced into a fight by a bully member of the rival family (who happens to be the sweetheart's brother and the schoolteacher's own student), is pursued so that he has to flee out of the mtns, but he takes his girlfriend with him for a happy ending.
1909 THE LAW OF THE MOUNTAINS / KALEM Comments: A mtn man, for the sake of his sick child, gives information that enables revenue officers to catch some moonshiners, and he accepts payment for his information. He is shot from ambush for thus violating the unwritten law of the mtns.
1909 DAVY CROCKETT--IN HEARTS UNITED / NEW YORK MOTION PICTURE CO Comments: The earliest known Davy Crockett movie, wherein the Alamo does not appear. This is the alternate Crockett of the Lochinvar legend, in other words this is a two-men-and-a-woman plot. The rough-hewn Davy meets Anna when he mends a saddle girth for her and her intended husband Blake, a city smoothie. While Davy mends the girth, Anna reads the poem about Lochinvar aloud to him. Later, Davy reenacts the Lochinvar story by rescuing Anna from her nuptials to Blake.
1910 A FORESTER'S SWEETHEART / LUX Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, featuring some thrilling action sequences, including a fight with axes between the two men. The good mtn man wins.
1910 TALE OF THE BACKWOODS / SELIG POLYSCOPE Comments: Two women from rival backwoods families fighting over the same man. Lumbermill background. Also features a "half- wit."
1910 SENSATIONAL LOGGING / ESSANAY Comments: A non-fiction "industrial" film shot in the Cumberland range of Ky on Russell's Fork. A documentary on massive log- harvesting, involving the building and then dynamiting of a big dam. "What a tremendous profit there must be in this great industry!"
1910 THE MOUNTAINEER: A TALE OF KENTUCKY / A G WHYTE Comments: "Back in the heart of the mtns we find the primitive, simple folk, who know no law but that of fight and justice." Two-men-and-a-woman. One valley man, a mtn girl and a mtn man, and the valley man wins the girl.
1910 THE FEUD / KALEM Comments: A melodrama having as its basis a feud over a boundary, followed by a reconciliation prompted by two lovers, one each from the warring families.
1910 VICTIMS OF FATE / VITAGRAPH Comments: A feud story which, like most of the others, features much killing followed by pious reconciliation. On the way to the end, however, one woman "of nerve and passion" takes up a gun and defends her cabin and is herself killed.
1910 A MAID OF THE MOUNTAINS / URBAN Comments: Plot not found, but probably two-men-and-a-woman drama.
1910 A FAMILY FEUD / LUX Comments: Plot not found but apparently a story of the courtship between a son and daughter of two men sworn to maintain a family feud.
1910 DAVY CROCKETT / SELIG POLYSCOPE CO Comments: Another non-Alamo Crockett story. Mary, promised by her mother to another, loves Davy, and ends up riding off with him--who is playing Lochinvar again--rather than marry her mother's choice. Features the famous legend of Crockett barring the door against wolves with his own arm.
1910 THE SPECIAL AGENT / VITAGRAPH Comments: Very typical revenue agent/moonshiner's daughter romance.
1910 THE FEUD / NEW YORK MOTION PICTURE CO Comments: Between the Daytons and the Carvers. Reconciliation reached by way of a romance between Bob Dayton and Sue Carver.
1910 A FRONTIER HERO / EDISON Comments: Struggles between settlers and Indians on the far side of the mtns in Ky. A 14-year-old boy and his dog become the heroes as they overcome blood-thirsty Indians and rescue little sister from their clutches.
1910 BACK IN THE MOUNTAINS / NESTOR Comments: A feud over a boundary dispute between the Bakers and the Haltons threatens to end a tender romance between Ned Baker and Alice Halton. The love & daring of the young people wins out, and with the help of surveyors, the feud is ended but only after much violence.
1910 THE U S REVENUE DETECTIVE / YANKEE Comments: Secret revenue agents in the Ky mtns. Mac, a devoted husband and father, is sent by the federal government into "the wilds of Kentucky" to work undercover against the moonshine menace. He ends up "shutting his eyes" to let one young moonshiner off. Why? Because the young man is himself a devoted husband and father.
1910 THE MOONSHINER'S DAUGHTER / NESTOR Comments: A hybrid story, combining two-men-a-woman elements and a case of mistaken identity. The rough mtn clan mistake their daughter's new wooer for a revenuer, but he's actually a cowardly valley man whom the daughter rejects. The daughter's true lover is a mtn man who wins her family's respect by pretending to kill the supposed revenuer.
1910 THE FUGITIVE / BIOGRAPH Directed by D W GRIFFITH Comments: A Civil War tale set in the mtns, where near neighbors can become mortal enemies, though "mother instinct" for reconciliation finally prevails.
1910 A MOUNTAIN WIFE / G MELIES Comments: A mtn wife fiercely defends her husband from revenue agents. At the end they escape the mountains "to a place where they can work at an honest trade and live a good life free from offense to God and man."
1910 MOONSHINE AND LOVE / POWERS PICTURE PLAYS Comments: In the Tenn mtns, a schoolteacher goes into a cave and stumbles upon an illicit still. The moonshiners hold him captive, but the chief moonshiner's daughter is in love with the teacher and secures his release.
1910 IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KENTUCKY / VITAGRAPH Comments: Two-women-and-a-man, with moonshining as background, wherein trouble in a mtn marriage comes by way of a siren woman.
1910 THOU SHALT NOT KILL / POWERS Comments: A parson gets the patriarchs of rival clans to sign a paper ending their feud, but a drunken son of one family starts the whole thing over by getting himself dead at the hands of an essentially innocent young man of the opposing family. As the father of the slain rowdy prepares to kill his son's killer, he remembers his Bible oath and lets the young man go.
1910 A DAUGHTER OF THE MINES / EDISON Comments: A love story set among the coal mines. The superintendent's son falls in love with a miner's daughter and despite parental opposition (on both sides) a wedding occurs.
1910 A MOUNTAIN MAID / EDISON Comments: A theatrical company is to put on a play called "A Mountain Maid," and the two leads go separately to the Tenn mtns to pick up local color for their portrayals. There they unconsciously act out the script of the play.
1911 ELDA OF THE MOUNTAINS / NESTOR Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. An arrogant city man trifles with the affections of an innocent mtn girl, who eventually recognizes the city man as a coward and realizes that the good mtn man is the man for her.
1911 SLEEPY HOLLOW / NESTOR Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, in which the woman is married to one of the men, who is unreasonably jealous of her. He suspects her of faithlessness with a visiting photographer and has a realistic dream in which he catches his wife and the photographer kissing and kills the photographer by throwing him over a high cliff. The dream jolts him out of his jealousy.
1911 THE GIRL OF THE MOUNTAINS / VITAGRAPH Comments: City man comes to the mtns for his health, falls in love with mtn girl, but returns to city and marries city woman. A study of an urban man's corruption and weakness.
1911 THE TRANSGRESSOR / NESTOR Comments: The only survivor of the Collins-Clayton feud must go to prison for 15 years, leaving his wife and daughter behind. When the man escapes prison, he finds his daughter in love with a man from a good family, and rather than reveal himself to her as her felon father, he conceals his identity so that she can rise socially.
1911 THE STRIKE AT THE MINES / EDISON Comments: The main character is an orphan boy who first warns the coal miners of a fire in the shaft and almost dies for his efforts. The miners strike for higher wages. The orphan warns the mine owners that the miners are planning to dynamite and flood the shaft. The mine management is good and reasonable; the miners, bad and unreasonable. But the good example of the orphan boy wins the miners' hearts, and he is promoted to management.
1911 A KENTUCKY GIRL / YANKEE Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman story. The good man, in a jealous rage, turns in his moonshining rival to the revenue men, then helps free him and ends up defending him. But the moonshining rival is a coward and runs away, leaving the good man to be arrested for his crimes. Eventually the good man is exonerated and gets the girl.
1911 THE IMMORTAL ALAMO / STAR FILM CO/GASTON MELIES Produced by GASTON MELIES Directed by WILLIAM F HADDOCK Starring: FRANCIS FORD, GASTON MELIES, WILLIAM CARROLL, EDITH STOREY, DONALD PEACOCK, WILLIAM CLIFFORD Comments: The familiar Alamo story filmed on location in San Antonio, starring Francis Ford as Davy Crockett.
1911 HIGGINSES VS JUDSONS / LUBIN Starring: 'MISS' LAWRENCE, 'MR' JOHNSON Comments: The first known comedy about feuding set in Ky. Ends with reconciliation and double marriage.
1911 PEGGY, THE MOONSHINER'S DAUGHTER / KALEM Comments: A revenue agent and the moonshiner's daughter. Because of his love for the daughter, the agent allows her father to get away, extracting a promise from him that he will quit the moonshine trade.
1911 LOVE IN THE HILLS / ESSANAY Comments: A fish-out-of-water and mistaken identity comedy. A surveyor in the Ky hills falls in love with a mtn girl, whose brothers are rough and protective of her. Because of a lost note, the brothers believe the surveyor has jilted their sister and mistake another surveyor for the missing lover, whom they drag back to their cabin to marry their sister.
1911 A TENNESSEE LOVE STORY / SELIG Comments: A Romeo/Juliet love story between two feuding families. An accidental death, which gets blamed on "Romeo" and which rekindles the feud, but the lovers marry anyway. The arrival of a baby brings reconciliation.
1911 SHENANDOAH / CHAMPION Comments: A Civil War story, apparently not based on the Bronson Howard play. Cut-throat Union soldiers occupy the Valley and harass good and faithful Confederate families. A Union officer saves one family of women from this harassment, is himself captured by Confederates and threatened with death. The good Confederate daughter has a choice of marrying a Rebel soldier or seeing the good Union officer shot. She helps the officer escape.
1911 THE REVENUE MAN AND THE GIRL / BIOGRAPH Directed by D W GRIFFITH Comments: The moonshiner's daughter is going to kill the revenue man, but a sort of miracle forestalls her, and she ends up loving him and leaving for the city with him.
1911 THE CALL FROM THE HILLS / POWERS Comments: A mtn boy's musical genius (violin) is not appreciated by the mtn people, but he is discovered by a wealthy city woman. After a violent confrontation with his father, the boy goes to the city, where he is seen at the height of his powers, seemingly accepted by city society and in love with a city girl, who does not reciprocate his affection. Despondent, he remembers the hills and the girl he left behind there, who is now sick and dying. He returns to the mtns and plays her well again.
1911 DANIEL BOONE'S BRAVERY / KALEM Comments: Daniel frees himself from the usual savages in one scene by rolling into the fire and burning his bonds off.
1911 COALS OF FIRE / SELIG Starring: HERBERT BOTSWORTH Comments: Despite its title, not a coal-mining story. On the Ky frontier, two men struggle over a mtn girl. One is "big, strong, brawny," the other, "weaker in physical vitality but superior in his intellectual mentality." The brainier one wins the girl and also becomes gov of Missouri.
1911 THE REVENUE OFFICER'S LAST CASE / POWERS Comments: In the mtns of Ky, a revenue officer falls for the moonshiner's daughter. A jealous rival wounds the lawman, who is saved by the girl and her family. The lawman then arrests the girl's father. The girl pleads effectively with him, and he resigns his job in the revenue service out of love for her.
1911 LOVE IN THE HILLS / BIOGRAPH Directed by D W GRIFFITH Starring: BLANCHE SWEET Comments: A mtn girl thinks she loves a city fop, but she finds out that she is mistaken and that a manly mtneer is really the one she loves. Features the effects of a violin on the girl's emotions.
1911 MADGE OF THE MOUNTAINS / VITAGRAPH Comments: Madge is the daughter of a Tenn moonshiner. Harry Brownley, son of a rich New Yorker, goes slumming for excitement with revenuers, who bust up the still of Madge's father, who is killed while Harry is himself wounded in the raid. Ironically, Madge nurses him back to health, and naturally love develops between them. Madge ends up in a mansion in New York married to Harry.
1911 THE MOONSHINER'S TRAIL / CHAMPION Comments: In the mtns of Tenn, a moonshiner allows liquor to dribble and make a trail that the revenuers can follow.
1911 THE GIRL AND THE SHERIFF / VITAGRAPH Comments: A girl helps a wounded man being pursued by the sheriff and falls in love with him. She diverts the sheriff in his pursuit (at one point playing the banjo for him and plying him with drink) and manages to help her new lover escape the law.
1911 THE MOONSHINER(S) / RELIANCE Starring: WILLIAM WALTHALL, RUTH ROBINSON Comments: A moonshiner suspects his wife of informing on him to a revenue agent, who in this story is the clear villain. The climax is the escape of the moonshiners and the reconciliation of the man and the woman.
1911 THE MOUNTAIN LAW / ESSANAY Comments: The daughter of a moonshiner loves a young man but refuses to marry him until he agrees to give up the moonshine trade. His fellow moonshiners suspect him of informing on them, almost lynch him, but he is saved and all the moonshiners vanquished by the actions of the moonshiner's daughter.
1911 THE CHIEF'S DAUGHTER / SELIG Comments: Daniel Boone story. Daniel's son captures a chief's daughter, who is given her liberty after Boone's daughters beg for it. The Boone girls are themselves captured by Indians, and the chief's daughter, grateful to the girls for her own freedom, secures their release. Further, she masterminds the white settlers' deliverance from a large war-party of her people.
1911 THE REVENUE AND THE GIRL / KALEM Comments: In the "Blue Ridge mtns of Ky" (well, geography isn't everything), revenue officers plan to attack a notorious still. The moonshiner's daughter first misleads an agent, then rescues him from certain death in a fire set by the other revenue agents in the moonshiners' cave. Then she manages to free all the captive moonshiners and is let off by the law because she had earlier saved the agent.
1911 BONNIE OF THE HILLS / CHAMPION Comments: A high-strung mtn girl is orphaned, meets and falls in love with a city man who is forced back to the city by his father (who bitterly opposes the crude mtn Bonnie), comes unexpectedly into a fortune, goes to the city to be educated, is reunited with her city sweetheart and his disapproving father when she saves them from two highwaymen. One of several early movies in which a mtn woman handles a gun effectively.
1912 A TALE OF THE WILDERNESS / BIOGRAPH Starring: EDWIN AUGUST, CHARLES MAYO Comments: Two brothers, one an outlaw who attempts to force himself upon the beautiful daughter of a settler. When he is rejected, he rouses the Indians against the frontier settlers, then for the sake of his brother repents. Reissued in 1916.
1912 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE / REPUBLIC Comments: Purported to be the most historically accurate depiction of Boone yet in the movies. Featured large Indian battles at Boonesborough. Also Boone's peaceful death in 1822, surrounded by children and grand-children.
1912 A MOUNTAIN TRAGEDY / RELIANCE Comments: Poor mtneers (and here the "mtns" are undoubtedly Western). The husband is knocked unconscious. Meanwhile, two drunken desperadoes, including a "Mexican," play cards to see who gets the unconscious mtneer's wife, who is no patsy. She defends herself with a gun until the sheriff arrives.
1912 THE BLIND MINER / VITAGRAPH Comments: A blind old miner improbably saves his daughter's sweetheart, "an industrious miner," from a mine explosion and fire. Shot on location in the coal-mining region of Pa.
1912 A BLUE RIDGE ROMANCE / REPUBLIC Comments: A revenue officer falls in love with a girl who rejects him and marries a lumberman instead (she thinks), but her new husband turns out to be a moonshiner. After the officer takes care of him, he and the girl head West for a new life.
1912 AN AMERICAN INVASION / KALEM Comments: Some Kentuckians in 1826 came to Calif by way of New Mexico, where they were held by Mexican authorities. The main Kentuckian later marries the Mexican woman who helps secure his release from prison.
1912 WHERE BROADWAY MEETS THE MOUNTAINS / AMERICAN Comments: A Broadway playwright finishes his play at a mtn retreat; two Broadway actors who are to play parts in the production come to the mtns to rehearse. A mtn girl, who loves the playwright, believes the playacting to be real and incites her family against the playwright. Eventually, the playwright and the mtn girl are united.
1912 FIRE AT THE MINE / GAUMONT Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, set at a coal mine. The rival who gets the girl is naturally saved from death in the mine fire by the other man, who sacrifices his life for his rival.
1912 THE DUEL / RELIANCE Starring: HENRY WALTHALL Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman: a lawyer and a moonshiner of the Ky hills are both in love with the same mtn girl and fight an inconclusive duel for her hand. The woman marries the lawyer who becomes gov of Ky and intends to wipe out moonshining. The moonshining former rival goes to kill the gov, but the daughter of the lawyer and the woman make the moonshiner repent.
1912 A CHILD'S PLEA / ECLAIR Comments: Two young KY mtneers are both in love with Virginia Dare. One frames his rival for murder and thereby gets Virginia for himself. All three end up in New York City, where the bad mtneer turns in the unjustly framed mtneer for the murder. The bad mtneer repents when he sees the face of the good mtneer's child, and at the last moment the trial of the good mtneer is interrupted and all is put right.
1912 THE BLACK WALL / VITAGRAPH Starring: KENNETH CASEY, ADELE DE GARD Comments: Two children get trapped in a coal mine behind "the black wall," the debris of coal after a cave-in. The story was "taken by the authority of the United States Bureau of Mines."
1912 A FEUDAL DEBT / NESTOR Comments: A man kills another man, and the act is witnessed by the dead man's 10-year-old son, who is brought up believing it his duty to continue the blood feud. Eighteen years later, the boy's sister falls in love with the son of the man who killed his father, and through this love and the illness of the mother, "the fanatical feudist is melted and subjugated in spirit."
1912 THAT HOUN' DAWG / PATHE Comments: "This story is based on that now famous song which blew in from the Ozark region. The film is a screamingly funny comedy from beginning to end." The song features the chorus, "They better quit kicking my dog around."
1912 THE END OF THE FEUD / AMERICAN Comments: First of three different movies produced in 1912 with this title. Bruce Jackson, the son of the dying leader of the Jackson clan, has been given the obligation of carrying on a feud with the Perriwells. He moves West where there are presumably no Perriwells, but he soon meets one and is forced finally to lay the feud aside.
1912 KAINTUCK / RELIANCE Comments: The title character is a big, lumbering, apparently slow-witted mtn boy in love with a mtn girl. A slick outsider, an artist, wins the love of the girl, but Kaintuck is obliged to save the artist from some moonshiners, even though he is his rival.
1912 THE SERPENTS / VITAGRAPH Comments: Made on location at Chimney Rock and in Hickory Nut Gap in the western NC mtns.
1912 HILL FOLKS / GEM Comments: Clem Parker, a young mtneer, had left his native mtns years before to get "cultured" and educated, and he returns to his mtn district as a lawyer. But his former neighbors resent his presence because they are moonshiners. They try to do him in, to no avail, and he wins the heart of the beautiful mtn girl Judith.
1912 PANSY / SELIG Comments: A comedy, wherein the butt of the joke is a politician's cowardice. At a mtn resort, a tame bear named Pansy becomes a tourist attraction. A no-good politician conspires to fake a film of himself wrestling Pansy. Mtneers replace Pansy with a real wild bear and enjoy the results. A fragment of this film survives in the Library of Congress.
1912 A ROMANCE IN OLD KENTUCKY / ECLAIR Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The woman's father is a moonshiner. One of the two men is a revenue spy; the other, an honest mtneer. The girl ends up going West with the honest mtneer to get away from moonshining, revenue men, and jealousy.
1912 THE LITTLE MOONSHINER / NESTOR Comments: The two daughters of a moonshiner who dies are left to run his operation. The eldest daughter is loved by two men, one of whom in retaliation turns her in to the revenue officers.
1912 A MOONSHINER'S HEART / ESSANAY Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman: the revenue detective and the moonshiner's daughter and a rival moonshiner. The woman chooses the lawman.
1912 FERDIE'S FAMILY FEUD / IMP Comments: A comedy with a plotline repeated many times: Ferdinand Featherbrain, a penniless counter jumper, is notified that he has inherited a legacy, left by a relative living in the moonshiner's district in Tenn. The legacy, however, is a family feud.
1912 IN OLD TENNESSEE / IMP Comments: Nell Gwinn, a government secret agent, is given the assignment of going into the Tenn mtns undercover to flush out an illicit still. She gives money to a mtn man to betray the moonshiners, is herself discovered and then saved, and she ends up marrying the mtn man she bribed.
1912 A FEUD IN THE KENTUCKY HILLS / BIOGRAPH Directed by D W GRIFFITH Starring: MARY PICKFORD, JACK PICKFORD, KATE BRUCE Comments: Features some spectacular pitched battles between the two feuding families that are suggestive of what Griffith would eventually stage for his battles in "A Birth of a Nation."
1912 THE END OF THE FEUD / ESSANAY Comments: The Parkers and the Simpsons at war in Ky. Jim Parker has been off at college. He returns, falls for Rose Simpson. The Simpsons try to break up the romance, but the two lovers run away together anyway and are married. Years later, their child Millie is instrumental in finally putting an end to the feud.
1912 WOOERS OF MOUNTAIN KATE / AMERICAN Comments: Mountain Kate is wooed by three suitors. "A triangular struggle ensues, & after the excitement has subsided, Mountain Kate is again left to lead the lonesome life of a hermit."
1912 A KENTUCKY FEUD / REX Comments: Between the McCalls and the Buckners. Ends with a general reconciliation.
1912 MOUNTAIN DEW / KALEM Comments: Revenue agent is saved from death by mtn girl, with whom he falls in love.
1912 WAY OF THE MOUNTAINS / LUBIN Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. One of the men attempts to force himself on the woman, attempts to murder his rival, accidentally kills the woman's little brother. Eventually the woman and the good mtneer are united, the bad mtneer executed summarily by all the other mtneers.
1912 BATTLE IN THE VIRGINIA HILLS / KALEM Comments: During the course of a feud between the Tuckers and the Hoods, young Joe Hood shoots and wounds by mistake beautiful Nancy Tucker. These two eventually fall in love, are both renounced by their families, wed anyway.
1912 BLUE RIDGE FOLKS / CHAMPION Comments: A love-triangle between Dallas Walters and James Barker, both of whom love Ruth Barton. Involves a house fire and a chase by the sheriff's posse.
1912 THE SHERIFF PROTEM / MELIES Comments: A moonshiner and his daughter are betrayed by a vengeful mtneer who has been rejected by the daughter. An interim sheriff is sent to arrest the old man, who is fiercely defended by the daughter. The daughter is shot and killed by the rejected suitor, and the shock of that death causes the father to renounce moonshining and the "sheriff protem" to give up his badge.
1912 THE END OF THE FEUD / LUBIN Comments: In the Tenn mtns, the Blakes and the Morgans. An ancient feud is revived when a Morgan shoots and kills a Blake dog. The wounding of a little Morgan girl causes shocked repentance and an end to the feud.
1912 BLACKENED HILLS / AMERICAN Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman featuring a mtn witch and another girl, an evil hellcat, who also loves one of the men, the good one. The evil man and the evil hellcat are both defeated, so that true love can triumph.
1913 THE AWAKENING / AMERICAN Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, wherein the good man is mtn, the bad man from the city. The bad man wins temporarily, takes the woman to the city, where she is awakened to truth and returns to the hills.
1913? BURIED ALIVE IN A COAL MINE / INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM CO Comments: A refined young man is forced by circumstances to take a coal-mining job in Pennsylvania, where his natural aristocracy cannot be hid from mine owner, the owner's pretty daughter, or from the miners, whom the young man talks out of striking. He gets promoted to the head office and marries the owner's daughter.
1913 THE MOUNTAINEERS / EDISON Directed by BANNISTER MERWIN Starring: CHARLES OGLE, GERTRUDE MCCOY, AUGUSTUS PHILLIPS, WILLIAM WEST Comments: A moonshiner film in which the moonshiner's daughter is converted by a visiting parson and wishes her father's still smashed and ends up in love with a revenue agent.
1913 BUD TILDEN, MAIL THIEF / RELIANCE Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, in which the title character is a good mtneer but is framed by his evil rival as a reader of obscene literature. The evil rival mails the obscene material to the woman, and to save her from seeing it, Budd robs the mail carrier.
1913 THE GAME WARDEN / KALEM Comments: A young mtneer with no respect for the law must learn respect from the game warden.
1913 WHERE THE MOUNTAINS MEET / ESSANAY Comments: A marriage between a young couple, the man proving to be a wastral. He must reform before the end.
1913 THE MOUNTAIN WITCH / KALEM Starring: JANE WOLFE, CARLYLE BLACKWELL Comments: A young minister is appointed to a mtn parish where he must defend an odd mtn girl against the prejudices of the mtn people.
1913 THE FIRE COWARD / KALEM Starring: EARLE FOX, IRENE BOYLE Comments: The hero is a revenue officer who loves the sister of wildcat whiskey makers, but he is cowardly in the face of fire, and disgraces himself before the sister. He must redeem himself in courage, and he succeeds in arresting the moonshiners.
1913 BLACK DIAMONDS / VITAGRAPH Comments: A non-fiction "industrial," an inspection of the coal mines of the "richest coal fields in the United States."
1913 THE STRENGTH OF MEN / VITAGRAPH Comments: Made on location in the western NC mtns.
1913 BROTHER LOVE / AMERICAN Comments: Jimmy a poor mtn boy is blind, and his brother Ed sends him to the city to be operated upon. The operation is successful, but Jimmy becomes the pawn of a city woman, gets jilted, roughed up by city toughs, becomes blind again, is rescued by brother Ed and returns blind but wiser to the mtns.
1913 THE CITY FELLER / MAJESTIC Comments: A hustling New Yorker comes to the timber region of Tenn, stumbles into a nest of moonshiners, and falls in love with a moonshiner's daughter, who is lusted after by an uncouth and unscrupulous mtn man. The city man wins, taking the daughter back to the rich life in New York.
1913 BROTHER BILL / VITAGRAPH Starring: EDITH STORY, NED FINLEY, CHESTER HESS Comments: Bill's brother Jim has fallen in love with a girl in the mtn village, who is merely trifling with his affections, and has made a tough character there jealous. Brother Bill must repeatedly save Jim, but in the process he wins the love of the woman who had been trifling with Jim's affections.
1913 A MOONSHINER'S WIFE / LUBIN Produced by J M NICHOLLS Starring: ORMI FLAWLEY, EDWIN CAREWE Comments: An acrobat kills a man in the city, flees to the mtns, falls in love with a moonshiner's daughter.
1913 THE MOONSHINER'S LAST STAND / PATHE/MUTUAL Comments: A moonshiner sells illicit whiskey to Indians on a nearby reservation. A revenue officer, in love with the moonshiner's daughter, must decide between love and duty. "A tribe of drunken Indians demanding more whiskey puts in an appearance at the crucial moment and a fight for life ensues."
1913 IN THE BATTLE'S SMOKE / PILOT Comments: "The story is of a feudist who kills a man and leaves the section. Later, in the Civil War, the slayer and the son of the man killed meet on the field of battle." Reconciliation follows.
1913 THE TRANSITION / VITAGRAPH Starring: CHARLES BENNETT, MARY CHARLESON, GEORGE C STANLEY Comments: Moonshiner and his daughter and the law and the usual love between daughter and lawman.
1913 HELD FOR RANSOM / RELIANCE Comments: A young man swindled out of his fortune in the city, becomes a hermit in the Va mtns. By extraordinary occasion, he kidnaps the daughter of the man who wronged him and falls in love with her.
1913 IN ANOTHER'S NEST / AMERICAN Comments: City man goes to the mtns, is enchanted by the clean honesty of people there, disinherits his rich and spoiled family. His children come to mtns and woo the children of the family their father is now leaving his wealth to.
1913 AN INNOCENT INFORMER / EDISON Starring: SYDNEY AYRES, CHARLES SUTTON, BETTY HARTE Comments: A Ky moonshiner's daughter innocently leads the revenue men to her father's still.
1913 A SPLENDID SCAPEGRACE / EDISON Directed by C J BRABIN Starring: MARC MACDERMOTT, CHARLES OGLE, BIGELOW COOPER Comments: Based on an O Henry short story. A man wishing to become an aristocrat buys for $200 another man's feud with the Coltranes, a family feud being one sure sign of social standing. Redone in 1918 (?) as A Blackjack Bargainer (which see below).
1913 THE WHIM OF DESTINY / MAJESTIC Comments: The hero is a revenue detective who must arrest the gambler father of the girl he loves.
1913 THE EIGHTH NOTCH / KALEM Comments: The Griggs-Danvers feud. Ed Griggs has seven notches on the handle of his gun for the seven Danvers he has killed.
1913 THE WILL OF FATE / ECLIPSE Comments: Dick loves Anna, whose family is involved with smuggling and is being pursued by revenue agents. Dick's father, though, is the one who gets killed by the agents. In revenge, Dick's mother thinks to do harm to Anna's family and ends up killing her own son by mistake.
1913 A ROMANCE OF THE OZARKS / LUBIN Comments: A revenue officer comes into the mtns looking for moonshine, rescues a beautiful mtn maid from the unwanted attentions of a rough moonshiner. She not only saves the revenue man from treachery but marries him in the end.
1913 SHENANDOAH / KALEM Produced by KENEAN BUELL Directed by KENEAN BUELL Starring: BOB VIGNOLA, HENRY HALLAM, ALICE HOLLISTER, HAL CLEMENTS Comments: A Civil War epic, shot on location in the Shenandoah Valley. Based on a famous and successful play by Bronson Howard. Kalem secured exclusive rights to film the play in 1912, warning other film companies away from the story.
1913 THE MADCAP OF THE HILLS / RELIANCE Starring: VIRGINIA WESTBROOK, CLAIRE KROLL, PAUL SCARDON, IRVING CUMMINGS, ALAN HALE Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The woman's true love is a simple mtneer, but her head is turned by a city smoothie. His perfidy takes a long time to manifest itself to her, but she ends up in the arms of the simple mtneer.
1913 THE KENTUCKY FEUD / WARNER'S FEATURES/SATEX Starring: MARTHA RUSSELL Comments: Pitched battle instead of a planned wedding. The mtn girl jerks off her veil and stomps it and picks up a gun. Everyone is killed until the dramatic moment when just the girl & the boy face one another. Amor Vincit Omnia.
1913 A CHILD OF THE HILLS / PILOT Comments: An overworked composer is sent to recuperate in the Blue Ridge mtns, falls in love with a mtn lass, ends up taking her away to the city.
1913 THE GUERRILLA MENACE / BISON Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, wherein the good man is a loyal son of the Confederacy who joins up to fight the Civil War, leaving his sweetheart at the mercy of a malicious tavern-owner rival. The "guerrilla menace" of the title is provided by Union sympathizers, who are egged on by the malicious tavern-owner. Eventually of course the good Rebel boy wins, choking the malicious rival to death.
1913 HER FINAL CHOICE / RELIANCE Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman in a Pennsylvania mining town.
1913 THE MISSIONARY'S TRIUMPH / PATHEPLAY Comments: Moonshiners and a mining camp and a good gentle woman who intends to bring godliness and cleanliness to miners, which means first getting rid of the moonshiners.
1913 BUILDING THE CHATTANOOGA LIGHT AND POWER DAM / ESSANAY Comments: An industrial filmed on location.
1913 THE MOONSHINER'S MISTAKE / KALEM Comments: Illicit whiskey-making but with no revenue men. "A tragedy worked out by the mtn folk themselves."
1913 THROUGH THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS, TENNESSEE / ESSANAY Comments: A scenic, taken from the front of a locomotive. Contained also "a fine character study in the face of an old darkie man."
1913 THE RED OLD HILLS OF GEORGIA / EDISON Produced by CHARLES M SEAY Comments: Filmed on location in Ga. A young engineer from outside comes to the hills and falls in love with an ignorant mtn girl and incidentally introduces her to more modern farming methods, thus improving her life. "Very valuable mineral deposits" are discovered on the girl's poor property, and the young engineer finds it convenient to announce his love for her.
1913 A VIRGINIA FEUD / KALEM Directed by ROBERT VIGNOLA Starring: HENRY HALLAM, JAMES B ROSS, JAMES VINCENT, ALICE HOLLISTER Comments: Filmed on location in the Blue Ridge mtns of Va. A marriage between two warring clans is supposed to end hostilities, but one male in each family wants to keep the feud going, and the wedding is almost scuttled. But in the end, love and reconciliation win the day.
1913 NATURE'S VENGEANCE / VICTOR Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, with a no-count city man invading the world of innocent herb-pickers in the mtns. The city man loves her and leaves her, but he is forced back at gun-point by the girl's mother and made to marry her. Then he sneaks off again in a canoe, is killed by "nature's vengeance," and his erstwhile bride is left to find true love with the good mtn man.
1913 KENTUCKY FOES / RELIANCE Starring: ALAN HALE, IRENE HUNT, GEORGE SIEGMAN, BOBBY TANSEY Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, wherein the two men are from rival feuding families. One of the men is a sorry drunk who tries to force himself on the woman, who pushes him over a cliff and thinks she's killed him. The other man protects her from the rival clan, and the drunken rival shows up alive.
1913 BATTLEFIELDS AROUND CHATTANOOGA / EDISON Comments: Another "scenic" shot on location.
1913 UP LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN ON THE ELECTRIC(AL) INCLINE / ESSANAY Comments: A "scenic" shot at Lookout Mountain, Tenn.
1913 THE MAID OF THE MOUNTAINS / NESTOR Comments: Hero is suspected of being a revenue officer, wins the girl anyway, induces her father to give up moonshining.
1913 AN ORPHAN OF WAR / KAY-BEE Comments: "John Waldron, a giant mountaineer in West Virginia, is a Northern sympathizer at the outbreak of the Civil War and is hated by his neighbors."
1913 A MOUNTAIN MOTHER / LUBIN Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. A mother wants an education for her daughter, so that she can become a lady instead of just an ignorant mtn girl.
1913 A SERIES OF TULLULAH FALLS, GEORGIA / EDISON Comments: A scenic. "Views of a mountain torrent that is soon to be choked into pipes and made to serve mankind by helping in the world's work."
1913 NAN OF THE WOODS / SELIG Comments: A wild girl story. Received poorly by the critics: Nan and her father are "very unnatural; they have no apparent reality and the players have not been able to give atmosphere to them to interest us."
1913 AN ACCIDENTAL SHOT / PATHEPLAY Starring: GEORGE GEBHARDT Comments: "The accidental shot wounds and apparently kills a revenue officer in the cabin of an old woman and her daughter. It comes from his own revolver in his own hand and in the midst of a struggle with the old woman. He has just discovered that she is selling whiskey to Indians."
1913 THE HILLS OF STRIFE / LUBIN Produced by John Ince Starring: ELEANOR BLANCHARD, ARTHUR MATHEWS Comments: Much killing between members of two feuding families, including a woman with babe in arms. A woman from the rival family rescues the baby, who grows up without the fierce hatred of the other mtneers and falls in love with a girl of the other family (actually his own cousin). At the end, after the woman who rescued him has been killed also, the boy and his sweetheart leave the mtns in disgust to live in the "peaceful valleys."
1913 SPELL OF THE PRIMEVAL / SELIG Comments: A drunken man about town leaves the city and seeks to rehabilitate himself in the mtns. There he falls in love with a beautiful and innocent mtn lass.
1913 INFLUENCE OF THE UNKNOWN / BIOGRAPH Starring: MAE MARSH, ROBERT HARRON, HENRY WALTHALL Comments: A revenue officer on the trail of a moonshiner is saved ultimately by a moonshining girl. Reissued in 1916 with a much longer plot synopsis.
1913 THE CONTENTS OF THE SUITCASE / EDISON Comments: A fish-out-of-water comedy. An innocent traveler steps off a train, picks up the wrong suitcase, gets held up by a gang of moonshiners.
1913 THE DARE-DEVIL MOUNTAINEERS / IMP Comments: A wild girl is taken to the city by her socially ambitious mother, leaving behind the girl's "dare-devil" mtn lover. In the city the girl's mother tries to force her into marriage with a corrupt Count, but the dare-devil mtn lover comes to rescue her and carries her off on a motorcycle he does not know how to drive. But they make it back to the hills and to happiness.
1913 THE GIRL O' THE WOODS / VICTOR Comments: Love affair between mtn girl, who is a member of a family of mtn squatters, and the landowner's son.
1913 IN THE MOUNTAINS OF VIRGINIA / AMERICAN Starring: HARRY VAN METER Comments: Typical moonshiner fare: urban physician needs rest, repairs to mtns, falls in love with a moonshiner's daughter, must chose between love & duty.
1913 THE SECRET OF THE MINE / VERNON FILM CO Comments: Coal mining story: a stalwart young engineer, nefarious miners.
1913 PRIMITIVE MAN / KALEM Starring: TOM MOORE, ALICE HOLLISTER Comments: A rough man of the woods falls in love with Betty, fights off her rival, marries her, proves a brute until the baby comes, when he experiences a change of heart.
1913 CAPRICE / FAMOUS PLAYERS FILM CO Starring: MARY PICKFORD, OWEN MOORE, ERNEST TRUEX, OGDEN CRANE, JAMES GORDON, BOOTS WALL Comments: City man comes to the mtns (Adirondacks), falls in love with an uncultured mtn girl (after accidentally wounding her in the arm), marries her, takes her to the city where she embarrasses him before his cultured friends, and he declares his marriage a mistake. Thus rejected, Caprice acquires refinement on her own and wins her husband back again. Paramount rereleased this morally reprehensible fable again in 1918.
1913 LITTLE KAINTUCK / VITAGRAPH Produced by ROBERT THORNBY Starring: PAUL WILLIS, KARL FORMES Comments: An orphaned mtn boy is befriended by a storekeeper. The boy has the wanderlust, but the love of his adopted "father" overcomes his desire to go back to the mtns.
1913 HILDA OF THE MOUNTAINS / NESTOR Comments: Rich man's son falls in love with poor mtneer's daughter. Both fathers bitterly opposed.
1913 THE CIRCUIT RIDER OF THE HILLS / FRONTIER Comments: "Mary, daughter of Tom Ashe, revenue officer, is in love with Bud, the son of Lige Stillwell, a moonshiner."
1913 'MID KENTUCKY HILLS / VITAGRAPH Produced by NED FINLEY Starring: NED FINLEY, EDITH STORY Comments: Daughter of a moonshiner is wooed falsely by a revenue detective.
1913 TWO GIRLS OF THE HILLS / RELIANCE Starring: ANNA LAUGHLIN Comments: Two mtn daughters of a moonshiner. One is dutiful and happy, the other rebellious and prime for seduction by a visiting city "adventurer." Almost too late, the rebellious daughter realizes her mistake in loving the city man.
1913 RED MARGARET, MOONSHINER / GOLD SEAL/UNIVERSAL Comments: A wild girl moonshiner is uncatchable until she falls in love. Reissued or remade as "Moonshine Blood" in 1916.
1913 THE SOUL OF THE SOUTH / KAY-BEE Comments: A Civil War story. The opening shows the son of a moonshiner escaping from revenue agents. He stumbles into a family that takes him in, and he falls in love with the daughter. Both he and the daughter's brother enlist in the Confederacy, and he eventually is saved again by this family from execution.
1913 THE ELECTRICIAN'S HAZARD / KALEM Comments: "Lil, an ignorant mtn girl, is awed by the ease with which Stanley, in charge of the isolated power plant, handles the machinery."
1914 THE POWER OF LIGHT / AMERICAN Produced by LORIMER JOHNSTON Starring: SYDNEY AYRES, JACK RICHARDSON, VIVIAN RICH, CHARLOTTE BURTON Comments: "Life and conditions in a moonshiner's camp." "A boy aids his father in the operation of an illicit still, yet prompted by an alert inner-consciousness, resolves to seek a remedy other than through the aid of the law."
1914 THE INTRUDER / NESTOR Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. A "big-hearted mtneer" builds a hut for the woman he loves to live with him in the wilderness. "She is happy, though she often dreams of the great world outside. Then comes the intruder from the city." After being successfully lured away to the city, the woman discovers the brute under the slick city surface and returns to her true love in the mtns.
1914 A KENTUCKY ROMANCE / KAY-BEE Comments: Two young lovers separated because of a silly feud between their families. After many misunderstandings, the feud is ended, the young lovers reunited.
1914 JUST A SONG AT TWILIGHT / MAJESTIC Comments: An uneducated mtn girl is taken to the city by a wealthy socialite, marries a city man, and develops a guilty shame over her roots. Hearing old mtn songs makes her repent her attitude.
1914 RECONCILED IN BLOOD / SELIG Comments: The Clairborne-Hawkins feud in Ky. A man of one feuding family gives blood to save a stricken child of the opposing family, ending the feud.
1914 CHILDREN OF THE FEUD / VITAGRAPH Comments: The Morton-Belfield feud. Again, reconciliation through a Romeo-Juliet love match.
1914 THOU SHALT NOT KILL / SELIG Comments: The Knox-Waterton Feud, reconciled by the ministrations of a beautiful young woman from New England, who teaches the 6th commandment. "The story is one of the slightest and practically unbelievable."
1914 THE RAIDERS / KAY-BEE Comments: Moonshining in the Ky mtns as background for two-men- and-a-woman in which all three are mtneers. Mtn woman marries the good man, a moonshiner. The bad mtn man betrays the couple by turning them in to revenuers. Both the good husband and the bad rival end up dead, the woman alone.
1914 THROUGH FIRE TO FORTUNE, OR THE SUNKEN VILLAGE / GENERAL FILM CO/LUBIN Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman against a coal-mining background.
1914 THE HIGHER LAW / MAJESTIC Comments: A secret service man on vacation in the Virginia mtns meets a beautiful girl and captures a fugitive counterfeiter.
1914 BREED O' THE MOUNTAINS / NESTOR Starring: WALLACE REID, DOROTHY DAVENPORT Comments: "A waif left at the door of a young woodsman's cabin brings about some misunderstandings." A feud between two families "in the Blue Ridge mtns."
1914 THE UNEXPECTED / BALBOA FEATURE FILMS Comments: A woman moonshine detective equipped with carrier pigeons is sent into the West Virginia hills, becomes unconsciously involved in a love triangle (fierce mtn girl jealous of her moonshiner boyfriend), and because the fierce mtn girl saves the detective from snakebite, the detective saves her moonshiner boyfriend from harm.
1914 THE HEART OF THE HILLS / REX Starring: WALLACE REID, DOROTHY DAVENPORT Comments: Moonshiner story in which a moonshining brother needs $500 to cure his crippled brother of an infirmity. Into the district comes a female revenue detective who promptly falls in love with the moonshiner. After being menaced by other moonshiners and then rescued by the man she loves, she renounces the government, he renounces moonshining, and together they go out to earn the $500 honestly.
1914 THE MOONSHINER'S DAUGHTER / MAJESTIC Comments: A hybrid two-men-and-a-woman in which the woman is the moonshiner's daughter; the good man, a revenuer; the bad man, a moonshiner. "Shooting is indulged in copiously."
1914 THE MOUNTAINEER / NESTOR Comments: An honest young mtneer mistakenly believes his true love has fallen for another, an artist from the city. The artist is himself mistaken for a revenuer and captured by rough mtneers, then is freed by the honest young mtneer as an act of altruism.
1914 WHY KENTUCKY WENT DRY / FRONTIER Comments: Burlesque of a love story and a feud, featuring "Colonel Bourbon and Colonel Sourmash."
1914 THE MYSTERY OF HIDDEN HOUSE / VITAGRAPH Comments: A "demure little mtn maiden" actually harbors a dual personality which both fascinates and appalls a visiting city man. The love of the city man cures her.
1914 FIGHTING DEATH / BLACHE FEATURES Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, in which the good mtneer is framed by the bad mtneer. But after many thrilling scrapes, the good mtneer and the woman are united.
1914 HER MOONSHINE LOVER / NESTOR Starring: EDDIE LYONS, VICTORIA FORDE, LEE MORAN Comments: A comedy burlesquing the "old-fashioned" moonshiner story.
1914 WHEN MEN WOULD KILL / WARNER'S FEATURES INC Comments: A feud between the Charlton and Redfern families. Grace Charlton goes to the city and becomes a grand opera star but does not hesitate to take sides when the feud erupts anew, even though she loves Jim Redfern, who has "completely won her by his primitive loving." The reuniting of these two lovers finally ends the feud for good.
1914 THE END OF THE FEUD / REX Starring: PAULINE BUSH, MURDOCK MACQUARRIE, LON CHANEY Comments: Feud story, "old in subject" (Romeo-Juliet love affair between a son and daughter of the rival clans), which is brought to a conclusion through the efforts of "a gospel man."
1914 THE GREAT LEAP; UNTIL DEATH DO US PART / RELIANCE MOTION PICTURE CO/MUTUAL FILM CORP Produced by D W GRIFFITH Directed by W CHRISTY CABANNE Starring: MAE MARSH, ROBERT HARRON, RALPH LEWIS, EAGLE EYE, DONALD CRISP, RAOUL WALSH Comments: Two lovers from opposite feuding families escape together on horseback and approach a great cliff, which they mean to leap from, but the horse stumbles, throwing the riders and saving their lives. All shake hands.
1914 THE STRANGER AT HICKORY NUT GAP / IMP Starring: WILLIAM E. SHAY, FRANK HERZOG, ONA HUNGERFORD Comments: A conventional moonshiner story. At the end the detective takes the mtn girl away with him to the city.
1914 MOUNTAIN LAW / REX Comments: A feud between the Hawkins and the Tyler families has been ended but breaks out again. A tragic ending in which the girl of one family kills her sweetheart in the other family.
1914 THE UNLAWFUL TRADE / REX Comments: The story of George Tate, an outcast who lived among moonshiners, who, when others are crying "every man for himself," does the right thing and helps save his sister and her lover, who "have something to live for."
1914 THE FEUD / UNIVERSAL/GOLD SEAL Produced by WILFRED LUCAS Comments: Warring mtn clans and a Romeo-Juliet romance.
1914 THE LAST OF THEIR RACE / POWERS Comments: A feud has wakened between the Cameron and McBride families because of love between two young people.
1914 THE FEUD / POWERS Starring: CLEO MADISON, GEORGE LARKIN Comments: "Typical mountain feud" drama "of the moonshiner's country." Ends with the hero and heroine as only members of their families left alive.
1914 THE BARRIER OF IGNORANCE / KALEM Starring: PAUL HURST, MARIN SAIS, GEORGE H MELFORD, JANE WOLFE, CLEO RIDGELEY Comments: "A mtneer is so ignorant that he can't realize how much his daughter will be benefited by knowing how to read and write." Background for a story of two-men-and-a-woman in which the mtn woman is convinced that marrying the city man will ruin his career, so marries the uncouth mtneer instead. Later, the city man (a doctor now) saves the woman from a head wound inflicted by her ignorant husband.
1914 TENNESSEE / KAY-BEE Comments: Moonshiner's daughter/revenue agent / divided loyalties drama.
1914 GOOD CIDER / LUBIN Comments: "A rural comedy with a barrel of cider as the main theme. Everybody doctors the cider and eventually the cider doctors everybody, even the doctor."
1914 IN THE SOUTHERN HILLS / DOMINO Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. One man kills his rival, blames the local preacher, who was about to be lynched by the irate mtneers, but the girl saves him. And the murderer is himself killed.
1914 A THROW OF THE DICE / HEPWORTH-AMERICAN Comments: An intemperate coal miner is fired, rouses fellow coal miners to strike.
1914 THE EAGLE'S MATE / FAMOUS PLAYERS Produced by ADOLPH ZUKOR Directed by JAMES KIRKWOOD Starring: MARY PICKFORD, JAMES KIRKWOOD, IDA WATERMAN, ROBERT BRODERICK, HARRY C BROWNE, RUSSELL BASSETT Comments: Based on Anna Alice Chapin's novel, set in the WVa mtns. A gentle, refined young girl is kidnapped by a wild and lawless mtneer and is suddenly confronted with life in its most brutal and savage form. Rereleased with much fanfare in 1918.
1914 JESS OF THE MOUNTAIN COUNTRY / WORLD FILM CORP Comments: A "novelty feature" of the day, with the cast composed entirely of children, ages 7 to 13, acting out a standard city- man-mtn-woman romance.
1914 NATURE'S TOUCH / AMERICAN Comments: A city man finds peace and contentment in the mtns.
1914 THE WEAKLING / KALEM Produced by KENEAN BUELL Starring: ALICE JOYCE, JERE AUSTIN, TOM MOORE Comments: A melodrama about rough mtneers, which seeks to prove that environment can overcome the benefits of heredity. "Third of the Alice Joyce Series."
1914 KAINTUCKY BILL / KALEM Comments: The old sheriff dies and in jest the mtneers nominate Kaintucky Bill, the worst moonshiner in the state, for the office.
1914 CARYL OF THE MOUNTAINS / SELIG Starring: KATHLYN WILLIAMS, THOMAS SANTSCHI Comments: A moonshiner, anxious to win a mtn maiden, tries to catch her through fear by starting the story that her father is a revenuer.
1914 THE FEUD AT BEAVER CREEK / KAY-BEE Comments: In the Tenn mtns, the Hatfields and the Coles. "The usual plot ... embracing the eventualities occurring amongst the primitive population of the backwoods."
1914 MEG O' THE MOUNTAINS / EDISON Directed by RICHARD RIDGELY Starring: MABEL TRUNNELLE Comments: "A thrilling story of love, hatred, and accusation in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Carolina."
1914 THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE / BROADWAY PICTURE PRODUCING CO Comments: From the synopsis, this may have been the version of John Fox's novel most faithful to the original. The feud between the Tollivers and the Falins, with the intervention of the outsider/engineer.
1914 THE LONG FEUD / BRONCHO Comments: A conventional moonshine story and a conventional feud story. Two lovers from rival families bring the feud to an end.
1914 MOONSHINE MOLLY / MAJESTIC Starring: MAE MARSH, ROBERT HARREN Comments: Set in Ky mtns, a Pinkerton detective disguised as a school teacher is the good man in this two-men-and-a-woman plot, and the woman leaves the hills with him at the end.
1914 THE TRAP / AMERICAN Starring: VIVIAN RICH, WILLIAM GARWOOD Comments: A revenue man and the moonshiner's daughter melodrama set in the Ky mtns.
1914 ON LONESOME MOUNTAIN (ON THE LONESOME MOUNTAIN) / LUBIN Comments: A wild son is sent to the Ky mtns to manage some timberland, but the natives have occupied the land for a number of years for their illicit stills. A love affair between the boy and the daughter of the "chief clansman."
1914 THE MOONSHINERS / KALEM Starring: PRINCESS MONA DARKFEATHER Comments: The usual moonshiner tale with an old feud involved, but in this the moonshiner is an Indian and the moonshiner's daughter, an Indian princess.
1914 THE TAMING OF SUNNYBROOK NELL / AMERICAN Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The good man is a simple mtneer; the bad man, a city fellow who is already married and faithless. The good mtneer saves the woman from running off foolishly with the city man.
1914 REGAN'S DAUGHTER / VITAGRAPH Directed by THEODORE MARSTON Starring: HARRY NORTHRUP, JAMES MORRISON, MARY ANDERSON, DOROTHY KELLY Comments: In the Tenn mtns a detective captures an outlaw who proves to be his sweetheart's father.
1914 DAPHNIA / AMERICAN Directed by THOMAS RICKETTS Starring: GEORGE FIELD, ED COXEN, WINNIFRED GREENWOOD Comments: The girl is part of a counterfeiting gang in the mtns of Ky. Instead of the revenuer and the moonshiner's daughter, it's the federal agent and the counterfeiter's daughter.
1914 THE REVENUE OFFICER'S DEPUTY / RELIANCE Produced by F A KELSEY Comments: Another love story involving a revenue man and a daughter of the moonshiners.
1914 THE MAD MOUNTAINEER / KALEM Directed by TOM MOORE Starring: IRENE BOYLE, TOM MOORE Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. One man hurls his rival over a cliff. Conscience drives the man mad.
1914 SECRET SERVICE SNITZ / STERLING Starring: FORD STERLING Comments: Comedy. Revenue agent Snitz sent to capture moonshiners gets into several situations, wins the moonshiner's daughter at the close.
1914 THE MOUNTAIN LAW / LUBIN Starring: LOUISE HUFF, EDGAR JONES, ARTHUR MATTHEWS, JAMES DALY Comments: "For a moonshine picture it contains unusual merit." Plus the usual feud between neighboring families.
1914 THE WITCH GIRL / VICTOR Comments: At a sanitarium in the Blue Ridge Mtns: a wild girl gains the attention of a valley man, who takes her to his mansion in town, where eventually he wins her love.
1914 THE UNDER TRAIL / EXCELSIOR FEATURE FILM CO Starring: WINIFRED ALLEN Comments: From Anna Alice Chapin's book. Chapin was author of "The Eagle's Mate," in which Mary Pickford "scored a tremendous success." This story was set in the Blue Ridge mtns of Virginia.
1914 THE STRIKE AT COALDALE / ECLAIR Starring: STANLEY WALPOLE, MILDRED BRIGHT Comments: A railroad drama. A young engineer drives a train across a burning trestle, wins the strike for the men, and the hand of the boss's daughter. "A railroad trestle was actually burned for the making of this picture and cost the Eclair Company many hundreds of dollars."
1914 RIP VAN WINKLE / ALCO Directed by EDWIN MIDDLETON Starring: THOMAS JEFFERSON Comments: Filmed on location in the Catskills, "in the most impenetrable parts of the region. Children who were engaged for these scenes lived in sections from fifteen to thirty miles distant from a railroad. Most of them have never seen a train with cars."
1914 PEG O' THE WILDS / IMP Starring: VIOLET MERSEREAU, WILLIAM WELSH Comments: The epitome of the wild girl: "a mass of tangled, golden hair surrounds a face of innocent beauty; underneath the one-piece dress there are lines which suggest a rugged, well developed body. Peg climbs trees and jumps streams." Mersereau in the part exhibited "a gracious witchery, a subtle capriciousness that is at once rare and captivating."
1914 IN THE HILLS OF KENTUCKY / LUBIN Directed by EDGAR JONES Starring: GILBERT ELY, EDGAR JONES, LOUISE HUFF Comments: Two nefarious outsiders plot to steal a simple mtneer's land for the coal they know is there. They try to seduce his wife, and almost succeed in getting the mtn man to sign over his land.
1914 LIFE'S STREAM / ALCO Comments: "The mtn girl whose life is so magically changed after her encounter with a man such as she may have dreamed about in the long stillness of the woodland afternoons."
1914 THE LAST OF THE HARGROVES / EDISON Starring: GERTRUDE MCCOY, ROBERT CONNESS Comments: Feud between the Hargroves & the Buckners has left but one female and one male alive of each family. Naturally, the two of them meet and fall in love before the girl discovers the man's identity.
1914 THE STRENGTH O' TEN / AMERICAN Starring: WILLIAM GARWOOD, VIVIAN RICH, JACK RICHARDSON, REAVES EATON Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, in which not drinking is the test the girl holds the men to.
1914 THE PLACE, THE TIME AND THE MAN / ESSANAY Starring: RICHARD C TRAVERS, RAPLEY HOLMES, THOMAS COMMERFORD, GERDA HOLMES Comments: With western Pennsylvania as background, two rival railroads struggle to be the first to penetrate a mtn range with a tunnel. Adapted from a Munsey Magazine article.
1914 THE LION, THE LAMB AND THE MAN / REX Starring: PAULINE BUSH Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The girl has come to the Ky mtns, where two brothers fall in love with her. The story flashes back to the stone age, and all three appear in skins.
1914 THE MOONSHINE MAID AND THE MAN / VITAGRAPH Produced by CHARLES L GASKILL Starring: HELEN GARDNER, NED FINLEY, REX HITCHCOCK, JOHN COSTELLO Comments: A young mtn man loves Nancy, a mtn girl, but he needs money to successfully woo her. Unknowingly he turns in her father for moonshining to get a reward but is killed for his trouble. This film may have been shot in the NC mtns.
1914 ON MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN / LUBIN Comments: Both a moonshining drama (revenue agent and the mtn girl) and two-men-and-a-woman love triangle.
1914 THE MOUNTAIN TRAITOR / ECLAIR Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, with moonshining as the background. Possibly a Western rather than an Eastern (since "prospectors" are in these mountains), but the moonshining motif seems identical to those in films about the Southern mtns.
1914 THE HEART OF THE HILLS / UNIVERSAL/VICTOR Produced by HAL REID Directed by WALTER EDWIN Starring: MARY FULLER, CHARLES OGLE Comments: Handsome surveyor falls in love with 'Lizbeth Ann, beautiful untutored girl of the mtns. She is invited to the city by her rival for the man's affections, but "on every hand 'Lizbeth's naive ways and charming disposition open to her the doors of the most exclusive homes in the great city."
1914 THE GIRL FROM THE (THUNDER) MOUNTAIN / ESSANAY Starring: RICHARD C TRAVERS, RUTH STONEHOUSE Comments: Set in the Virginia mtns: "A moonshiner melodrama which tells the story of virile, rugged life in the mountains, in which the usual government official comes into contact with the natives and falls in love with the barefooted girl in a tattered dress."
1914 WHO'S WHO IN HOGG'S HOLLOW / VITAGRAPH Directed by SIDNEY DREW Comments: A comedy wherein Bixford, a city fellow, runs afoul of Phineas Hogg, who is Sheriff, Judge, Hotelier, etc. of Hogg's Hollow.
1915 HIS FIGHTING BLOOD / SELIG Directed by THOMAS SANTSCHI Starring: THOMAS SANTSCHI, BESSIE EYTON Comments: "Unusual photography realistically picturing the wonderful mtns, hills and vales of old Ky ... picturesque mtn passes, rough cabins ... an atmosphere of feudal days, and dealing with Ky mtneer life, and primitive manhood and womanhood." A feud story.
1915 THE STILL ON SUNSET MOUNTAIN / DOMINO Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman in which the bad man is a dastardly revenue officer.
1915 THE CREED OF THE CLAN / ESSANAY Starring: RUTH STONEHOUSE, BRYANT WASHBURN, RAPLEY HOLMES, LILLIAN DREW Comments: Based on a story in Munsey Magazine. Probably a moonshiner pict, as the plot featured a detective.
1915 IN THE TENNESSEE HILLS / KAY-BEE Comments: Out-of-work hero whose bed-ridden mother is ejected by the landlord. The mother dies & the hero shoots the landlord. Captured by a posse, the hero is left on his horse with a noose tied around his neck so that when the horse moves he will be hanged. Heroine arrives in time to save him.
1915 THE PRAYER OF A HORSE / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Starring: AGNES VERNON, MURDOCK MACQUARRIE, ALBERT MACQUARRIE Comments: "A sort of Black Beauty story, told by a horse. A good Ky feud story is pictured in the opening scenes, the horse taking a prominent part." Produced by permission of the NY Women's League for Animals.
1915 DIANA OF EAGLE MOUNTAIN / BISON Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman, plus moonshining. The city man takes the mtn girl as his wife to the city, where she becomes an insufferable social butterfly.
1915 MOONSHINES / MINA Comments: A cautionary tale about the evils of drink under the guise of comedy. The whole pict is a dream a drunk man has, featuring a sinister moonshine king.
1915 THE MAID OF THE MIST / REX Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. "Ray, a young novelist, sets out for the mountains in search of local color." He ends up marrying a mtn maid, who is beloved by a jealous mtneer. Because the jealous mtneer is also the postmaster, he is able to keep the lovers separated and in the dark about one another for months.
1915 MOLLY OF THE MOUNTAINS / BRONCHO/MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: A young surveyor makes love to the moonshiner's daughter, refuses to marry her, tells the revenue officers of the still, is himself later mistaken for a moonshiner and killed.
1915 A NIGHT IN KENTUCKY / ESSANAY Comments: Weird story of mistaken identity. A man stalled in Ky mtns by a train wreck is captured by a mtn clan and accused of ruining their sister.
1915 THE SONS OF TOIL / DOMINO Comments: Coal mining plus two-men-and-a-woman.
1915 WILD BLOOD / IMP Starring: WILLIAM GARWOOD, VIOLET MERSEREAU Comments: A feud story with a new twist: the girl of one clan follows the mtn man to the city vowing to "get his blood." He becomes a doctor and he allows his blood to be used in a transfusion to save her life and she repents her hatred.
1915 LOVE AND HANDCUFFS / POWERS Starring: SYDNEY AYRES, DORIS PAWN Comments: Moonshiner's daughter and revenue agent.
1915 THE VOW / BROADWAY FILM CO Directed by S E V TAYLOR Starring: MARION LEONARD Comments: Feud violence is inherited through the bloodline in this bizarre tale, which begins in the Ky mtns when a rejected suitor kills a young woman's husband and vows to kill her infant son. When the son grows up, he and his mother are now part of New York's fashionable crowd (yeah, sure), and his mother is alarmed by her son's sudden and unaccountable desire to visit Ky, not to mention the way he is unconsciously fondling a gun.
1915 M'LISS / WORLD FILM CORP Starring: HOWARD ESTABROOK, BARBARA TENNANT Comment: A better-known version of this Bret Harte story was made in 1918 as a Western starring Mary Pickford. But this earlier version was done as an "Eastern" on location in western NC in and around Asheville. M'Liss lives with her dissipated father in Red Gulch, but decides to acquire education and manners when a handsome outsider comes to town.
1915 THE CURE OF THE MOUNTAINS / LAEMMLE Starring: CHARLES ALEXANDER, HELEN LESLIE, FRANK LLOYD Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman and a case of mistaken intentions. The hard-drinking city man has come to the mtns to dry out.
1915 A PROPHET OF THE HILLS / LAEMMLE Starring: MARC ROBBINS, HELEN LESLIE, FRANK LLOYD Comments: Feud story. The prophet of the title is killed in his efforts to bring peace to the warring factions.
1915 THE SPY'S SISTER / LUBIN Comments: Divided loyalties among mtneers because of Civil War.
1915 THE LAST OF THE STILLS / SELIG Starring: VIRGINIA KIRTLEY, ROBYN ADAIR Comments: Moonshine whiskey, revenue officers, and love between the moonshiner's daughter & the revenue officer.
1915 AN IDYL OF THE HILLS / REX Starring: PAULINE BUSH, WILLIAM DOWLIN, LON CHANEY Comments: A stranger comes into moonshining country, is suspected of being a revenue spy. "By a curious turn of events his life is threatened by three guns in the hands of different people at the same moment."
1915 THE REVENUE AGENT / ESSANAY Starring: G M ANDERSON, MARGUERITE CLAYTON, LEE WILLARD Comments: Revenue agent disguised as painter wins the heart of mtn gal, and his rival, a mtn boy, gives up his claim to the gal in favor of the revenue agent.
1915 THE GODDESS / VITAGRAPH Directed by THOMAS INCE Starring: ANITA STEWART Comments: Filmed on location at Bat Cave, Chimney Rock, and the Esmeralda Inn in western NC.
1915 ON BITTER CREEK / LUBIN Produced by EDGAR JONES Comments: Scenario by Emmett Campbell Hall. A conventional feud story.
1915 THE MAID O' THE MOUNTAINS / BIOGRAPH Starring: LOUISE VALE, KENNETH DAVENPORT, EDWARD CECIL, JACK DRUMEIR, FRANKLIN RITCHIE Comments: Moonshiners, a moonshiner's pretty daughter, an unwelcome suitor, a marshall in search of lawbreakers, and a handsome novelist of fiction.
1915 THE WORD / UNITED FILM SERVICE/LARIAT Comments: Mtns as refuge for bandit who only commits a robbery to get what is by rights his.
1915 IN THE VALLEY / THANHOUSER Comments: Innocent girl from mtns goes to "the valley" (that is, the city), is almost ruined by her innocence & an unscrupulous city man, returns to mtns and her contentment as wife of a mtn man.
1915 MOUNTAIN MARY / AMERICAN Starring: VIVIAN RICH, JOSEPH GALBRAITH, JACK RICHARDSON, LOUISE LESTER, CHARLES NEWTON Comments: Standard feud story with the classic dilemma: the son of one family "is torn by conflicting emotions--love for the girl and the promise he has made to his wounded father."
1915 DEAR LITTLE OLD TIME GIRL / LAEMMLE Starring: WILLIAM C DOWLIN, VIOLET MACMILLAN Comments: Mtn girl is sent to the city where she charms a city man by her pretty, old-fashioned, unsophisticated ways.
1915 HER RUSTIC HERO / NESTOR/UNIVERSAL Directed by HARVEY GATES Starring: VICTORIA FORDE, EDDIE LYONS Comments: A comedy about a would-be authoress who goes to the mtns to find a character to write about. The man poses as a mtn youth and tries to teach her a lesson. They end up in love and married.
1915 JANE OF THE SOIL / ESSANAY Starring: EDMUND F COBB, LILLIAN DREW, RICHARD C TRAVERS Comments: Jane, a "mtneer girl, wild & rough," "fights a bitter battle with conscience because she believes she has killed a man." She has been sent out of the mtns for schooling, returns with the rough edges buffed off but still with the "simple soul" of a wild mtn girl.
1915 THE CUB / WORLD FILM CORP/BRADY Produced by GEORGE W LEDERER Directed by MAURICE TOURNEAU Starring: JOHN HINES, MARTHA HEDMAN Comments: Based on Thompson Buchanan's 1910 Broadway satire of mtn feuds. The director & his asst. went to WVa, via Bluefield, to visit with Devil Anse Hatfield to interview him for backgrounds, etc. A photograph of that meeting was published in "The Moving Picture World."
1915 WHERE HAPPINESS DWELLS / UNIVERSAL/BIG U Starring: ADELE LANE, EDWARD SLOMAN Comments: Two city people on vacation meet in the mtns.
1915 MOUNTAIN JUSTICE / REX Starring: LON CHANEY, ARTHUR SHIRLEY, ELSIE JANE WILSON, GRACE THOMPSON Comments: Conventional plot dealing with the running of an illicit still, a cruel mtneer who abuses his wife. His partner punishes him and gives him over to justice.
1915 THE MIRROR / LUBIN Comments: "She is a simple mtn girl with an overabundance of vanity." Two-men-and-a-woman.
1915 THE MAID OF THE WILD / BALBOA Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. One of the men is a sickly city fellow who wins the mtn girl & takes her to the city. "But Lucy cannot reconcile herself to this strange, cramped city life with its pretenses and restraints."
1915 SEE AMERICA FIRST / GAUMONT/MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: Documentary footage of views in and around Asheville, NC.
1915 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS / WORLD Comments: From the novel by Charles Neville Buck. Filmed entirely in the Adirondacks. "It had been the intention to make the film in the South, but this was impossible."
1915 SUNSHINE AND TEMPEST / RIALTO Starring: FLORENCE TEMPEST, MARION SUNSHINE, FLAVIA ARCARO, SIDNEY MASON, JOHN REINHARDT, HENRY W PEMBERTON, LOUISE KENT, JAMES LEVERING, JACK HOPKINS Comments: Two-women-and-a-man, with moonshining as background.
1915 THE VILLAGE HOMESTEAD / ESSANAY Produced by JOSEPH BYRON TOTTEN Starring: DARWIN KARR, BETTY BROWN, JOSEPH BYRON TOTTEN, HOWARD LANG Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman with moonshining as background. The plot "would seem to indicate that the scenes of this drama are laid in Kentucky; the scenery, however, is pure New England."
1915 BILLIE--THE HILL BILLY / BEAUTY Starring: NEVA GERBER, WILLIAM CARROLL, LUCILLE WARD, WEBSTER CAMPBELL, TEDDY LYNCH, ROBERT MILLER Comments: The first known use of the term "hillbilly" in the movies, here used in reference to people in the Ozarks. "Pap" is a tyrant, like many mtn fathers in the silents. A city man comes to these mtns and rescues pap's daughter from his tyranny, taking her back to the city with him.
1915 A KENTUCKY IDYL / VICTOR Starring: J WARREN KERRIGAN, ETHEL PHILLIPS, T D CRITTENDEN, HELEN LESLIE, NORBERT MYLES Comments: A no-account mtn man allows a newly arrived missionary to stay in these Ky mtns because the parson has a pretty daughter. He eventually gets both religion & the girl.
1915 THE HEART OF THE BLUE RIDGE / WORLD FILM CORP/SHUBERT Directed by JAMES YOUNG Starring: CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG, CHESTER BARNETT, ROBERT CUMMINGS Comments: Moonshiners, two-men-and-a-woman (the latter named Plutina), plus a pet bear. Filmed on location at the Esmeralda Inn and at Chimney Rock in the western NC mtns. Rereleased in 1917 as The Savage Instinct.
1915 LON OF LONE MOUNTAIN / REX Starring: ARTHUR SHIRLEY, LON CHANEY, GEORGE HARRELL, MARCIA MOORE Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman; or, learned chivalry vs brutish uneducated mtn male behavior. But the brutish one saves his schoolteacher rival & wins the girl.
1915 A MYSTERY OF THE MOUNTAINS / BIOGRAPH Starring: IVAN CHRISTY, MARY MALATESTA, JACK DRUMEIR, JOSEPH MCDERMOTT, KATE BRUCE, SIDNEY D'ALBROOK, JAMES FUREY Comments: A poor mtneer & his virtuous daughter, his rich city relatives who owe money but won't pay it. The poor mtneer is accused of killing his rich relative, goes to prison where he meets an imprisoned moonshiner.
1915 THE FEUD / RELIANCE Directed by F I BUTLER Starring: MARGUERITE MARSH, WILLIAM HINCKLEY, RAYMOND WELLS, PORTER STRONG, KATE TONCRAY Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman with a feud motif.
1915 MARTYRS OF THE ALAMO; OR THE BIRTH OF TEXAS / FINE ARTS/TRIANGLE FILM CORP Produced by D W GRIFFITH Directed by WILLIAM CHRISTY CABANNE Starring: WALTER LONG, SAM DE GRASSE, FRED BURNS, ALFRED PAGET, ALFRED D SEARS, TOM WILSON Comments: Coonskin caps galore, with Alfred Sears as Davy Crockett.
1915 THE PARSON OF PINE MOUNTAIN / REX Starring: BEN WILSON, DOROTHY PHILLIPS, MATTHEW VON BETZ, JOSEPH W GIRARD Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. One of the men is a parson who ends up forcing the other man, who has betrayed the girl, into marrying her.
1915 THE END OF THE ROAD / AMERICAN Starring: HAROLD LOCKWOOD, MAY ALLISON, HELENE ROSSON, WILLIAM STOWELL, WILLIAM EHFE, LIZETTE THORNE, HARRY VON METER, HAL CLEMENTS, BEATRICE VAN, NAN CHRISTIE Comments: A Mulligan stew: wealthy Northerners at a mtn resort, a mortgage coming due & no money to pay it with, moonshiners, two- men-and-a-woman.
1915 THE SHRINE OF HAPPINESS / BALBOA Directed by BERTRAM BRACKEN Starring: JACKIE SAUNDERS, WILLIAM CONKLIN, PAUL GILMORE Comments: The first 5-reel photoplay ever hand-colored. "A child of nature, a sort of mountain sprite," is left an orphan & is taken to the city by an old friend of her father's.
1915 THE RIVER OF ROMANCE / ESSANAY Starring: JOHN LORENZ, CHARLES E ASHLEY, ELIZABETH TINDER, CHARLES W RACY Comments: A young engineer is offered $10,000 if he can figure how to get through a mtn range without building a tunnel. He is captured by moonshiners, falls in love with a mtn girl.
1915 THE FLOWER OF THE HILLS / VITAGRAPH Starring: CAROLYN BIRCH, LEO DELANEY, DENTON VANE, LOUISE BEAUDET, ROSE TAPLEY Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The woman is won by the city man.
1915 THE TERROR OF THE FOLD / CENTAUR/MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: Two-men-and-a-girl.
1915 THE MAKING OVER OF GEOFFREY MANNING / VITAGRAPH/BROADWAY STAR FEATURE Directed by HARRY DAVENPORT Starring: HARRY MOREY, L ROGERS LYTTON, BELLE BRUCE, NED FINLEY, LOGAN PAUL, KATE DAVENPORT, JACK BROWN, MARION HENRY Comments: The title character, an idle and rich layabout, can't even take care of himself until he gets a job at his father's steel mill and learns to work. He takes the side of the workers against his father (who naturally doesn't recognize him as his son), mediates a strike, wins his father's respect, rallies the workers, attracts a suitable mate by his newfound masculinity.
1916 MISSY / UNIVERSAL FILM MFG CO/LAEMMLE Produced by LYNN REYNOLDS Starring: MYRTLE GONZALEZ, ALFRED ALLEN, VAL PAUL, FRANK NEWBURG Comments: The mtn girl goes to the city but is appalled by the social life & flees back to the mtns.
1916 IN THE NAME OF THE LAW / MUTUAL FILM CORP/THANHOUSER Starring: GLADYS HULETTE, JOHN LEHNBERG, MORGAN THORPE, MORRIS FOSTER Comments: The moonshiner's daughter, the revenue agent, in a near-tragedy. Early role for Gladys Hulette who would play another mtn lass in "Tol'able David" in 1921.
1916 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS / PALLAS PICTURES/PARAMOUNT Starring: DUSTIN FARNUM Comments: An adaptation of Charles Neville Buck's novel. The city is snobbish & corrupting; only in the mtns can the hero realize "a strong heroic love."
1916 TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE / LASKY/PARAMOUNT Produced by CECIL B DEMILLE Starring: CHARLOTTE WALKER, THEODORE ROBERTS, EARLE FOXE, THOMAS MEIGHAN Comments: John Fox Jr's novel treated strictly as a moonshiner/ moonshiner's daughter/ revenue agent plot. "The utter conventionality of the story may act as a weakness in cities where audiences are more critical." Survives in the Library of Congress.
1916 A WOMAN'S POWER / WORLD-EQUITABLE/BRADY Starring: MOLLY KING Comments: Adapted from Charles Neville Buck's novel, "The Code of the Mountains." A mtn girl betters her condition in life. Part of the action set in the Philippines.
1916 THE MASKED RIDER / QUALITY PICTURES/METRO Directed by FRED J BALSHOFER Starring: HAROLD LOCKWOOD, MAY ALLISON, LESTER CUNEO, H W WILLIS, JOHN MACDONALD, HARRY BURKHARDT Comments: Filmed at the Esmeralda Inn in the shadow of Chimney Rock in the western NC mtns, this was a moonshining actioner, with the hero a secret service agent who disguises himself as a parson. He takes the moonshiner's daughter out of the hills at the end.
1916 FOUR NARRATIVES / LUBIN Produced by PAUL M POWELL Starring: R H GRAY, W E PARSONS, GEORGE ROUTH, GEORGE W CHASE, VELMA WHITMAN, NORMAN NAPIER Comments: Narratives within narratives. The first one is the story of a revenue agent hunting moonshiners. He falls for the moonshiner's daughter who is also loved by a bad mtneer.
1916 MAYBE MOONSHINE / KALEM Produced by WILLIAM BEAUDINE Starring: LLOYD V HAMILTON, BUD DUNCAN, ADONI FOVIERI Comments: A Ham-and-Bud comedy. They are first shown as small boys, children of rival mtn clans. When they arrive at manhood, they become ardent moonshiners and feudists. Burlesque.
1916 THEN I'LL COME BACK TO YOU / WORLD FILM CORP/FROHMAN Starring: ALICE BRADY, JACK SHERRILL Comments: Filmed in Yancey Co, NC, at the Carolina Spruce Band Mill and log pond near Pensacola.
1916 THE BATTLE ROYAL / VIM/GENERAL FILM CO Comments: A feud comedy. One son of each house loves a daughter of the other. Both families united when a revenue officer comes snooping.
1916 ACCORDING TO THE CODE / ESSANAY Produced by GEORGE K SPOOR Directed by E H CALVERT Starring: LEWIS S STONE, MARGUERITE CLAYTON, SYDNEY AINSWORTH Comments: Filmed near Chattanooga "in the exact locality in which the author has laid his plot." Deals with a love story of the Civil War and the meeting of the aged principals more than a half-century afterward.
1916 THE BUCKSHOT FEUD / LUBIN Directed by EDWIN MCKIM Starring: DAVY DON Comments: A comedy with a luckless lawyer trying a case in a courtroom filled with two feuding families.
1916 AT PINEY RIDGE / SELIG/V L S E Produced by WILLIAM ROBERT DALY Directed by WILLIAM ROBERT DALY Starring: FRITZI BRUNETTE, AL W FILSON, LEO PIERSON, EDWARD J POLK, FRANK CLARK, VIVIAN REED, JAMES BRADBURY, WILLIAM SCOTT, LILLIAN HAYWARD Comments: Adapted by Gilson Willets from "the famous stage play" by David K Higgins. Producer Daly "escorted a company of players to the heart of the Tenn mtns where true scenes of mtneer life were filmed."
1916 CAPRICE OF THE MOUNTAINS / FOX FILM CORP Directed by JOHN G ADOLFI Starring: JUNE CAPRICE, HARRY S HILLIARD, JOEL DAY, LISLE LEIGH, RICHARD HALE Comments: Uneducated and impetuous mtn girl Caprice is compromised by a city man; her father forces a shotgun wedding. Caprice finds big-city life unendurable, leaves her husband (who resents the fact he had to marry her) and returns to the mtns. Her husband realizes how much he loves her, follows her, and tells her the two of them will never leave the mtns.
1916 APRIL / AMERICAN FILM CO/MUTUAL FILM CORP Directed by DONALD MACDONALD Starring: HELENE ROSSON, E FORREST TAYLOR, HARRY VON METER, LOUISE LESTER, CHARLES NEWTON, AL FORDYCE Comments: An infant daughter born to wealth and privilege is kidnapped and carried off to the Ky mtns, where she is adopted by a loving mtn mother. But the new mother's evil mtn husband is only enraged by the child's innate goodness. She falls for a lowland poet, almost commits suicide, is about to be sold to an uncouth mtn man as a bride, when her true identity is discovered.
1916 FATE'S BOOMERANG / PARAGON FILMS/WORLD Directed by FRANK H CRANE Starring: MOLLIE KING, CHARLES GOTTHOLD, JUNE ELVIDGE, FRANK GOLDSMITH, HARRY REDDING Comments: An unhappily married civil engineer from the city comes to the southern mtns to build a railroad, tells his troubles to an understanding mtn girl, who promptly goes to the city to try to affect a reconciliation between the engineer and his adulterous wife. The evil wife scorns the mtn girl but promptly dies in an accident, leaving the engineer available for the mtn girl. A working title for this film: The Little Mother of the Hills.
1916 THE FEUD GIRL / FAMOUS PLAYERS/PARAMOUNT Produced by FRED THOMSON Directed by FRED THOMSON Starring: HAZEL DAWN, IRVING CUMMINGS, ARTHUR MORRISON, GEORGE MAJERONI, HARDEE KIRKLAND, RUSSELL SIMPSON, GERTRUDE NORMAN Comments: Shot on location in north Ga with many locals--"not types but actualities"--used as extras. "The feud is perhaps the most realistic that has ever been depicted on the screen."
1916 CONTRARY MARY / BRADY-MADE/WORLD FILM CORP Directed by EDWIN AUGUST Starring: MOLLIE KING, ARTHUR ASHLEY Comments: Shot on location near Asheville "a few miles up Jobel Canyon where towering cliffs and abysmal chasms will afford ample scenic sensation."
1916 THE CODE OF THE HILLS / LUBIN Directed by MELVIN MAYO Starring: MELVIN MAYO, MILLARD WILSON, ADELAIDE BRONTI, BIRD HOPKINS, CECIL VAN AUKER, LUCY PAYTON, EVELYN PAGE Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The city man marries the girl, carries her with him to the city, where she is miserable. She returns to the mtns pregnant, gives birth, dies. Her child grows up, raised by the faithful mtn man, and by workings of chance comes to confront her father.
1916 JERRY AND THE MOONSHINERS / CUB/MUTUAL FILM CORP Directed by MILTON H FAHRNEY Starring: GEORGE OVEY, GEORGE GEORGE, JEFFERSON OSBORNE, JANET SULLY, CLAIRE ALEXANDER, ABE LINCOLN, ARTHUR MUNDE, JOSEPH VON METER Comments: One of scores of one-reel comedies featuring George Ovey as "Jerry."
1916 THE APOSTLE OF VENGEANCE / INCE/TRIANGLE FILM CORP Starring: WILLIAM S HART, NONA THOMAS, JOSEPH J DOWLING, FANNY MIDGLEY, JACK GILBERT Comments: A young minister, the son of a family of Ky feudists, must decline a church in the civilized North in order to continue the family feud. "The story is strong and virile."
1916 A DEAD YESTERDAY / REX Produced by CHARLES GIBLYN Starring: HOBART HENLEY, JEAN HATHAWAY, CLEO MADISON, HILDA SLOMAN, RAY HANFORD, AGNES VERNON Comments: Opens with the pampered son of a wealthy mother in the city, but shifts to the family's WVa coal mines. Bizarre story of the pampered son marrying both a city model and a WVa mtn girl.
1916 DAVY CROCKETT / PALLAS PICTURES/PARAMOUNT Directed by WILLIAM TAYLOR Starring: DUSTIN FARNUM, WINIFRED KINGSTON, HARRY DE VERE, HERBERT STANDING, HOWARD DAVIES, PAGE PETERS, LYDIA YEAMANS TITUS Comments: Based on the Frank Mayo stage characterization, a non- Alamo romance in which Davy saves the girl by barring the door against wolves with his own arm.
1916 A ROMANCE OF NEWPORT Starring: VIVIAN FREDERICK, GENE ROBINSON Comments: Filmed in and around Newport, Tenn., the cast comprised entirely of local talent.
1916 HOW GOLD IS MINED IN GEORGIA (REEL LIFE NO 13) / GAUMONT /MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: Filmed in north Ga. Relates the history of a gold rush older than the more famous Calif one.
1916 JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS / SIGNAL/MUTUAL STAR PRODUCTIONS Directed by J P MCGOWAN Starring: HELEN HOLMES, LEO D MALONEY, PAUL C HURST Comments: Shot in "the wilds" of the Santa Ynez mtns below Santa Barbara. "Based on Alice McGowan's virile story." "But the material of the Ky feud and illicit stills has been worn threadbare."
1916 THE STRONGER LOVE / MOROSCO/PARAMOUNT Directed by FRANK LLOYD Starring: VIVIAN MARTIN, EDWARD PELL, FRANK LLOYD, JACK LIVINGSTON, ALICE KNOWLAND, HERBERT STANDING, JOHN MCKINNON, LOUISE A EMMONS Comments: The story of mtn girl Nell "who is reached by the spirit of progress to the extent of rebelling against the sordid conditions and stifling scope of her life." Reel five alone survives in the Library of Congress.
1916 THE DAWN OF FREEDOM / VITAGRAPH/V L S E INC Directed by PAUL SCARDON Starring: CHARLES RICHMOND, ARLINE PRETTY, JAMES MORRISON, THOMAS R MILLS, TEMPLER SAXE, EDWARD ELKAS, BILLIE BILLINGS Comments: A bizarre satire of modern corporate greed in which a "revolutionary patriot" in the Alleghanies is put under a spell and reawakes nicely preserved 139 years later to interact with modern American greed, particularly that of coal barons. "Everything ends happily for the workers."
1916 WEAPONS OF LOVE / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Produced by C S ELFELT Starring: VOLA SMITH, MARC ROBBINS, CHARLES GUNN, G RAYMOND NYE Comments: An old feud between the Ansons and the Murrels is ended by the love and religious devotion of a male Murrel.
1916 SEE AMERICA FIRST NO 52 / GAUMONT/MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: Travelogue featuring anthracite coal regions of the Pa mtns.
1916 THE LAUGH OF SCORN / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Produced by BEN WILSON Starring: BEN WILSON, CHARLES OGLE, EDNA HUNTER, JOSEPH W GIRARD Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The mtn girl falls in love with the new schoolmaster and even begins to attend his school, much to the disgust of her cruder mtn suitor, who ends up trying to kill his rival and wounding the girl.
1916 MOUNTAIN BLOOD / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Produced by GEORGE COCHRANE Starring: MOLLY MALONE, GEORGE BERRILL, JACK NELSON, VESTER PEGG, FRED BURNS Comments: Moonshiners and a mtn girl who tries to save them from revenue officers. "...All the ingredients one expects ... including a fight to the death at the close."
1916 FOR HER MOTHER'S SAKE / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Produced by CLIFFORD ELFELT Starring: VOLA SMITH, EDWIN BROWN, G RAYMOND NYE, MARC ROBBINS Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The mtn lass goes with the more polished city chap, but returns dejected to the mtns with a baby in her arms. The girl dies, & the jilted lover takes the baby to raise as his own.
1916 A MOUNTAIN NYMPH / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Produced by GEORGE COCHRANE Directed by GEORGE COCHRANE Starring: MOLLY MALONE, JACK NELSON, VESTER PEGG, GEORGE BERRILL, FRED BURNS Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman with moonshining background.
1916 THE ETERNAL WAY / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Directed by: CLIFFORD ELFELDT Starring: VOLA SMITH, MAE HILL, CHARLES GUNN, G RAYMOND NYE Comments: Vola Smith plays a wild, untamed girl who finally learns the meaning of true love.
1916 A MOUNTAIN DAISY / MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: A mountain girl, jilted by a trifler from the city, marries a man who has been true to her. Upon hearing that the former is coming through the territory with his new bride, the mtn girl and her husband succeed in exposing to the man's wife his former actions.
1916 THE STARBUCKS / AMERICAN/MUTUAL FILM CORP Starring: OPIE READ, MRS C S SMITH, WILLIAM LEE Comments: Reissue of 1912 film called "The Tennessee Judge." Two-men-and-a-woman, illicit whiskey, and a wise old country judge.
1916 CHILDREN OF THE FEUD / FINE ARTS/TRIANGLE FILM CORP Directed by JOSEPH HENABERY Starring: CHARLES GORMAN, DOROTHY GISH, A D SEARS, F A TURNER, SAM DEGRASSE, ELMO LINCOLN Comments: "A two-reel feud amplified to five reels." "It is a pity that a story of the mtns of Va & Ky cannot be written without a whiskey still and wholesale murder." "Worn-out melodrama ... threadbare...."
1916 SEE AMERICA FIRST NO 65 / GAUMONT/MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: Travelogue of the New River country of WVa.
1916 BAWBS O' BLUE RIDGE / INCE/TRIANGLE FILM CORP Produced by THOMAS H INCE Directed by CHARLES MILLER Starring: BESSIE BARRISCALE, ARTHUR SHIRLEY, JOE DOWLING Comments: A Cinderella/Prince Charming story. "Miss Barriscale wears [her rags] low-necked, short-sleeved, with a skirt brief enough to make even callous Broadway stop and look." Filmed in the "Los Angeles wildwood." Released again in 1917 as though it were a new production.
1916 BROKEN CHAINS / WILLIAM A BRADY PICTURES PLAYS INC/WORLD Directed by ROBERT THORNBY Starring: JOHN TANSY, CARLYLE BLACKWELL, HERBERT BARRINGTON, STANHOPE WHEATCROFT, HERBERT DELMORE, HENRY WEST, MADGE EVANS, ETHEL CLAYTON, JESSIE LEWIS Comments: A federal agent is sent south to round up moonshiners, falls in love with a mtn girl, whose brother frames the agent as an agitator of blacks. The brother is murdered, and the agent is jailed for the crime. The real black agitator talks in his sleep and reveals that he did the crime. Cast featured several African Americans and was originally titled The New South.
1916 BUDDY'S CHRISTMAS / MUTUAL Starring: E K LINCOLN Comments: In uniting to give a good Christmas to an orphan, a boy and girl from rival feuding clans manage to bring a final end to the old hostilities.
1916 MOONSHINE BLOOD / BIG U/UNIVERSAL Comments: Either a remake of "Red Margaret, Moonshiner" (1913) or a rerelease, for both titles had the identical plot synopsis.
1917 BRUTE FORCE / BISON/UNIVERSAL Produced by A W RICE Directed by EUSTACE HALE BALL Starring: GEORGE C PEARCE, JANE BERNOUDY, JAMES FARLEY Comments: Circuit minister rides into moonshine district, falls in love with a mountain girl.
1917 THREADS OF FATE / COLUMBIA PICTURES CORP/METRO Directed by EUGENE NEWLAND Starring: VIOLA DANA, ROBERT WHITTIER, AUGUSTUS PHILLIPS, RICHARD TUCKER, FRED JONES, HELEN STRICKLAND, NELLIE GRANT Comments: Built around the struggle between labor and capital in the Pa coal fields, focusing particularly on foreign (i e, Italian) coal miners, their grievances, and the ways those grievances are exploited by unscrupulous foreigners.
1917 THE LITTLE YANK / FINE ARTS FILM CO/TRIANGLE Directed by GEORGE SIEGMANN Starring: DOROTHY GISH, FRANK BENNETT, A D SEARS, ROBERT BURNS, FRED A TURNER, KATE TONCRAY, ALBERTA LEE Comments: A Civil War/divided loyalties story. Members of a Ky family are Union sympathizers, but the daughter falls in love with a Johnny Reb, which spurs the jealousy of a Union officer, himself in love with the girl. The girl is forced to rescue her Rebel lover, hostilities end, and the two are married.
1917 THE BOONTON AFFAIR / BISON/UNIVERSAL Directed by KING BAGGOT Starring: IRENE HUNT, KING BAGGOT, FRANK SMITH, JACK NEWTON Comments: Also written by King Baggot. A young revenue officer in the mtn country falls in love with a mtn girl and fights with her native admirer hand-to-hand. "The picturesque settings were worthy of a fresher story."
1917 THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS / PATHE Comments: An educational. A "glimpse at the people of the mtns of Tenn and NC and their primitive dwellings." Included an old woman carding, spinning, and weaving with the "primitive methods still in use" and views of a possum hunt.
1917 PRINCESS OF THE DARK / KAY-BEE/TRIANGLE FILM CORP Starring: ENID BENNETT, JACK GILBERT, ALFRED VOSBURGH, WALT WHITMAN, J FRANK BURKE Comments: A blind daughter of a consumptive lives a fantasy life in a squalid mining camp in WVa. She imagines a repulsive hunchback is her Prince Charming. When her sight is restored, she is horrified by the hunchback who promptly commits suicide. Moral: there really is no place for ugly poor people in this world.
1917 THE SAVAGE INSTINCT / WORLD FILM CORP/SHUBERT Starring: CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG, CHESTER BARNETT, ROBERT CUMMINGS Comments: A reissue of The Heart of the Blue Ridge, made on location in western NC in 1915 (see above).
1917 A CHILD OF THE WILD / FOX FILM CORP Directed by JOHN G ADOLFI Starring: JUNE CAPRICE, FRANK MORGAN, TOM BROOKE, RICHARD NEILL, JANE LEE Comments: Filmed on location near Hendersonville in the western NC mtns. June Caprice plays a backwoods tomboy who hates school until a handsome new teacher arrives. The new man arouses the jealousy of a local for June's love (= two-men-and-a-woman).
1917 SHORTY TRAILS THE MOONSHINERS / MONOGRAM/MUTUAL FILM CORP Comments: Number 9 in the "Adventures of Shorty Hamilton" series. These were Westerns, but in this number, Shorty is in the mtns of Ky to rescue his sweetheart Anita from dastardly moonshiners who have a trapdoor trick to land him in the soup.
1917 TROOPER 44 / E I S MOTION PICTURE CO Produced by DIXON BOARDMAN Directed by ROY GABRIS Starring: GEORGE SOULE SPENCER, JUNE DAYE, BETTY DODSWORTH, W W BLACK, WALTER P LEWIS, ROY SHELDON, ROY GABRIS Comments: A melodrama about Pennsylvania's "Black Hussars," the mounted police "that have done so much to suppress crime and maintain order in Pa, especially among the lawless element in the coal region."
1917 MISS DECEPTION / VAN DYKE FILM PRODUCTION CO Directed by EUGENE KNOWLAND Starring: JEAN SOTHERN, ROBERT KEGERIS, JACK NEWTON, MARY MOORE, EDWIN STANLEY, JACK ELLIS, HAL PEEL Comments: A comedy, playing on the expectations among snooty city people that a finely bred city woman will lose all her refinement from staying a while in the Ky mtns with an uncle. The city woman decides to fulfill her family's worst expectations by playing the egregious hick to the hilt.
1917 HER PRIMITIVE MAN / REX/UNIVERSAL Starring: MYRTLE REEVES, HARRY GRIFFITH, JACK MULHALL, JEAN HERSHOLT Comments: An artist lady gets an order for some "primitive sketches," and she goes into the mtns to obtain them. The joke is that she ends up sketching a college graduate as her "primitive man," and he must save her from unwanted advances.
1917 A MAGDALENE OF THE HILLS / ROLFE PHOTOPLAYS/METRO Produced by B A ROLFE Directed by JOHN W NOBLE Starring: MABEL TALLIAFERRO, WILLIAM GARWOOD, FRANK MONTGOMERY, WILLIAM B DAVIDSON, WILLIAM BLACK, CHARLES BROWN Comments: Mabel Taliaferro had made a name for herself playing "the sweet girl in rags." In this film (supposedly shot "in the locale of the story") she is a barefoot, rifle-toting girl torn between love and vengeance.
1917 SOMEWHERE IN THE MOUNTAINS / CUB/MUTUAL Directed by MILTON FAHRNEY Starring: GEORGE OVEY Comments: The 78th Cub Comedy with George Ovey in which he appears sans makeup as himself. The moonshiner scenes may well have been taken from the earlier Ovey comedy, "Jerry and the Moonshiners" (1916).
1917 THE GRIP OF LOVE / GOLD SEAL/UNIVERSAL Directed by WILLARD MACK Starring: ALLEN HOLUBAR, LOUISE LOVELY, ALFRED ALLEN, ED BRADY, MAUD EMERY, H B EDMONDSON, BUSTER EMMONS Comments: In the Tenn mtns the hero is mistaken for a revenue agent; the heroine is a schoolteacher; the villain, a jealous mtneer.
1917 THE LAST OF HER CLAN / SELIG/GENERAL FILM CO Directed by BURTON L KING Starring: VIRGINIA KIRTLEY, MORRIS CYTRON, ROBYN ADAIR, E J BRADY Comments: "Evidently made some time ago" (Why? Because it was so old-fashioned in plot or because it was so short?). The girl goes to live with her uncle and cousin in the Ky feud country.
1917 SOUTHERN JUSTICE / BLUEBIRD PHOTOPLAYS INC Produced by LYNN F REYNOLDS Starring: MYRTLE GONZALEZ, GEORGE HERNANDEZ, JACK CURTIS, JEAN HERSHOLT, CHARLES N MALLES, FRED CHURCH, ELWOOD BREDELL, MAXFIELD STANLEY, GEORGE MARSH Comments: Despite its title, a story of the Ky hills without crime or villainy, except for the hustling scenes of a Northerner who tries to bilk the small-town folk on some bogus oil land. The little hero of the piece is an orphan lad who limps into town with an old shotgun in one hand and a copy of "Pilgrim's Progress" in the other.
1917 THE STOLEN ACTRESS / GOLD SEAL/UNIVERSAL Produced by RUTH STONEHOUSE Starring: CHESTER BENNETT, RUTH STONEHOUSE, GEORGE WEBB, WADSWORTH HARRIS, LYDIA Y TITUS, ALFRED ALLEN, JANE BERNOUDY, EUGENE WALSH Comments: A Ky would-be playwright writes a play about moonshiners especially for a famous actress he admires. The plot contrives it so that the events of the fiction are acted out for real. It's another "Where Broadway Meets the Mountains."
1917 A SON OF THE HILLS / GREATER VITAGRAPH Directed by HARRY DAVENPORT Starring: ANTONIO MORENO, ROBERT GAILLARD, JULIA SWAYNE GORDON, BELLE BRUCE Comments: A juvenile feature. A poor but honest young chap of the hills sets out into the world to find his fortune, and does.
1917 PATSY / FOX FILM CO Directed by JOHN ADOLPHI Starring: JUNE CAPRICE, EDNA MUNSEY, JOSEPH GRAMBY, HARRY HILLIARD Comments: The heroine is a ragged tomboy girl of the Southern mtns who is sent to the city. "The director let [June Caprice] wear clothes, both night and day gowns, that no mtn girl would be at all likely to have so soon after she arrived in the city."
1917 MELISSA OF THE HILLS / AMERICAN/MUTUAL STAR Directed by JAMES KIRKWOOD Starring: MARY MILES MINTER, SPOTTISWOOD AIKEN, ALLAN FORREST, GEORGE PERIOLAT, PERRY BANKS, HARVEY CLARK, FRANK THOMPSON, JOHN GOUGH, GERTRUDE LEBRANDT Comments: Story of the feud country of Tenn, originally called "The Circuit Rider." Melissa and her father, a pious circuit rider, get drawn into a bloody feud, with the preacher all the while trying to uplift the mtneers. He gets killed for his efforts. Shot among the big redwoods near Santa Cruz, Calif.
1917 THE UNTAMED / STAR FEATURETTE/UNIVERSAL Directed by LUCIUS HENDERSON Starring: MARY FULLER, WILLIAM J WELCH, JOHNNIE WALKER, HELEN SLOSSON Comments: The daughter of a moonshiner continues to run the still after her father is killed. A handsome young revenue officer complicates matters, but she saves his life after he is bitten by a rattlesnake and all ends happily.
1917 MOUNTAIN DEW / TRIANGLE FILM CORP Directed by THOMAS HEFFRON Starring: MARJORIE WILSON, CHARLES GUNN, THOMAS WASHINGTON, AL W FILSON, JACK RICHARDSON, AARON EDWARDS, MARY BORLAND Comments: Marjorie Wilson's first star vehicle for Triangle. Exterior scenes shot at Felton, Calif. The usual plot about KY feuds and moonshine with the outsider being a novelist. "Hill- billies of the KY Cumberlands offer most of the excitement."
1917 THE CONQUEROR / FOX STANDARD PICTURE Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by RAOUL WALSH Starring: WILLIAM FARNUM, JEWEL CARMEN, CHARLES CLARY, J A MARCUS, CARRIE CLARKE WARD, WILLIAM CHISHOLM, ROBERT DUNBAR, OWEN JONES Comments: A story of Sam Houston as a rough backwoods TN mtn man who struggles upward socially until he can marry a Nashville belle. Then the story switches to the TX frontier.
1917 HER COUNTRY'S CALL / AMERICAN/MUTUAL STAR PRODUCTION Starring: MARY MILES MINTER, ALAN FOREST, GEORGE PERIOLAT, MARGARET SHELBY Comments: "A girl of the moonshine mtns, stolen during wartime by a bootlegger, has been reared to despise the flag by the mtneer whom she thought was her father." War-time propaganda.
1917 FROM TREE TO MILL / PATHE Comments: An educational short. How hardwood timber is cut and transported in the mtns of Tenn.
1917 THE ADOPTED SON / METRO PICTURES CORP Directed by CHARLES BRABIN Starring: FRANCES X BUSHMAN, BEVERLY BAYNE, LESLIE STOWE, J W JOHNSTON, JOHN SMILEY, GERTRUDE NORMAN Comments: A feud story, featuring the McLanes and the Conovers.
1917 THE COURAGE OF THE COMMONPLACE: A STORY OF YALE / EDISON Directed by BEN TURBETT Starring: LESLIE AUSTIN, WILLIAM CALHOUN, MILDRED HAVENS, JESSIE STEVENS, WILLIAM WADSWORTH, LUCIA MOORE Comments: A Yankee blue-blood with a coal-baron father fails to make Skull & Bones, is sent by his father to manage his toughest coal mine, staffed by working dirty guys with hearts of gold. The Yankee blue-blood saves his miners in a mine disaster, proving that coal owners and coal managers are actually both good people.
1918 MICKEY / MABEL NORMAND FEATURE FILM CO Directed by MACK SENNETT Starring: MABEL NORMAND Comments: The story of "a ragged little mtn girl" (albeit Calif mtns), raised by a poor miner, and sent into town to become civilized. Her misadventures in polite society form the core of the film. Finished in 1917 at great cost (Sennett was in love with Normand) and at great length, it was cut to several different lengths before public release at 7,000 ft in 1918.
1918 MORGAN'S RAIDERS / BLUEBIRD Directed by WILFRED LUCAS Starring: VIOLET MERSEREAU, BARBARA GILROY, EDWARD BURNS, FRANK HOLLAND Comments: "The daughter of a KY mtneer at outs with her more civilized relatives." She gets involved with Col Morgan's raiders by dressing in boy's clothes.
1918 OUR SOUTHERN MOUNTAINEERS (PICTOGRAPH NO 107) / PARAMOUNT- BRAY Comments: "Here we see them [Southern mtneers] weaving cloth for their garments, plying agricultural & other duties in the struggle for a livelihood after the primitive methods followed by their forefathers. The scenes in the picture were photographed in the Blue Ridge, Cumberland & Great Smoky Mtns."
1918 A SOUL IN TRUST / TRIANGLE Directed by G P HAMILTON Starring: BELLE BENNETT, DARRELL FOSS, LILLIAN WEST, GROVER FRANKE Comments: A wealthy young Virginian, married to a Southern belle, has an affair with a mtn girl which produces a baby son.
1918 IN THE MOONSHINE COUNTRY (PICTOGRAPH NO 109) / PARAMOUNT- BRAY Comments: "Hidden from the outside world in the rugged mtns of north GA & KY live the famous American 'moonshiners,' whose mode of living has remained unchanged for 5 generations." An educational short-subject.
1918 NATIVE STATE (THE SON OF DEMOCRACY) / CHAPIN/FAMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY Starring: BENJAMIN CHAPIN Comments: An installment in "The Son of Democracy" serial about Abraham Lincoln. Daniel Boone & a tribe of Indians take part in the action. "The way in which the life of [Lincoln] was intertwined with the Boone family shows that fact is really stranger than fiction."
1918 THE PRIMITIVE WOMAN / AMERICAN FILM CO/MUTUAL Directed by LLOYD INGRAHAM Starring: MARGARITA FISHER, JACK MOWER, MILLARD WILSON, EMMA KLUGE, HELEN HOWARD, MOLLY MCCONNELL, EDWARD PEIL Comments: A comedy, satirizing American men's alarm over "modern women." A haughty professor goes to the hills to write a treatise on "primitive woman." A city woman, looking to get even with his arrogance, poses as a "wild woman" of the hills, lets him study her, and gradually wins his love, finally exposing her identity and his stupidity.
1918 THE SCARLET DROP / UNIVERSAL Directed by JACK FORD Starring: HARRY CAREY, MOLLY MALONE Comments: "Poor white trash triumphant." Feud story involving class hatred between the poor Casses and the rich Calverts in Ky.
1918 THE DESIRED WOMAN / VITAGRAPH Produced by ALBERT E SMITH Directed by PAUL SCARDON Starring: HARRY MOREY, FLORENCE DESHON, JEAN PAIGE, CHARLES HUTCHINSON, WILLIAM CAMERON, EULALIE JENSEN Comments: Based on Will N Harben's novel of the same title. A dishonest stock broker vacations in the Tenn hills, woos a pretty hill school teacher, goes back to town, forgets the teacher and marries a society woman, which produces a miserable marriage and one child. The child dies, his wife leaves him, the school teacher in the hills has married someone else, so the stock broker becomes an evangelist.
1918 RIDERS OF THE NIGHT (THE NIGHT RIDERS) / METRO Directed by JOHN H COLLINS Starring: VIOLA DANA, GEORGE CHESSBORO, RUSSELL SIMPSON, MABEL VAN BUREN, CLIFFORD BRUCE, MONTE BLUE Comments: Evidently more bluegrass KY than mtn, but "the story [is] laid in the picturesque mtn regions of KY." Two-men-and-a- woman, with the bad guy being a tollroad operator hated by all the village. "The struggle of the rude mtneers to overthrow the tollgates & win free roads from the unscrupulous & avaricious owner of the monopoly."
1918 MOUNTAIN LAW / GENERAL FILM CO/BLUE RIDGE Produced by NED FINLEY Directed by NED FINLEY Starring: NED FINLEY, MARION HENRY Comments: "The changes worked by a pretty young school teacher in bringing to an end a bitter mtn feud." Filmed in NC at Finley's Bat Cave facilities.
1918 CYCLONE HIGGINS, D.D. / METRO Directed by WILLIAM CHRISTY CABANNE Starring: FRANCIS X BUSHMAN, BEVERLY BAYNE Comments: A muscular preacher comes to a TN mtn town, puts down the rough element, wins a beautiful girl. Filmed in New York state.
1918 MOONSHINE / PARAMOUNT Starring: FATTY ARBUCKLE, BUSTER KEATON, ALICE LAKE, AL ST JOHN, CHARLES DUDLEY Comments: Arbuckle & Keaton are revenue officers, sent to the mtns of KY to put a stop to moonshining. They are brave & resourceful, but have a weakness for the ladies.
1918 THE MAN FROM NOWHERE / NED FINLEY/BLUE RIDGE DRAMAS Produced by NED FINLEY Directed by NED FINLEY Comments: Mystery, involving a sawmill & lots of action. Filmed at Bat Cave, NC, but this may have been intended as a lumberjack story set in the Northwest.
1918 THE RAIDERS OF SUNSET GAP / GENERAL FILM/NED FINLEY FILMS Produced by NED FINLEY Directed by NED FINLEY Starring: NED FINLEY, MARION HENRY, RICHARD R NEIL, HARRY HAMILL, BERT GUDGEON Comments: A story of moonshiners in the TN mtns. Filmed on location near Bat Cave, NC.
1918 A DAY IN THE COAL FIELDS / GAUMONT Comments: An educational, made in cooperation with the Nat'l Coal Assn. "It draws attention to the necessity for a continuous supply of coal cars."
1918 A WOMAN OF REDEMPTION / WORLD PICTURES Directed by TRAVERS VALE Starring: JUNE ELVIDGE, CHARLES H MARTIN, JOHN BOWERS Comments: A lumber camp tale, more Western than Southern, but filmed at Bat Cave, NC.
1918 ONE DOLLAR BID / PARALTA/ W W HODKINSON CORP Directed by ERNEST C WARDE Starring: J WARREN KERRIGAN, LOIS WILSON, JOSEPH J DOWLING, BEATRICE JOY Comments: "Moonshine whiskey is at the bottom of most of the trouble in the story." A promising young lawyer, because of strong drink, declines to the point he is auctioned off as a slave to the highest bidder, who happens to be a lovely young daughter of local gentry, and she redeems him. Set in KY.
1918 AN OZARK ROMANCE / PATHE/ROLIN Starring: HAROLD LLOYD, BEBE DANIELS, HARRY POLLARD Comments: "A fine moving josh on the old sob style of melodrama, & it is said to be very cleverly handled." Lloyd visits the Ozarks where he has some funny experiences with a mtn girl & her eccentric family.
1918 WILD PRIMROSE / VITAGRAPH Starring: GLADYS LESLIE Comments: Primrose, an apparently poor Tenn mtn girl, is actually the daughter of a high society man and her mother, who was abandoned by the father because of his social standing.
1918 THE POWER AND THE GLORY / WORLD PICTURES Directed by LAWRENCE C WINDOM Starring: JUNE ELVIDGE, MADGE EVANS, FRANK MAYO Comments: Based on the novel by Grace McGowan Cook about the daughter of "a shiftless mtneer" who "won her way to happiness from squalid surroundings." Filmed on location (in part) at Hickory Nut Gap, NC.
1918 HER MAN / ADVANCED MOTION PICTURE CORP/PATHE Directed by RALPH W INCE Starring: ELAINE HAMMERSTEIN, W LAWSON BUTT, CHARLETON MACY Comments: Based on Charles Neville Buck's "The Battle Cry" and filmed on location in the Cumberland Mtns of KY. A society dame comes to the mtns as a missionary "to raise these people to her own standards of living."
1918 A NYMPH OF THE FOOTHILLS / GREATER VITAGRAPH Directed by FRED A THOMPSON Starring: GLADYS LESLIE, ALFRED KAPPELER Comments: "A rustic heroine whose want of accomplishments is more than counter balanced in the eyes of her city-bred hero by her bright smile and golden curls is again made the central figure of a screen romance."
1918 KATE OF KENTUCKY / METRO Directed by GEORGE D BAKER Starring: MAY ALLISON, HERBERT H HEYES Comments: Melodramatic farce about a Southern mtn girl, filmed at Metro's CA studios.
1918 OUT OF A CLEAR SKY / PARAMOUNT Produced by ADOLPH ZUKOR Directed by MARSHALL NIELAN Starring: MARGUERITE CLARK, THOMAS MEIGHAN Comments: Belgium countess swore she wouldn't marry a German & came to America to escape the arrangement, eventually lands in the mtns of TN, where she falls for a virile specimen of American mtn manhood.
1918 THE CHALLENGE ACCEPTED / PATHE/ARDEN PRODUCTION Directed by EDWIN L HOLLYWOOD Starring: ZENA KEEFE, CHARLES ELDRIDGE, RUSSELL SIMPSON Comments: "What happened when the Blue Ridge mtneers went to war." Steve Carey from the mtns of NC is drafted into the training camp, "not knowing what the war is about and caring less."
1918 FIGHTING BLOOD / WILLIAM FOX Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by OSCAR C APFEL Starring: WILLIAM FARNUM, DOROTHY BERNARD, FRED HUNTLEY, HENRY J HEBERT, H A BARROWS, DICK LE STRANGE, WILLARD LOUIS Comments: Probably really a Western timberlands melodrama (of which there were many produced & exhibited) but the "program & advertising phrases" recommended to exhibitors were: "A virile story of Life in the KY mtns," "Photoplay of the KY mtns and early gold fields [sic]," "Life, Love and Adventure in the wild mountains of Kentucky." Also called "a reissue," but original title and release date not found.
1918? A BLACKJACK BARGAINER / EDISON? GEORGE KLEINE? Starring: WILLIAM WADSWORTH, RUSSELL SIMPSON, JESSIE STEVENS, FRANKLIN HALL, CARLOTTA CARLTON Comments: A remake of "The Splendid Scapegrace" from a story by O Henry. The disreputable drunk, Yancey Goree, sells everything he owns to some social-climbing mtneers so that he can go on gambling. Then at the urging of the social-climber, he also "sells" an old and mainly forgotten feud so that the mtneers can feel they've truly joined society. In an act of bravery, Yancey saves his old feud enemy but dies himself at the hand of the mtneer.
1919 PARAMOUNT-BRAY PICTOGRAPH / PARAMOUNT Comments: An "educational" which "reveals ... just how the great fields of surface coal in the State of Kentucky are being mined. Closeups of the steam shovels ... scooping up the coal...."
1919 SIS HOPKINS / GOLDWYN PICTURES Produced by SAM GOLDWYN Directed by CLARENCE G BADGER Starring: MABEL NORMAND, JOHN BOWERS, SAM DE GRASSE, THOMAS JEFFERSON Comments: The first feature movie incarnation of the outlandish hillbilly gal from Punkinsville, IN. The character was first made popular on the stage by Rose Melville beginning in 1896. Melville also made many Sis Hopkins one-reelers about 1916.
1919 TWILIGHT / DELUXE PICTURES Produced by THOMAS A PERSONS Directed by J SEARLE DAWLEY Starring: DORIS KENYON, FRANK MILLS, HARRY LEE, GEORGE A LESSEY, WILLIAM HARTMAN, SALLY CRUTE, EDITH WARREN Comments: Adapted from a story by Vingie E Roe published in the Metropolitan. The exteriors filmed on location near Hendersonville, NC, using "several hundred native mtneers" and a complete movie-set lumbercamp and sawmill at Hickory Nut Gap.
1919 THE CARTER CASE (SERIAL) / OLIVER FILMS INC Starring: HERBERT RAWLINSON, MARGARET MARSH Comments: One or more episodes of this "Craig Kennedy" serial featured a desperate struggle: "The heroine, Anita Carter, is rescued by Craig Kennedy, the detective-hero, from a burning room in the den of lawless moonshiners in which she was being imprisoned."
1919 SUE OF THE SOUTH / BLUEBIRD PHOTOPLAYS INC Directed by W EUGENE MOORE Starring: EDITH ROBERTS, RUBY LA FAYETTE, JAMES FARLEY, P S PEMBROKE, MARIE VAN TASSELL Comments: Sue lives with her dear old granny in the Tenn Cumberlands. Granny's dying wish is that her grandchild go live with the wealthy Peytons in Chicago, who used to be hill people too and who have feuded with the Peters. One of the Peters boys has fallen in love with Sue. She not only ends the feud but saves the rich Peytons from a mob of striking workers.
1919 THE REBELLIOUS BRIDE / FOX Directed by LYNN F REYNOLDS Starring: PEGGY HYLAND, PELL TRENTON, GEORGE NICHOLLS, GEORGE HERNANDEZ, CHARLES LEMOYNE Comments: "Romance with Springtime freshness in [this] Ozark setting." "The Ozark mtn background & the characters go together convincingly." "Shotgun tactics prevail at 'military wedding' of an Ozark bride."
1919 KINOGRAMS (SERGEANT YORK NEWSREEL) / KINOGRAM Comments: The TN mtneer and famous war hero shown in his natural surroundings in TN.
1919 HOPE OF THE HILLS / UNIVERSAL Directed by HARRY LEVEY Comments: Made by Universal's educational division with cooperation from Alice Lloyd, the Bostonian who came to Knott County, KY, in 1915 to uplift the mtneers. Made on location using all locals (except for one part), so it was a fiction film made like a documentary. Propaganda to help Alice Lloyd raise money for her KY missionary work.
1919 BILL APPERSON'S BOY / FIRST NATIONAL Directed by JAMES KIRKWOOD Starring: JACK PICKFORD, GLORIA HOPE, RUSSELL SIMPSON, GEORGE NICHOLS Comments: Supposed to be about an all-American boy in the Ga mtns, but filmed in the CA mtns near San Jacinto. From Hapsburg Leibe's story. Mild feud motif between two families; the "good boy/mama's-boy" theme.
1919 COWARDICE COURT / FOX FILM CORP Directed by WILLIAM C DOWLAN Starring: PEGGY HYLAND, JACK LIVINGSTON, ARTHUR HOYT, KATHRYN ADAMS, BURTON LAW Comments: A comedy, working the angle that a mountain feud among wealthy and aristocratic summer people in the Adirondack mtns would be side-splitting.
1919 HIS DIVORCED WIFE / UNIVERSAL Starring: MONROE SALISBURY Comments: "Tale of the Ky mtns" from a story by Elmore Elliot Peake. A young blacksmith weds the village belle, must go to prison for another's crime while his wife obtains a divorce to marry one of his rivals.
1919 HEART O' THE HILLS / FIRST NATIONAL Directed by SIDNEY FRANKLIN Starring: MARY PICKFORD, HAROLD GOODWIN, SAM DEGRASSE, FRED W HUNTLY Comments: Tale of a KY mtn girl who saves her mother's land from land sharks and becomes a night rider to avenge her father's death. In it, Mary Pickford was supposed to be breaking new ground (she'd long been America's cuddly little girl) playing the wild girl of the hills ("I can lick any boy in town"). Based on a John Fox story.
1919 THE HEART OF YOUTH / FAMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY CORP Produced by JESSE L LASKY Directed by ROBERT G VIGNOLA Starring: LILA LEE, TOM FORMAN, BUSTER IRVING, CHARLES OGLE, FANNY MIDGLEY, GUY OLIVER, LYDIA KNOTT Comments: Another comedy about feuding, between the country- living Whipples and the more wealthy Prendergasts, with a Romeo- Juliet love affair going on between a daughter and a son from each family.
1919 WHEN BEARCAT WENT DRY / MACAULEY PHOTOPLAYS INC/WORLD Directed by OLLIE L SELLERS Starring: BERNARD DURNING, VANGIE VALENTINE, LON CHANEY, WINTER HALL, WALT WHITMAN, N K WILSON, GORDON RUSSELL Comments: Filmed on location in KY with writer Charles Neville Buck's active participation and help: "Natives of the mtn district, some of whom had never seen a motion picture, were induced to participate in small character parts, & local color was secured through the knowledge that Mr Buck was personally interested in the film."
1919 THE THUNDERBOLT / KATHERINE MACDONALD PICTURES CORP/FIRST NATIONAL Directed by COLIN CAMPBELL Starring: KATHERINE MACDONALD, SPOTTISWOOD AITKEN, THOMAS MEIGHAN, FORREST STANLEY, ADA GLEASON, DOC CANNON, JIM GORDON Comments: Weird, weirder, weirdest. Bruce Corbin forces Allan Pomeroy to give him his daughter in marriage so that he can take strange revenge for the Corbin/Pomeroy feud by keeping his new wife from ever giving birth. But Bruce is subject to memory loss whenever it thunders, and during a particularly prolonged thunderstorm, his new wife seduces him and bears a child, which ends up reconciling the feud.
1919 HER INSPIRATION / METRO Directed by ROBERT THORNBY Starring: MAY ALLISON, HERBERT HEYES, CHARLES ELDER, JACK BRAMMALL, ALLEN D SEARS Comments: Mtneers resent the intrusion of a playwright who has come into the moonshiners' district for "local color."
1919 THE BRAMBLE BUSH / VITAGRAPH Starring: CORINNE GRIFFITH Comments: A naive girl of the Cumberland mtns almost succumbs to an attractive Lothario, although she is aware that he does not intend marriage.
1919 WHEN THE GIANT AWAKES (SEE THE KEY TO POWER) / EDUCATIONAL FILM CORP Comments: One of two working titles for "The Key to Power."
1919 THE ROMANCE OF COAL (SEE THE KEY TO POWER) / EDUCATIONAL FILMS CORP Directed by CARROLL FLEMING (F A THOMPSON) Starring: ETHEL GREY TERRY, ALBERT HALL, HARRY HOLLINGSWORTH, ROBIN MACDOUGAL, J J DUNN, CHARLES MASON, WILLIAM T HAYES, L F KENNEDY, GEORGE HARCOURT Comments: A propaganda film urging the maximum production of coal for the war effort. Never finished under this title. See "The Key to Power."
1919 THE KEY TO POWER / EDUCATIONAL FILMS CORP Produced by E W HAMMONS Directed by WILLIAM PARKE Starring: CLAIRE ADAMS, J H GILMOUR, HUGH THOMPSON, FRAZIER NOUNNAN, TOM BURROUGHS, FRED RADCLIFFE, GEORGE PAUNCEFORT, L F KENNEDY, J J DUNN Comments: Blamed the coal companies as much as the unions for the coal shortages and apparently advocated the nationalization of the coal fields. The plot involved a German spy who schemes with a profiteering railroad magnate to deny coal cars to competing railroads, with "a view to fomenting labor unrest." Originally titled "A Romance of Coal" and then later "When the Giant Wakes." Filmed on location in WV near Logan and in Charleston and at other sites in the Allegheny Mtns.
1920 IN OLD KENTUCKY / FIRST NATIONAL Produced by LOUIS B MAYER Directed by MARSHALL NEILAN Starring: ANITA STEWART, MAHLON HAMILTON, EDWARD DOXEN, CHARLES ARLING, FRANK DUFFY Comments: A Louis B Mayer extravaganza mixing deep South and mtn South stereotypes: Bluegrass horse-racing and some moonshining mtneers thrown in. Mayer's exploitation campaign: "I want it played like a circus--brass bands, circus billing and circus stunt publicity." "In Old KY" had run successfully on stage since 1893, but this movie ruined its drawing power.
1920 FIGHTING CRESSY / JESSE D HAMPTON PRODUCTIONS/PATHE Produced by JESSE D HAMPTON Directed by ROBERT T THORNBY Starring: BLANCHE SWEET, RUSSELL SIMPSON, EDWARD PEIL, PELL TRENTON, ANTRIM SHORT, FRANK LANNING, BILLIE BENNETT Comments: Based on the novel Cressy by Bret Harte, so this was technically a Western but with Eastern feud motifs, since two CA gold-rush families, the McKinstrys and the Harrisons, are both from the KY hills. Fights over a boundary line, closing with the standard reconciliation based on Romeo-Juliet love.
1920 HEART OF A FOOL / MAYFLOWER CORP Directed by ALLAN DWAN Starring: JAMES KIRKWOOD, MARY THURMOND, GEORGE STEGMAN Comments: Coal-mining melodrama from a story by William Allen White.
1920 THE VALLEY OF TOMORROW / AMERICAN/PATHE Directed by EMMETT J FLYNN Starring: WILLIAM RUSSELL, MARY THURMAN, HARVEY CLARK, FRED M MALATESTA, FRANK BROWNLEE Comments: "...tells a gripping story of a young mtneer who sought revenge on an artist who later saved his life." "A story of the mtn-feud type." Filmed in & around Lake Tahoe, so had a distinctly Western look. "...draws a vivid pict of virile Americans who migrated from the mtns of KY to the glorious West."
1920 THE MOONSHINE TRAIL / PATHE Produced by J STUART BLACKTON Directed by STANLEY OLMASTED Starring: SYLVIA BREMER, ROBERT GORDON Comments: "...deals throughout with the havoc wrought by strong drink on the human family." Opens with death of moonshiner & his two sons, destruction of their still, flight of his widow & daughter to New York, where strong drink continues to play a role in the wooing of the daughter. Exteriors shot on location in Cumberland Mtns.
1920 SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS / W T GASKELL Directed by HAROLD BELL WRIGHT Starring: HARRY LONSDALE, CATHERINE CURTIS, GEORGE MCDANIELS, DAN BAILEY, C EDWARD RAYNOR Comments: Announced in Feb 1917 that Harold Bell Wright was adapting his own novel, to be filmed in the Ozarks of MO, the locale of the story. The first director & most of the original cast were replaced, Wright directing his own story. Clarence Linz said: "If some expert could go through it, cut out the repetitions and the unnecessary graveyard scenes, making it a five-reel production, it would rank with any of its class."
1920 THE BIRTH OF A SOUL / VITAGRAPH Directed by EDWIN L HOLLYWOOD Starring: HARRY T MOREY, JEAN PAIGE, CHARLES ELDRIDGE, GEORGE COOPER, CHARLES KENT, WALTER LEWIS Comments: Suggested "exploitation angle": "Play up on Morey & the Ky locale. Keep away from the feud angle...." Harry Morey plays double role, as sons of both families. "See this unusual story of the Cumberland mtn region dealing with love and tragedy." Filmed at Bat Cave, NC.
1920 THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME / GOLDWYN PICTURES CORP Directed by WALLACE WORSLEY Starring: JACK PICKFORD, CLARA HORTON, PAULINE STARKE, J PARK JONES, CLARK MARSHALL Comments: The first known movie version of the John Fox novel. Pickford was supposed to be "the living symbol of youth," the good American boy caught in a Civil War story/dilemma.
1920 THE DEAD LINE / FOX Directed by DELL HENDERSON Starring: GEORGE WALSH, IRENE BOYLE, BABY ANITA LOPES, JOSEPH HANAWAY, AL HART Comments: Guess What? Athletic young mtneer who has inherited a family feud loves a girl on the other side. Robt McElravy: "The coming of prohibition has in a way served to brighten up the feud tale."
1920 THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIANS / STERLING FEATURE PICTURES Directed by J HARRISON EDWARDS Starring: THORNTON BASTON, IRMA HARRISON, MYRA BROOKS, TOM BURROUGHS, ADELE KELLY, COLEN CHASE, PETE RAYMOND, MAY WICK Comments: Charles T Dazey, author of "In Old Kentucky," was hired to write the titles and "inject local color into the text." Supposedly filmed at least partially on location with mtn people as atmosphere.
1920 PATHE REVIEW NO 52 / PATHE Comments: An "educational" short, on pottery-making in the Blue Ridge Mtns, among other subjects.
1920 THE GAUNTLET / VITAGRAPH Starring: HARRY MOREY, LOUISZITA VALENTINE, FRANK HAGNEY, WALTER HORTON, CHARLES ELDRIDGE, ELEANOR BARRY Comments: Outsider comes to TN mtns to possess some land his father has bought. "A feudal story, yes! And one of the strangest feuds..."
1920 A CUMBERLAND ROMANCE / REALART PICTURES CORP Directed by CHARLES MAIGNE Starring: MARY MILES MINTER, MONTE BLUE, JOHN BOWERS, ROBERT BROWER, MARTHA MATTOX Comments: Based on "A Mountain Europa" by John Fox. The mountain girl Easter Hicks and the tame mtn preacher, Sherd Raines, who loves her. Clayton, the New Yorker, whom Easter almost marries. Clash of two cultures and two classes of people.
1920 MOUNTAIN MADNESS / CLERMONT PHOTOPLAYS/REPUBLIC Produced by LLOYD B CARLETON Directed by LLOYD B CARLETON Starring: MIGNON ANDERSON, HAROLD MILLER, ORA CAREW, EDWARD COXEN, STUART MORRIS, JACK LOTT, GRACE PIKE, ALFRED ALLEN, EDNA PENNINGTON Comments: From the pen of Anna Alice Chapin, based on a supposed tradition in WVa, that if two lovers quarrel as the mist rolls up the glen they will be overtaken by "mtn madness." Devoid of the familiar moonshiner & revenue officer, but it does have mtn bandits and cold-blooded sheriffs.
1920 UNCLE SAM OF FREEDOM RIDGE / HARRY LEVEY PRODUCTIONS Produced by HARRY LEVEY Directed by GEORGE BERANGER Starring: GEORGE MCQUARRIE, WILLIAM S CORBETT, PAUL KELLEY, HELEN FLINT, LESLIE HUNT, SHERIDAN TANSEY Comments: A fervent propaganda piece in favor of the League of Nations. The allegory uses an Uncle Sam in the WVa mtns who loses a son in the "war to end war." Based on an Atlantic Monthly story by WV writer Margaret Prescott Montague. The movie was endorsed by President Wilson & was shown at its opening to cabinet members & other influential Democrats.
1920 FORBIDDEN VALLEY / PATHE/J STUART BLACKTON Produced by J STUART BLACKTON Directed by J STUART BLACKTON Starring: MAY MCAVOY, BRUCE GORDON, WILLIAM R DUNN, CHARLES KENT, WARREN CHANDLER Comments: "The last stand of primitive white men in America; the last frontier of the land where men make and enforce their own laws; such is the forbidden valley in the heart of the KY mtns."
1920 SEEDS OF VENGEANCE / MACAULEY PHOTOPLAYS INC Directed by OLLIE O SELLERS Starring: BERNARD DURNING, CHARLES EDLER, PAULINE STARKE, GLORIA HOPE, EUGENE BESSERER Comments: Story laid in the mtns of WVa. "...throwing to the foreground all the animalism & primitive instinct ... shaded with the religious fervor for which the mtneers are known." From a novel by Margaret Prescott Montague, "The Sowing of Alderson Cree," which was a feud story. Exploitation angles: "Play on the locale and avoid the use of 'feud' or 'vendetta'.... Dwell upon the beauty of the scenes ... & connect the star with his work in 'When Bearcat Went Dry'."
1920 THE FEUD / FOX Directed by EDWARD J LESAINT Starring: TOM MIX, EVA NOVAK, CLAIRE MCDOWELL, J ARTHUR MACKLEY, JOHN COSSAR, MOLLIE MCCONNELL Comments: An "Old South" feud theme (boy & girl from opposing families, followed by eventual reconciliation of the families), with last half set out West. Shows precisely how feud stories are early Westerns in fact.
1920 THE JUCKLINS / JESSE LASKY/PARAMOUNT Produced by GEORGE MEDFORD Directed by GEORGE MEDFORD Starring: MABEL JULIENNE SCOTT, MONTE BLUE, RUTH RENICK, CHARLES OGLE, FANNY MIDGELY Comments: From the novel by Opie Read, set in the NC mtns. This movie reaches "a combined pathos and power derived from the plain facts of existence, and this without using other notes than common tenderness and affection, with a sprinkling of rude humor." Exploitation angle: "Make a strong appeal to the older generation."
1920 HIS NOISY STILL / SUNSHINE COMEDY Comments: "A lively little farce starting with a private plant for distilling 'hootch' with some hilarious incidents in and out of the 'blind tiger'."
1921 DAUGHTER OF DEVIL DAN / BUFFALO MOTION PICTURE CO Starring: IRMA HARRISON, KEMPTON GREENE Comments: The daughter of Devil Dan is raised by moonshiners to be uncouth but buxom wild girl of the hills. Dashing young revenue officer appears. Etc.
1921 THE MOUNTAIN WOMAN / FOX Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by CHARLES GIBLYN Starring: PEARL WHITE, CORLISS GILES, RICHARD C TRAVERS, GEORGE BARNUM, JOHN WEBB DILLON Comments: Based on "The Pagan of the Hills" by Charles Neville Buck & shot on location in the mtns of KY. "She was a girl of the forests and wore the attire of a man."
1921 THE MOONSHINE MENACE / AMERICAN FILM CO Directed by J P MCGOWAN Comments: A remake of "Judith of the Cumberlands" (1916). In this version Judith has just returned to the mtns after several years' absence "fer learnin."
1921 JESSE JAMES UNDER THE BLACK FLAG / MESCO PICTURES CORP Directed by FRANKLIN B COATES Starring: JESSE JAMES JR, DIANA REED, MARGUERITE HUNGERFORD, SUNSHINE BAKER, FLORA MACCORMACK, HARRY HOFFMAN, PERRY SAMUELS Comments: An early Jesse James treatment, done by a Kansas City film company using the bandit's only surviving child in the title role along with the former black servant Perry Samuels also playing himself.
1921 JESSE JAMES AS THE OUTLAW / MESCO PICTURES CORP Directed by FRANKLIN B COATES Starring: JESSE JAMES JR, DIANA REED, MARGUERITE HUNGERFORD Comments: A sequel to "Jesse James Under the Black Flag" and probably filmed at the same time as the former. A continuation of the supposed "truth-telling" of the "real" story of the famous outlaw.
1921 THE ROOF TREE / FOX Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by JOHN FRANCIS DILLON Starring: WILLIAM RUSSELL, FLORENCE DESHON, SYLVIA BREAMER, ROBERT DALY Comments: Ken Thornton flees to Ky after his sister's husband is murdered. He is taken in by the Harpers, falls in love with Dorothy Harper, arouses the jealousy of Bass Rowlett... Two-men- and-a-woman, with Ken Thornton the outsider winning in the end.
1921 DYNAMITE ALLEN / FOX FILM CORP Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by DEL HENDERSON Starring: GEORGE WALSH, EDNA MURPHY, DOROTHY ALLEN, CAROLA PARSONS Comments: A blind child is the sole witness to the murder of a coal mine owner, and her mistaken testimony convicts her benefactor. Years later, her sight restored, she helps her benefactor's son, "Dynamite Allen," expose the real murderer and falls in love with him.
1921 THE BLAZING TRAIL / UNIVERSAL FILM MFG CO Directed by ROBERT THORNBY Starring: FRANK MAYO, FRANK HOLLAND, VERNE WINTER, MADGE HUNT Comments: Young physician Bradley Yates, on the verge of a nervous collapse in his search for an effective serum to counteract blood poisoning, retires to the Blue Ridge mtns to regain his health. "The unique situation of a prominent scientist concealing his identity and taking up life as an illiterate mountaineer."
1921 GO STRAIGHT / UNIVERSAL FILM MFG CO Directed by WILLIAM WORTHINGTON Starring: FRANK MAYO, CORA DREW, HARRY CARTER, LILLIAN RICH, GEORGE F MARION Comments: A young minister comes to a backwoods community in KY and finds that lawless and political elements are against him. He exposes the political boss and wins the love of the object of desire.
1921 THE KENTUCKIANS / FAMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY/PARAMOUNT Produced by ADOLPH ZUKOR Directed by CHARLES MAIGNE Starring: MONTE BLUE, DIANA ALLEN, WILFRED LYTELL, FRANK JOYNER Comments: Boone Stallard, elected to the Ky legislature by a mtn district, clashes with Randolph Marshall, a bluegrass aristocrat. Based on the novel by John Fox Jr. and filmed on location near Big Stone Gap and in Frankfort, KY. "Exploitation angles" emphasized that people might not come to see it if they knew it contained a feud story.
1921 A DAUGHTER OF THE LAW / STAR RANCH PRODUCTIONS/CBC FILM SALES Produced by GRACE CUNARD Starring: GRACE CUNARD, COLE HERBERT, GORDON GRIFFITH Comments: A girl revenue officer goes into the mtns on a motorcycle to trail moonshiners. She is discovered & is about to be killed but is tied to a log and allowed to drift downstream over the rapids. One of the moonshiners helps her to escape. A romance begins between the two, and she reports failure to her home office, returns to the hills to her mtn lover. Understood at the time to be "a western subject." Survives in the Library of Congress.
1921 MOVIE CHATS NO 53 / CHARLES URBAN Comments: An educational short, featuring views of John Shell, the famous KY mtneer who claimed to be 136 years old in 1921. At this time he was married to "a buxom matron of 35" and had a 6- year-old son.
1921 MOONSHINE / EDUCATIONAL FILM CORP Starring: LLOYD HAMILTON Comments: A Mermaid Comedy. "Ham" is born while the house where his mother lives is being besieged by the revenue men. A baby born under such circumstances is supposed to have the courage of a lion, but "Ham" is far from brave.
1921 CINDERELLA OF THE HILLS / FOX Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by HOWARD M MITCHELL Starring: BARBARA BEDFORD, CARL MILLER Comments: A "simple" "old-fashioned" story laid "among the primitive folk of the Ozark mtns." Barbara Bedford's first starring picture and an inauspicious vehicle for her.
1921 ANNE OF LITTLE SMOKY / PLAYGOER'S/WISTARIA PRODUCTIONS Directed by EDWARD CONNOR Starring: WINIFRED WESTOVER, JOE KING, FRANK SHERIDAN, DOROLES CASINELLI, FRANK HAGNEY, HAROLD CALLAHAN Comments: Rural melodrama in which the Brocktons claim the Little Smoky region as their own when the government turns it into a forest and game preserve. The mtneer's daughter falls for the guvmint man, a forest ranger. The cast featured also a "gypsy princess."
1921 TOL'ABLE DAVID / INSPIRATION PICTURES/FIRST NATIONAL Produced by CHARLES H DUELL JR Directed by HENRY KING Starring: RICHARD BARTHELMESS, GLADYS HULETTE, ERNEST TORRENCE Comments: Adapted from a Saturday Evening Post story by Joseph Hergesheimer, this was Richard Barthelmess' first starring vehicle, and very successful too. A coming-of-age story, with the villains, three sub-humanoid gorillas that are prototypes of the Deliverance hillbillies. Filmed on location on the VA/WV line in Highland County, VA.
1921 PRIMITIVE LIFE IN TENNESSEE / KINETO REVIEW Comments: An educational. Shows "the people of the purest American pioneer stock," apparently near Chattanooga.
1921 REMORSELESS LOVE / SELZNICK Directed by RALPH INCE Starring: ELAINE HAMMERSTEIN, NILES WELCH, JERRY DEVINE, RAY ALLEN Comments: "Differs from the ordinary run of Tenn mtn feud stories [in that] the principal characters are several notches higher up in the social scale." The heroine is a schoolteacher and the hero, a college grad who drives about in an expensive auto. Exploitation angles: "Keep off the feud as much as you can."
1922 HUMAN HEARTS / UNIVERSAL-JEWEL Produced by CARL LAEMMLE Directed by KING BAGGOT Starring: HOUSE PETERS, RUSSELL SIMPSON, GERTRUDE CLAIRE, GEORGE HACKATHORNE Comments: A city con-artist woman comes to an Ozarks farm for the purpose of marrying Tom Logan for the fortune in coal beneath his property. A melodrama that involves murder and the eventual conversion of the city-woman to a happy life in the Ozarks.
1922 MOONSHINE VALLEY / FOX Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by HERBERT BRENON Starring: WILLIAM FARNUM, SADIE MULLEN, HOLMES HERBERT, DAWN O'DAY Comments: Ned Connors becomes a drunkard after his wife leaves him to marry a doctor. The abandoned husband finds the child Nancy while wandering in the woods, takes her home, and becomes a better person because of her. Later Ned kills the doctor who took his wife and reconciles with her.
1922 THE INNER MAN / SYRACUSE MOTION PICTURE CO Directed by HAMILTON SMITH Starring: WYNDHAM STANDING, DOROTHY MACKAILL, JAY BARNEY SHERRY, GUSTAVE VON SEYFFERTITZ Comments: A mild-mannered mathematics professor agrees to inspect his father's failing mine in Ky. Faced with a bad mtn family, he finds his own manhood. A comedy in the "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" vein.
1922 BONE DRY / HAL ROACH/PATHE Produced by HAL ROACH Starring: PAUL PARROTT Comments: A timid revenue officer must pose as a bootlegger to escape hanging and proves his right to moonshining by brewing some poison that proves too much for his pursuers. He then discovers that they are all revenue officers. Slapstick comedy.
1922 THE CYNIC EFFECT / DOROTHY GISH PRODUCTIONS/PRODUCERS SECURITY CORP Directed by F RICHARD JONES Starring: DOROTHY GISH, GLENN HUNTER, MILDRED MARSH, HARLAN KNIGHT, TOM DOUGLAS, RAYMOND HACKETT, ALBERT HACKETT, KATHLEEN COLLINS Comments: Originally made by D W Griffith Inc in 1920 but was held back, reedited, retitled several times (it is also known as The Country Flapper). A comedy focusing on a willful and flirtatious country gal who loves the wrong man, while the bashful rube who must end up with her is ignored. But he rescues her from a burning barn anyway, a barn which incidentally houses a moonshine still.
1922 THE GHOST BREAKER / FAMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY/PARAMOUNT Directed by ALFRED E GREEN Starring: WALLACE REID Comments: Trying to escape from a Ky mtn feud, Warren Jarvis agrees to help Maria Theresa rid her father's castle of ghosts and find a treasure hidden in it. A slapstick comedy featuring most notably the work of Walter Hiers in blackface playing a valet. Not really a mtn story, but a Medieval-castle-with-ghosts comedy, set mainly on a plain in Spain in the rain.
1922 WOLF LAW / UNIVERSAL Directed by STUART PATON Starring: FRANK MAYO Comments: Melodrama set in the Ozark hills, a "wild country where the laws are made by human wolves."
1922 TORCHY'S FEUD / EDUCATIONAL Starring: JOHNNY HINES Comments: Another slapstick comedy featuring a humorous revenue officer and a gang of mtneer moonshiners, "a community where infants chew tobacco and men play tiddlywinks with manhole covers." Johnny Hines played the same wide-eyed outsider among the hillbillies in "Rainbow Riley" (which, see below under 1926).
1923 OUR HOSPITALITY / KEATON PRODUCTIONS/METRO Produced by BUSTER KEATON Directed by JACK BLYSTONE/BUSTER KEATON Starring: BUSTER KEATON, NATALIE TALMADGE KEATON, BUSTER KEATON JR, JOE KEATON Comments: Buster Keaton inherits property in the feud country of Ky, and he imagines it to be a mansion, plus he walks confidently into the middle of the Canfield/MacKaye feud. This was Keaton's 2nd feature-length movie.
1923 DRIVEN / CHARLES BRABIN/UNIVERSAL Produced by CHARLES J BRABIN Directed by CHARLES J BRABIN Starring: EMILY FITZROY, ELINOR FAIR, BURR MCINTOSH, CHARLES EMMETT MACK, GEORGE BANCROFT Comments: Shot on location somewhere in the Southern mtns. The story is about a mtn mother: "She is the wife of a beast and three of her sons are beasts. Moonshining is their business and brutality their recreation." Was probably made to cash in on the popularity of "Tol'able David," as one of Mrs. Tolliver's sons is a very good boy (and the resemblance of Charles Mack to Richard Barthelmess was emphasized in some ads).
1923 THE GUNFIGHTER / FOX FILM CORP Produced by WILLIAM FOX Directed by LYNN F REYNOLDS Starring: WILLIAM FARNUM, DORIS MAY, L C SHUMWAY, J MORRIS FOSTER, IRENE HUNT Comments: In the Southern mtns a bitter feud begins between the Benchleys and the Camps, when Lew Camp learns that his daughter Nell was taken from her mother to replace a dead child in the Benchley family.
1923 THE BISHOP OF THE OZARKS / FILM BOOKING OFFICE Produced by MILFORD W HOWARD Directed by FINIS FOX Starring: MILFORD W HOWARD, DERELYN PERDUE, CECIL HOLLAND, WILLIAM A KENTON Comments: "A story of a regenerated life" with "a deeply religious motive." "A gigantic drama of the heart of the Ozark hills ... where men fight for life and love."
1923 PREPARED TO DIE / CLIFF REID Directed by WILLIAM HUGHES CURRAN Starring: EDDIE POLO, ENA GREGORY, JAMES MCELHERN Comments: A society snob decides to commit suicide by injecting himself into a KY feud (and this was evidently a melodrama and no comedy). His efforts are interpreted as heroics, he wins a girl's love, and he returns home.
1923 THE POWER DIVINE / PREMIUM PICTURES/INDEPENDENT PICTURES Directed by H G MOODY Starring: MARY WYNN, JACK LIVINGSTON, CAROLINE BRUNSON, RALPH PACKER, AL FERGUSON Comments: A youth educated in the city returns home unaware of a feud existing between his and another family. He falls in love with a daughter of the other family. Although his rival turns the townspeople against him, in the end love conquers all.
1923 DANIEL BOONE / PATHE Produced by YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS Directed by CLAUDE H MITCHELL Starring: ELMER GRANDIN, VIRGINIA POWELL Comments: Based on Yale University Press's "The Chronicles of America" series which initially planned on 50 photoplays. In this plan the mtns are merely a barrier to getting to the good land on the other side. Indians besiege Boonesborough, attempt to tunnel under it. Boone is "a man endowed by nature with the explorer's instinct and with a curious mixture of gentle soul and rugged body."
1923 IN THE DAYS OF DANIEL BOONE (SERIAL) / UNIVERSAL Produced by CARL LAEMMLE Directed by WILLIAM J CRAFT Starring: EILEEN SEDGWICK, JACK MOWER, CHARLES BRINLEY, RUTH ROYCE, DUKE R LEE, ALBERT J SMITH Comments: Charles Brinley played Daniel Boone as a supporting player to the main story. A serial in the tradition of serial Westerns, only with incidents drawn from the French-Indian War and Daniel Boone's attempts to establish the 1st Ky settlement -- topics "which are dear to the hearts of boys and which also thrill grown-ups with the adventurous spirit."
1923 THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE / FAMOUS PLAYERS- LASKY/PARAMOUNT Produced by ADOLPH ZUKOR Directed by CHARLES MAIGNE Starring: MARY MILES MINTER, ANTONIO MORENO, ERNEST TORRENCE, EDWIN BRADEY Comments: The third filmed version of John Fox's bestseller, based on Eugene Walter's stage adaptation of the novel. The release of this picture--Mary Miles Minter's last--coincided with the unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor, and Minter was implicated (she was at the very least, the public thought, guilty of loose sex). So although this movie did good business, Minter's career was ruined.
1923 THE CALL OF THE HILLS / LEE-BRADFORD Directed by FRED HORNBY Starring: ROBERT BRODERICK, SALLY EDWARDS, MAUD MALCOLM, LOUISE O'CONNOR, ALICE ALLEN Comments: A nameless girl is rescued from a worthless guardian and an ignorant bootlegger to be brought up with a good education.
1924 THE MARTYR SEX / PHIL GOLDSTONE PRODUCTIONS Directed by DUKE WORNE Starring: WILLIAM DYER, WILLIAM FAIRBANKS, LES BATES, BILLY BENNETT, DOROTHY REVIER Comments: A country doctor amputates the arm of a wounded feudist. Meanwhile, the daughter of the one-armed feudist is about die from abuse. The doctor rescues the girl while the one- armed feudist tries to get revenge on the doctor for his missing arm.
1924 THE VALLEY OF HATE / RUSSELL PRODUCTIONS Directed by RUSSELL ALLEN Starring: RAYMOND MCKEE, HELEN FERGUSON, EARL METCALF, WILFRED LUCAS Comments: A wealthy young man in C inherits valley property he has never seen, goes there to inspect it, is mistaken for a revenue officer, falls in love with the beautiful ward of one of the moonshiners, etc.
1924 VIRGINIAN OUTCAST / ROBERT J HORNER/AYWON FILM CORP Directed by ROBERT J HORNER Starring: JACK PERRIN, MARJORIE DAW Comments: Melodrama of the TN hills. An unwelcome stranger in town is framed as a counterfeiter because he finds the favor of the best-looking girl in town. The stranger triumphs by exposing the bully of the town as the real counterfeiter.
1924 WHO'S CHEATING? / LEE-BRADFORD CORP Directed by JOSEPH LEVERING Starring: DOROTHY CHAPPELL, RALPH KELLERD, ZENA KEEFE, MONTAGUE LOVE Comments: A cowardly young man goes to work in his father's Pa coal mine "to find his manhood" and win self-respect. There he thwarts a plan to control the mines (unionization?), rescues the beautiful girl he loves, and becomes the man every American has a right to expect he ought to be.
1924 THE NIGHT MESSAGE / UNIVERSAL Directed by PERLEY POORE SHEEHAN Starring: CHARLES CRUZ, GLADYS HULETTE, EDGAR KENNEDY, HOWARD TRUESDELL, MARGARET SEDDON Comments: The story of a youth wrongly convicted of murder because he is suspected of renewing a family feud in the Southern mtns, and how he is saved at the last moment.
1924 THE HILL BILLY / JACK PICKFORD PRODUCTIONS Produced by JACK PICKFORD Directed by GEORGE HILL Starring: JACK PICKFORD, LUCILLE RICKSEN, FRANK LEIGH, RALPH YEARSLEY, JANE KECKLEY, SNITZ EDWARDS, MALCOLM WAITE Comments: "Groundhog" Spence slays Jed McCoy's father and marries Mrs McCoy to obtain her land, rich in coal. Jed loves Spence's niece, Emmy Lou, but Spence forces Emmy Lou to marry his son Aaron. On Jack Pickford playing the likeable mtn lad Jed: "It seems rather improbable that a boy whose whole life has been so far removed from clod-hopping could step into the part of a long- haired mtn hick and act precisely like one." Based on "a story" by John Fox Jr.
1924 BLACK LIGHTNING / GOTHAM PRODUCTIONS/LUMAS FILM Produced by SAMUEL SAX Directed by JAMES P HOGAN Starring: CLARA BOW, HAROLD AUSTIN, EDDIE PHILLIPS, THUNDER THE DOG Comments: Accompanied by Thunder, the dog that rescued him from the firing line in France, Ray Chambers, a World War I veteran, goes to the mtns to recover from his war injuries and meets a mtn girl. Thunder the dog saves the girl from a monstrous mtn man.
1924 THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST / PATHE Produced by YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS Directed by WEBSTER CAMPBELL Comments: One of the "Chronicles of America" series. Exteriors filmed "in the backwoods regions of North and South Carolina" with "an army of extras recruited from the Carolina mtneers. These backwoods men served in the double capacity of workmen in the building of the Fort Necessity sets and as riflemen in the battle scenes."
1925 THUNDER MOUNTAIN / FOX Produced by VICTOR SCHERTZINGER Directed by VICTOR SCHERTZINGER Starring: MADGE BELLAMY, LESLIE FENTON, ALEC B FRANCIS, PAUL PANZER, OTIS HARLAN, ZASU PITTS Comments: Based on a successful stage play by John Golden, "Howdy Folks." A girl circus performer escapes her menacing boss and finds succor on Thunder Mtn where illiterate people live in poverty & ignorance. A mtn boy who has gone away and been educated and who wants to uplift his people is helped by the circus girl. The bad mtneers run away when the dynamite explodes, thinking it the vengeance of God.
1925? THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE / MAX FLEISHER CARTOONS Comments: An undated "song" cartoon, released between1924 and 1926, which used the pop song of the day "Trail of the Lonesome Pine."
1925 THE MIDNIGHT FLYER / R-C PICTURES/FBO Directed by TOM FORMAN Starring: CULLEN LANDIS, DOROTHY DEVORE, FRANKIE BARRO Comments: Si Henderson is the only mtneer to get a job with the railroad when it starts coming through the WV mtns. This incurs the wrath of Jeb Slater, who keeps alive the century-old feud between the Hendersons and the Slaters. Basically a railroading pict with a feud (as well as mtns) standing in the way of progress.
1925 THE WILD GIRL / TRUART FILM CORP Directed by WILLIAM BLETCHER Starring: LOUISE LORRAINE, ART ACORD, ANDREW WALDRON, REX THE DOG Comments: Two-men-and-a-woman. The woman is "a wild girl of the forest" who lives with her grandfather and her dog Rex. One man is a brutish mtneer. The other is a city man. The dog and the city man together rescue the wild girl from "the overpowering advances" of the mtn man.
1925 BARRIERS OF THE LAW / INDEPENDENT PICTURES Produced by JESSE J GOLDBURG Directed by J P MCGOWAN Starring: J P MCGOWAN, HELEN HOLMES, WILLIAM DESMOND, ALBERT J SMITH, NORMA WILLS Comments: River-going scows and bootleggers, love between the bootlegger's daughter and the revenue man, with the law triumphant at the end over truly despicable bad men.
1925 SUN-UP / METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Directed by EDMUND GOULDING Starring: LUCILLE LA VERNE, PAULINE STARKE, CONRAD NAGEL, SAM DE GRASSE, GEORGE K ARTHUR, ARTHUR RANKIN, EDWARD CONNELLY Comments: Maw Cagle is devoted to raising her baby boy into the hatred of a mtn feud. But her baby boy's fate is swept up into WW I. He returns from war with a new appreciation of peacefulness and teaches his maw "the sun-up of civilization," ie, to give up her feud. Based on a Lula Vollmer play.
1925 BELOW THE LINE (KENTUCKY HILLS) / WARNER BROS Directed by HERMAN RAYMAKER Starring: RIN-TIN-TIN Comments: Rin-Tin-Tin falls off a train in the Ky hills, gets adopted by "a sweet-tempered village youth," and helps out in a murder mystery.
1926 RAINBOW RILEY / BURR & HINES/FIRST NATIONAL Produced by CHARLES C BURR Directed by CHARLES HINES Starring: JOHNNY HINES Comments: Second film version of Thomas Buchanan's play "The Cub," about a cub reporter from the Louisville Courier-Journal who goes to the KY mtns to cover a feud. The trailer alone survives in the Library of Congress, showing cartoonized hillbillies. Filmed in the Bronx, the exteriors taken at the Delaware Water Gap.
1926 MEN OF STEEL / GOTHAM PRODUCTIONS/LUMAS FILM Directed by GEORGE ARCHAINBAUD Starring: MILTON SILLS, DORIS KENYON, MAE ALLISON, VICTOR MCLAGLEN, FRANK CURRIER Comments: An extremely violent melodrama emphasizing the brutal reality of the nation's steel industry. Our hero first accepts the blame for a murder, escapes, struggles to gain education, rises to leadership among the workers, gets engaged to the steel baron's daughter ("to aid the men"), faces a riot, attempts on his life, etc., to the happy ending "when it turns out that his backwoods sweetheart is also the daughter of the steel man."
1926 KING OF THE PACK / GOTHAM PRODUCTIONS/LUMAS FILM Produced by RENAUD HOFFMAN Directed by FRANK RICHARDSON Starring: PETER THE GREAT, VERA LEWIS, CHARLOTTE STEVENS, ROBERT GORDON, MARY CORNWALLIS Comments: Sam Blair, a poor mtn farmer of Tenn, takes the "Widder" Gasper as his second wife, and she soon lives up to the vicious tradition of stepmothers. Features the dog Peter the Great, who incidentally brings a gang of moonshiners to justice.
1926 DAVY CROCKETT AT THE FALL OF THE ALAMO / SUNSET PRODUCTIONS Produced by ANTHONY J XYDIAS Directed by ROBERT NORTH BRADBURY Starring: CULLEN LANDIS, KATHRYN MCGUIRE, JOE RICKSON, BOB FLEMING, RALPH MCCULLOUGH, FLETCHER NORTON Comments: Some footage survives. Early scenes set in Tenn show Crockett as top-hatted gentleman. He only puts on buckskin & coonskin hat when he goes west to the Alamo.
1926 THE NIGHT WATCH / TRUART FILM CORP Directed by FRED CALDWELL Starring: MARY CARR, CHARLES DELANEY, GLORIA GREY, JACK RICHARDSON Comments: A feud between the Powell and Blackwell families frustrates young lovers George and Nellie, but U.S. revenue agents end the dispute when the Powell clan has to escape arrest for moonshining.
1926 DANIEL BOONE THROUGH THE WILDERNESS / SUNSET PRODUCTIONS Directed by ROBERT BRADBURY/FRANK MATTISON Starring: BOB STEELE Comments: Little is known about this "Sunset Special," except that an exhibitor called it "a dandy good picture that made me no money."
1926 HELL-BENT FER HEAVEN / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by J STUART BLACKTON Directed by J STUART BLACKTON Starring: PATSY RUTH MILLER, JOHN HARRON, GAYNE WHITMAN, WILFRED NORTH Comments: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and hit of the Broadway season in 1925, by Hatcher Hughes. The central figure is a young mtneer fanatical in his religion. He brings to play "diabolical cunning" and rekindles a feud between two Blue Ridge mtn families.
1926 HER SECOND CHANCE / FIRST NATIONAL PICTURES Directed by LAMBERT HILLYER Starring: ANNA Q NILSSON, HUNTLY GORDON, CHARLIE MURRAY, SAM DE GRASSE Comments: Carolina Logan, a turbulent KY mtn girl, emerges from a reformatory and vows revenge on Judge Jeffries, who sentenced her for shooting a trespasser on her land.
1926 THE RUNAWAY / FAMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY/PARAMOUNT Produced by ADOLPH ZUKOR Directed by WILLIAM DE MILLE Starring: CLARA BOW, WARNER BAXTER, WILLIAM POWELL Comments: The choice for aspiring movie actress (played by Clara Bow) is clear: between an airhead city man and a plain and honest Ky mtn man, who picks her up and saves her and gives her a simple place of safety in the hills. She chooses the mtn man, of course, who is himself nobly trying to hold down his own Murrell clan, who hate the Skidmores.
1926 THE WIVES OF THE PROPHET / LEE-BRADFORD Directed by J A FITZGERALD Starring: WARNER RICHMOND, VIOLET MERSEREAU, ED ROSEMAN, ORVILLE CALDWELL, ALICE LAKE, RUTH STONEHOUSE Comments: Based on Opie Read's novel of the same name. In the mtns of Va a strange sect each year chooses five beautiful girls to be the wives of a prophet they expect to come. An outsider who wishes to enjoy this bounty has portraits of the girls tattooed on his body so that he may pose as the prophet. Filmed on location in the Shenandoah Valley with shots of Luray Caverns among other local sites.
1926 SHENANDOAH / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by B P SCHULBERG Directed by MARCEL DE SANO Comments: B P Schulberg of Preferred Pictures announced in July 1925 that he was going to redo the Bronson Howard stage play as a movie (already done twice before in 1911 and 1913). But in December of that year the property was in the hands of Warner Brothers.
1926 THE FEUD / FOX Produced by WILLIAM FOX Comments: One of a long line of Van Bibber comedies. Van, motoring in the Ky mtns, buys an estate that has a feud attached. He discovers a hidden treasure and single-handedly overcomes the rival band of feudists.
1927 THE SILENT AVENGER / GOTHAM PRODUCTIONS/LUMAS FILM CORP Produced by SAM SAX Directed by JAMES P HOGAN Starring: CHARLES DELANEY, DUANE THOMPSON, DAVID KIRBY, GEORGE CHESEBRO, THUNDER THE DOG Comments: Stanley Gilmore, son of a railroad president, comes to Tenn to acquire right-of-way and atone for life of wild escapades and brings his dog Thunder. Thunder saves Stanley from moonshiners, helps him win the love of a mtn maiden, and the right-of-way is bought.
1927 HILLS OF KENTUCKY / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by HOWARD BRETHERTON Starring: RIN-TIN-TIN, JASON ROBARDS, DOROTHY DWANN, TOM SANTSCHI, RIN-TIN-TIN JR Comments: Based on Dorothy Yost's story, "The Untamed Heart." One of a series of successful dog movies. Here in the Ky mtns, the dog hero meets not a feud or moonshiners but a good brother and a bad brother and wild dogs that menace the mtneers.
1927 JESSE JAMES / PARAMOUNT Directed by LLOYD INGRAHAM Starring: FRED THOMSON, NORA LANE, MONTAGU LOVE Comments: Jesse Edwards James, the son of Jesse James, served as technical advisor to the production. This was strictly a western, but Thomson (with Jesse James Jr's help) told the "true story" of a basically good young man "hounded by carpet baggers," "a man driven to desperation by the cruelties and tragedies heaped upon him in his youth." Thomson understood the class conflict inherent in the bandit story, but he didn't bother getting the locale or the "look" right. Thomson was himself already a star of conventional Westerns.
1927 IN OLD KENTUCKY / M G M Directed by JOHN M STAHL Starring: JAMES MURRAY Comments: The 2nd remake of the Charles Dazey play (see under 1920 above).
1927 JUDGMENT OF THE HILLS / R-C PICTURES/FBO Produced by JOSEPH P KENNEDY Directed by JAMES LEO MEEHAN Starring: VIRGINIA VALLI, FRANKIE DARRO, ORVILLE CALDWELL Comments: Tad, a wistful child of the KY hills, worships his big brother, Brant, who is addicted to alcohol. Brant has to go fight World War I (though he tries to evade it), becomes amazingly a war hero, but returns home to resume his loafing ways with his old drinking buddies. There are echoes of the Sergeant York story here.
1927 STARK LOVE / PARAMOUNT FAMOUS LASKY CORP Directed by KARL BROWN Starring: HELEN MUNDY, FORREST JAMES, SILAS MIRACLE, REB GROGAN Comments: Also written by Karl Brown, who apprenticed under D W Griffith, this movie is a masterpiece of technique, and because Brown used many local mtn people and no professional actors, the reality of his story seems undeniable and explosive. But what a libel of mtn people this tale is! Familiar elements from earlier mtn stories: a mtn boy who longs for an education, who knows something of chivalry from books, who tries to protect a mtn girl from the abuse of his own father and other mtn men. Filmed on location in Graham Co., NC.
1927 THE FRONTIERSMAN / MGM Directed by REGINALD BARKER Starring: TIM MCCOY, CLAIRE WINDSOR, TOM O'BRIEN, RUSSELL SIMPSON, LILLIAN LEIGHTON, CHIEF BIG TREE Comments: Members of Gen'l Andrew Jackson's TN militia attempt to make a peace treaty with the Creek Indians.
1927 BREED OF COURAGE / R-C PICTURES Produced by JOSEPH P KENNEDY Directed by HOWARD MITCHELL Starring: SAM NELSON, JEANNE MORGAN, STANTON HECK, ETHAN LAIDLAW, RANGER THE DOG Comments: With the death of the last male in the Deane family, there is a temporary end to the Deane-McQuinn feud, waged for years in the Cumberland mtn district.
1927? DAVY CROCKETT / PARAMOUNT Starring: FRED THOMSON Comments: Announced as "coming" in June 1927. Film may not have been made.
1928 SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS / FIRST NATIONAL Produced by CHARLES ROGERS Directed by ALBERT S ROGELL Starring: MOLLY O'DAY, ALEC FRANCIS, JOHN BOLES, MATTHEW BETZ Comments: The 2nd filmed and hugely successful version of Harold Bell Wright's best-selling novel, but this one was clearly a Western.
1928 THE HOUND OF SILVER CREEK / UNIVERSAL Produced by CARL LAEMMLE Directed by STUART PATON Starring: DYNAMITE THE DOG, EDMUND COBB, GLORIA GREY, GLADDEN JAMES Comments: Primarily a dog picture with a romance between a new schoolmistress and a wealthy "eastern sportsman."
1928 FANGS OF THE WILD / FBO PICTURES Directed by JEROME STORM Starring: RANGER THE DOG, DOROTHY KITCHEN, SAM NELSON, TOM LINGHAM, SYD CROSSLEY Comments: Blossom, a girl of the Ky hills, has a drunkard father who forces her to accept the attentions of oafish Rufe Anderson, a superstitious mtn man.
1928 THE BIG KILLING / PARAMOUNT Produced by F RICHARD JONES Directed by F RICHARD JONES Starring: WALLACE BEERY, RAYMOND HATTON Comments: A comedy of stereotypes. In a feud-ridden valley of the Ozarks, the Beagles have killed all the Hicks save three. The Hicks go in search of hired guns to aid them, stumble on two con men, "powder-horn Pete" and "dead-eye Dan," hire them for the job. All the comic situations based on misunderstanding. Many verbal puns (amazing, considering it is a silent film).
1928 THE TOILERS / TIFFANY-STAHL PRODUCTIONS Produced by REGINALD BARKER Directed by REGINALD BARKER Starring: DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR, JOBYNA RALSTON, HARVEY CLARK, WADE BOTELER, ROBERT RYAN Comments: A silent movie but with sound-effects. Three buddies' existence in a coal-mining town, with a mine disaster and a suspenseful rescue effort.
1928 SOULS AFLAME / FURST WELLS/FIRST DIVISIONS Produced by JAMES ORMONT Directed by RAYMOND WELLS Starring: RAYMOND WELLS, GARDNER JAMES, GAEL KELTON, GRACE LORD Comments: A pict much like "Stark Love": "a convincing picturization of a half-civilized semi-barbarous folk." A feud story set after the Civil War. Filmed partially in the Ozarks.
1928 LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME (SEE KENTUCKY COURAGE / FIRST NATIONAL)
1928 KENTUCKY COURAGE / FIRST NATIONAL Produced by ALFRED SANTELL Starring: RICHARD BARTHELMESS, MOLLY O'DAY Comments: Another version of the John Fox novel, a silent (at the time that silents were losing out to talkies).
1929 THE ORIGINAL HILL BILLIES / VITAPHONE Starring: AL HOPKINS, JOE HOPKINS, TONY ALDERMAN, JOHN RECTOR ("THE HILL BILLIES") Comments: A musical short which played as a trailer to Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, featuring the first mtn string band to use the term "hillbilly" for their music.
1929 COQUETTE / UNITED ARTISTS/PICKFORD CORP Directed by SAM TAYLOR Starring: MARY PICKFORD, JOHNNY MACK BROWN Comments: Norma Besant, a Southern belle, falls for a crude and prideful mtneer who ruins her reputation, at least in the eyes of her father, who in fact kills the mtneer. The father is tried; the daughter lies to save him. Based on a stageplay and shows it. Mary Pickford overacted all the way through and won an academy award for it, her first "talkie."
1929 DYNAMITE / MGM Produced by CECIL B DE MILLE Directed by CECIL B DE MILLE Starring: CONRAD NAGEL, KAY JOHNSON, CHARLES BICKFORD, JOE MCCREA, WILLIAM HOLDEN Comments: DeMille's 1st sound pict, featuring a society bitch who was told she must be married by the time she is 23 to inherit her grandfather's fortune. Expediently, she propositions a condemned man--a coal miner--to marry her, which he agrees to do. The surprise is that just before he is to be executed, freeing the society dame to marry the man she really loves, he is found to be innocent of the crime. Scenes in a coal mine at the end.
1929 NED MCCOBB'S DAUGHTER / PATHE Directed by WILLIAM J COWAN Starring: IRENE RICH, THEODORE ROBERTS, ROBERT ARMSTRONG, GEORGE BARRAUD, CAROL LOMBARD Comments: Synchronized sound effects & music but without dialogue. A melodrama involving bootleggers and revenue agents, trucks careening down mtn roads, murder and mayhem.
1929 NOISY NEIGHBORS / PATHE Directed by CHARLES REISNER Starring: EDDIE QUILLAN, QUILLAN FAMILY, ALBERTA VAUGHN, THEODORE ROBERTS, RUSSELL SIMPSON Comments: A family of small-time vaudeville troupers fall into a feud by inheriting a Southern "plantation." Silent film with a small amount of sound dialogue.
1930s? SELLING SHORT / RKO PATHE Starring: LOUIS JOHN BARTELS Comments: Short subject: a traveling salesman gets off a train and steps into a feud between two hillbilly families.
1930 MOUNTAIN JUSTICE / UNIVERSAL Directed by HARRY J BROWN Starring: KEN MAYNARD, KATHERINE CRAWFORD, OTIS HARLAN Comments: A Westerner comes to Kaintuck to revenge the death of his pappy and to win the heart of the beautiful schoolmarm. A Western shoot-'em-up with songs.
1930 THE EYES OF THE WORLD / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by SOL LESSER Directed by HENRY KING Starring: EULALIE JENSEN, HUGH HUNTLEY, HYRA HUBERT, FLORENCE ROBERTS, UNA MERKEL Comments: Aaron King is an artist who has an honest love for Sybill, a mtn nymph and daughter of mysterious lineage. Adapted from a story by Harold Bell Wright.
1930 THE GREAT MEADOW / METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Directed by CHARLES BRABIN Starring: JOHN MACK BROWN, ELEANOR BOARDMAN, LUCILLE LA VERNE, ANITA LOUISE, RUSSELL SIMPSON Comments: The settling of Kaintuck, based on the novel by Elizabeth Madox Roberts. Begins in VA, ends in KY, with the mtn- crossing somewhere in the middle. Much desperate coonskin- capping against savage & heartless Indians, who don't mind scalping women.
1930 TOL'ABLE DAVID / COLUMBIA Produced by HARRY COHN Directed by JOHN BLYSTONE Starring: RICHARD CROMWELL, NOAH BEERY, JOAN PEERS, HENRY B WALTHALL, BARBARA BEDFORD Comments: The remake that didn't make it. After this pict failed miserably at the box office, Columbia announced it would stick to original productions in the future and make no more gambles on talker versions of silent classics.
1930 RAZORED IN KENTUCKY / RKO RADIO Starring: "NICK & TONY" Comments: The Italian comedy team in a slapstick burlesque of a Ky feud.
1931 THE FORGOTTEN FRONTIER / FRONTIER NURSING SERVICE INC Produced and directed by MARVIN BRECKINRIDGE Comments: A documentary filmed by a cousin of the founder of the Frontier Nursing Service, Mary Breckinridge, to promote the good name of doing good deeds in Appalachian KY. Filmed entirely on location around Wendover, KY, in the summer and winter of 1930, using actual persons reenacting the medical salvation that the FNS was known for.
1932 CABIN IN THE COTTON / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by HAL B WALLIS Directed by MICHAEL CURTIZ Starring: RICHARD BARTHELMESS, DOROTHY JORDAN, BETTE DAVIS, HENRY B WALTHALL Comments: Based on the novel by Harry Harrison Kroll. Not really mtn but sufficiently obsessed with Southern "white trash" to make this list.
1932 $10 OR 10 DAYS / PARAMOUNT Starring: EDDIE YOUNGER'S MOUNTAINEERS Comments: A musical short. "Lively rural music which should particularly please in the hinterland houses."
1933 PILGRIMAGE / FOX Directed by JOHN FORD Starring: HENRIETTA CROSMAN, HEATHER ANGEL, NORMAN FOSTER, MARIAN NIXON, LUCILLE LA VERNE Comments: Set mainly on an Ark farm. A domineering mother disowns her son for marrying a ne'er-do-well neighbor's daughter. The son subsequently died in WW I in France where the mother goes on a pilgrimage to his grave and repents her harshness. Praised for its realism, this pict also featured Lucille La Verne as another mother from "the Tenn feud country."
1933 I LIKE MOUNTAIN MUSIC / MAX FLEISCHER CARTOONS Comments: Screen song cartoon with the Eton Boys, the earliest known hillbilly cartoon.
1933 PROFESSIONAL SWEETHEART / RKO RADIO PICTURES Produced by MERIAN C COOPER Directed by WILLIAM SEITER Starring: GINGER ROGERS, NORMAN FOSTER, ZASU PITTS, FRANK MCHUGH, EDGAR KENNEDY, FRANKLIN PANGBORN, STERLING HOLLOWAY Comments: A radio-broadcasting city gal--"The Purity Girl"--is married off to a hillbilly fan as a publicity stunt. The city girl gets tamed by her hillbilly and learns to love country life.
1933 THE MOONSHINER'S DAUGHTER / RKO Starring: MARY KERR, RUSSELL SIMPSON, LUCILLE BROWN Comments: A comedy short, "very nutty."
1933 MORNING GLORY / RKO Produced by PANDRO S BERMAN Directed by LOWELL SHERMAN Starring: KATHARINE HEPBURN, DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR, ADOLPHE MENJOU Comments: Remade in 1936 as "Stage Struck." A young country gal comes to NY determined to succeed on the stage.
1934 KENTUCKY KERNELS / RKO RADIO PICTURES Produced by LEE MARCUS Directed by GEORGE STEVENS Starring: BURT WHEELER, ROBERT WOOLSEY, MARY CARLISLE, "SPANKY" MCFARLAND, NOAH BEERY Comments: A musical featuring the pop comics Wheeler and Woolsey. They adopt Spanky McFarland and take him to the Ky hills to collect what they suppose to be a great inheritance, only to get involved in a comic feud.
1934 SPITFIRE / RKO RADIO PICTURES Produced by PANDRO S BERMAN Directed by GEORGE CROMWELL Starring: KATHARINE HEPBURN, ROBERT YOUNG, RALPH BELLAMY Comments: From the play "Trigger" by Lula Vollmer. Screenplay by Jane Murfin and Lula Vollmer. Improbable mtn girl (Hepburn's attempt at the accent is a hoot!) falls in love with married engineer.
1934 THEM THAR HILLS / HAL ROACH STUDIOS Produced by HAL B ROACH Directed by CHARLES ROGERS Starring: STAN LAUREL, OLIVER HARDY, MAE BUSCH, BILLY GILBERT Comments: Shot in Calif, so the hills of the titles are all wrong. Moonshine dumped in a well unbeknownst to the main characters is the prime joke. Moonshiners appear in one brief scene, shooting at revenuers and dumping their booze. But there is no visual stereotyping of the sort we might expect.
1934? HILLBILLIES / METRO Directed by JACK CUMMINGS Starring: MAY ROBSON, POLLY MORAN Comments: Based on Lawrence Johnson's play, this pict was originally announced as a Marie Dressler vehicle, but she was replaced in Dec 1933 by May Robson. This film may not have been completed or may have been released under a different name.
1935 ANNIE OAKLEY / C & C FILMS INC/RKO Produced by CLIFF REID Directed by GEORGE STEVENS Starring: BARBARA STANWYCK, PRESTON FOSTER, MELVYN DOUGLAS Comments: Based on a story by Joseph A Fields and Ewart Adamson. The biography of the Ohio backwoods gal done seriously, without any of the comic gallumphing of the later musical "Annie Get Your Gun." Gender identities a key issue, brought on by a woman being as good a shot as a man.
1935 BLACK FURY / WARNER BROTHERS/FIRST NATIONAL Produced by FIRST NATIONAL Directed by MICHAEL CURTIZ Starring: PAUL MUNI, WILLIAM GARGAN, MAE MARSH, AKIM TAMIROFF, WARD BOND, KAREN MORLEY Comments: Adapted from a story by Judge M A Musmanno and a play by Abem Finkel and Clark Erickson. Union struggles in the Pa coal fields and the involvement of an eastern European immigrant, Joe Radek. The film was considered radical in some states. The murder of Mike Shemanski based on an incident at Imperial, Pa, in 1929 when a miner was beaten to death by the Coal and Iron Police. Called by the NY Times "the most notable American experiment in social drama since 'Our Daily Bread'." Some Coal barons attempted to stop production, saying it would agitate their workers.
1935 SPRING TONIC / FOX Produced by ROBERT T KANE Directed by CLYDE BRUCKMAN, MELVILLE BROWN Starring: LEW AYRES, CLAIRE TREVOR, WALTER KING, ZASU PITTS, JACK HALEY, SIEGFRIED RUMANN Comments: Screwball comedy, set in motion when a bored bride-to- be walks out on her own wedding and heads for the hills to seek excitement and ardor. There she encounters circus animals and moonshiners and finds her ardor.
1935 HILL BILLYS / WALTER LANTZ Starring: OSWALD Comments: One of the earliest of hillbilly cartoons.
1935 IN OLD KENTUCKY / FOX Produced by EDWARD BUTCHER Directed by GEORGE MARSHALL Starring: WILL ROGERS, DOROTHY WILSON, RUSSELL HARDIE, CHARLES SELLON, LOUISE HENRY, ESTHER DALE Comments: The third remake of this old Charles T Dazey play (see above under 1920 and 1927), which begins with a Ky feud and ends with horse-racing in the bluegrass.
1936 THE VOICE OF BUGLE ANN / METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Produced by JOHN W CONSIDINE JR Directed by RICHARD THORPE Starring: LIONEL BARRYMORE, MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN, ERIC LINDEN, DUDLEY DIGGES, SPRING BYINGTON, CHARLEY GRAPEWIN Comments: About the love of a good fox hound in the Missouri Ozarks and a feud over a fence, plus a Romeo-Juliet love affair. The owner of "Bugle Ann" shoots his neighbor because he believes the neighbor has killed his dog. Based on a novel by MacKinlay Kantor. Some exteriors were shot in the Missouri Ozarks.
1936 THE GORGEOUS HUSSY / MGM Produced by JOSEPH L MANKIEWICZ Directed by CLARENCE BROWN Starring: JOAN CRAWFORD, ROBERT TAYLOR, LIONEL BARRYMORE, FRANCHOT TONE, MELVYN DOUGLAS, JAMES STEWART, BEULAH BONDI Comments: The unhistorical story of impetuous divorcee Peggy Eaton in the nation's capital during the 1820s and 1830s. Lionel Barrymore as Andrew Jackson gives a lively portrayal of the backwoods hillbilly president, ready and willing to climb down off the White House balcony and sock a man in the face for insulting his wife.
1936 TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE / WALTER WANGER PRODUCTIONS/PARAMOUNT Produced by WALTER WANGER Directed by HENRY HATHAWAY Starring: SYLVIA SIDNEY, FRED MACMURRAY, HENRY FONDA, BUDDY MCFARLAND, FUZZY KNIGHT, BEULAH BONDI, FRED STONE Comments: Another adaptation of Fox's novel, this one closer but still very far from the original source. First film shot outdoors in the Technicolor process. Filmed entirely in the San Bernardino mtns of Calif. The Tolliver cabin (with oh-so-typical waterwheel), build for this feature, was reused in Shepherd of the Hills (1941) and probably in other pictures.
1936 GIRL OF THE OZARKS / PARAMOUNT Produced by A M BOTSFORD Directed by WILLIAM SHEA Starring: VIRGINIA WEIDLER, HENRIETTA CROSMAN, LEIF ERIKSON, ELIZABETH RUSSELL, RUSSELL SIMPSON, JANET YOUNG Comments: The working title was The Good for Nothing, which described the title character, an unruly little mtn girl who fiercely protects her ailing mother from the truth of her anti- social behavior at school. Uncaring school officials arrange for her incarceration in the county home, her mother dies, and the girl becomes blank and unresponsive. Finally, she is adopted by a caring couple.
1936 WHEN I YOO HOO / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by I FRELENG Comments: Cartoon. In the feuding hillbilly domain of Hickery Holler, the Weavers and the Matthews agree to settle their differences in a cockfight, but the cocks end up watching the hillbillies fight it out in the ring.
1936 DANIEL BOONE / RKO Produced by GEORGE A HIRLIMAN Directed by DAVID HOWARD Starring: GEORGE O'BRIAN, HEATHER ANGEL, JOHN CARRADINE, DICKIE JONES Comments: The evil white man of the mtns, Simon Girty, more savage than the savages themselves (presumably because he lives in the mtns rather than in the settlements), is killing white settlers. Despite these depradations, Daniel Boone leads a group of settlers from the Yadkin Valley to Boonesborough, on the other side of the Appalachians.
1937 MOUNTAIN JUSTICE / WARNER BROTHERS/FIRST NATIONAL Produced by LOU EDELMAN Directed by MICHAEL CURTIZ Starring: JOSEPHINE HUTCHINSON, GEORGE BRENT, ROBERT BARRATT, GUY KIBBEE, MARGARET HAMILTON, FUZZY KNIGHT, RUSSELL SIMPSON Comments: Based on the Pound, Va, Edith Maxwell case about a hillbilly girl's killing of her cruel father because of his tyrannous bigotry. Contemporary issues of child marriage, backwoods health clincis, lynching.
1937 WILD MONEY / PARAMOUNT Produced by STUART WALKER Directed by LOUIS KING Starring: EDWARD EVERETT HORTON, LOUISE CAMPBELL, LYNNE OVERMAN, LUCIEN LITTLEFIELD, ESTHER DALE Comments: The prudish accountant for a big-city newspaper loves a female reporter, but she rebuffs him. He goes to the mtns for a vacation, stumbles onto a big kidnapping story, which he is put in charge of, though he is no reporter. Through foiling the kidnappers and rescuing their wealthy victim, he wins the love of the female reporter. A comedy using hillbillies to menace city bumblers.
1937 MOUNTAIN MUSIC / PARAMOUNT Produced by BENJAMIN GLAZER Directed by ROBERT FLOREY Starring: BOB BURNS, MARTHA RAYE, FUZZY KNIGHT, GEORGE "GABBY" HAYES Comments: A musical about Ozark hillbillies, from a story by MacKinlay Kantor. This was the 4th Paramount feature to pair Bob Burns (the Arkansas vaudevillian) and Martha Raye. Raye plays an Ozark gal yearning for the bright lights and a dim man.
1937 CHILD BRIDE (OF THE OZARKS) / SONNEY AMUSEMENTS Directed by HARRY REVIER Comments: The granddaddy of hillbilly sexploitation films. Backwoods marriage and glimpses of prepubescent nudity.
1937 HEROES OF THE ALAMO / SUNSET PRODUCTIONS Produced by ANTHONY J XYDIAS Directed by HENRY FRASER Starring: EARL HODGINS, LANE CHANDLER, ROGER WILLIAMS, REX LEASE, JACK SMITH, BRUCE WARREN, RUTH FINDLAY Comments: With Lane Chandler as Davy Crockett. This company also made the silent "Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo" in 1926.
1938 KENTUCKY MOONSHINE / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by KENNETH MACGOWAN Directed by DAVD BUTLER Starring: RITZ BROTHERS, TONY MARTIN, MARJORIE WEAVER, SLIM SUMMERVILLE, JOHN CARRADINE Comments: A comedy musical, the saga of the 3 jobless Ritz Bros who glue on false whiskers and move down to the Ky hills to be discovered by a radio showman looking for authentic hillbillies.
1938 RADIO CITY REVELS / RKO RADIO PICTURES INC Produced by EDWARD KAUFMAN Directed by BEN STOLOFF Starring: BOB BURNS, JACK OAKIE, KENNY BAKER, ANN MILLER, VICTOR MOORE, MILTON BERLE, HELEN BRODERICK, JANE FROMAN, BUSTER WEST Comments: Arkansas hillbilly Lester Robin travels to New York City to receive instruction in song-writing. He tends to write songs in his sleep and sing them outloud, but he can't remember them when he wakes up. One of his compositions gets overheard and stolen by a couple of con artists, who begin plundering Lester's dreams for gold.
1938 SWING YOUR LADY / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by SAM BISCHOFF Directed by RAY ENRIGHT Starring: HUMPHREY BOGART, FRANK MCHUGH, LOUISE FAZENDA, PENNY SINGLETON, WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, RONALD REAGAN Comments: Hillbilly comedy/musical, Ozarks branch. The Weaver Bros and Elviry (Frank, Leon, and June Weaver) were one of several Southern vaudeville acts who appeared in Hollywood movies. This was their 1st appearance, in a movie that assumed that the South was peopled with barefoot, bearded, tobacco- chewing, moonshine-guzzling, early-marrying hillbillies. Bogart referred to this pict as the worst he ever made.
1938 KENTUCKY / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by GENE MARKEY Directed by DAVID BUTLER Starring: LORETTA YOUNG, RICHARD GREENE, WALTER BRENNAN, KAREN MORLEY Comments: A romance between members of two fighting families brings an end to an 80-year-old feud, but this was more a horse- racing picture than a mtn-feud picture, rather like "In Old Kentucky" (1920). Based on "The Look of Eagles" by John Traintor Foote. Remade as "April Love."
1938 HAVING WONDERFUL TIME / RKO Produced by PANDRO S BERMAN Directed by ALFRED SANTELL Starring: GINGER ROGERS, DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR, RED SKELTON, LUCILLE BALL Comments: City girl goes to the mtns (the Catskills) and falls in love.
1938 A FEUD THERE WAS / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by FRED AVERY Starring: EGGHEAD Comments: Cartoon. The McCoys and the Weavers feud and fight. Apparently, the Sons of the Pioneers, featuring Bob Nolan and Roy Rogers, provided the country singing.
1938 DOWN IN "ARKANSAW" / REPUBLIC PICTURES Produced by ARMAND SCHAEFER Directed by NICK GRINDE Starring: RALPH BYRD, WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, BERTON CHURCHILL, JUNE STOREY Comments: Byrd (who played Dick Tracy in Republic serials) is a government agent overcoming the opposition of Ozark hillbillies to a proposed government dam. This was the 1st of the Weaver Bros & Elviry's 11 films for Republic.
1938 THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER / PARAMOUNT Starring: BOB BURNS, IRVIN S COBB, FAY BAINTER, LYLE TALBOT Comments: Another starring vehicle for professional hillbilly Bob Burns.
1939 DAYS OF JESSE JAMES / REPUBLIC Starring: ROY ROGERS, GABBY HAYES Comments: One of several Jesse James movies that Rogers appeared in. In this, he is a lawman asked to track down the James Gang.
1939 NAUGHTY NEIGHBORS / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by ROBERT CLAMPETT Starring: PORKY PIG, PETUNIA PIG Comments: Porty and Petunia are heads of the rival Martin and McCoy Clans, and their romance is supposed to bring an end to hostilities, but it doesn't. Clampett's hillbillies are cross- eyed, smiling, gooney animals.
1939 JEEPERS CREEPERS / REPUBLIC PICTURES Produced by ARMAND SCHAEFER Directed by FRANK MCDONALD Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, ROY ROGERS, THURSTON HALL, MARIS WRIXON Comments: The 2nd film that the Weaver Bros and Elviry did for Republic, and their 3rd film. Abner Weaver is the mayor of Pineville and is giving a speech to raise money to help the coal miners, when the owner of the mine is brought in on a charge of creating a fire hazard. The mine owner is a thorough scoundrel who resorts to strip mining the Weavers' land, but by the end he repents of his avarice.
1939 JESSE JAMES / 2OTH CENTURY FOX Produced by DARRYL F ZANUCK Directed by HENRY KING Starring: TYRONE POWER, HENRY FONDA, BRIAN DONLEVY, RANDOLPH SCOTT, NANCY KELLY, JANE DARWELL, HENRY HULL, JOHN CARRADINE, DONALD MEEK Comments: Screenplay by Nunnally Johnson. Shot on location in Pineville, Ark, which made the Ozarks a part of the story of these mtn farm boys wronged by big business in cahoots with the law.
1939 MUSICAL MOUNTAINEERS / MAX FLEISCHER CARTOONS Starring: BETTY BOOP Comments: A hillbilly cartoon presumably cashing in on the current craze for hillbilly-music movies with live actors.
1939 MAN OF CONQUEST / REPUBLIC PICTURES Produced by SOL C SIEGEL Directed by GEORGE NICHOLLS Starring: RICHARD DIX, GAIL PATRICK, JOAN FONTAINE, EDWARD ELLIS, VICTOR JORY, ROBERT BARRATT Comments: Story of Sam Houston, consorter-with-Cherokees and fierce warrior, with a number of scenes involving Andy Jackson. Davy Crockett played by Robert Barratt.
1939 ALLEGHENY UPRISING / RKO Produced by P J WOLFSON Directed by WILLIAM A SEITER Starring: JOHN WAYNE, CLAIRE TREVOR, GEORGE SANDERS, BRIAN DONLEVY, EDDIE QUILLAN, CHILL WILLS Comments: The "coonskin-cap boys" struggle against drunken Indians and the snooty British officials in defending their homes in western Pa before the Revolution. The mtn men become Indian- like (that is, treacherous) out of manifest-destiny-necessity.
1939 I'M FROM MISSOURI / PARAMOUNT Directed by THEODORE REED Starring: BOB BURNS, GLADYS GEORGE Comments: Folksy comedy about a Missouri farmer and mule breeder who goes to England on business and turns the aristocracy upside down.
1940s? TWO WEEKS TO LIVE (2 WEEKS TO LIVE) / POST PICTURES Produced by BEN HERSH Directed by MALCOLM ST CLAIR Starring: CHESTER LAUCK, NORRIS GOFF, FRANKLIN PANGBORN, ROSEMARY LA PLANCHE Comments: Lum and Abner play doctor.
1940 IN OLD MISSOURI / REPUBLIC Starring: ALAN LADD, WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY Comments: The third Republic pict for the Weaver Bros and Elviry.
1940 GRAND OLE OPRY / REPUBLIC PICTURES Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, ALLAN LANE, ROY ACUFF, SMOKY MOUNTAIN BOYS, GEORGE D HAY, UNCLE DAVE MACON Comments: Despite its title and cameo appearances by Grand Ole Opry stars, this was not a picture about the Grand Ole Opry. The Weavers are leading citizens of a Southern town, who through strength of community and plain virtue, triumph over an assortment of urban crooks and slickers. Shot on a back lot in Calif, so it looks all wrong. The 4th in the Weavers' Republic series.
1940 FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS / REPUBLIC PICTURES Produced by ARMAND SCHAEFER Directed by NICK GRINDE Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, LOIS, RANSON, SPENCER CHARTERS, THURSTON HALL Comments: The 5th of the Weavers' Republic picts. A drought renders their farm worthless, and they move west in search of a new life. They fall in with hobos, get harassed by police, land in a deserted town, which they rebuild.
1940 DREAMING OUT LOUD / RKO Directed by HOWARD YOUNG Starring: CHESTER LAUCK, NORRIS GOFF Comments: The first Lum & Abner movie, based on their successful radio series which began in 1931.
1940 SCATTERBRAIN / REPUBLIC PICTURES Produced and directed by GUS MEINS Starring: JUDY CANOVA, ALAN MOWBRAY, RUTH DONNELLY, EDDIE FOY JR, BILLY GILBERT Comments: Judy Canova's 1st starring film in a long line of hillbilly gal characterizations. A girl is "planted" with an Ozark family so she can be "discovered" to play the heroine in a hillbilly movie, but by error Canova, the real hillbilly, is signed for the role.
1940 LI'L ABNER / VOGUE PICTURES/RKO RADIO PICTURES Produced by HERMAN SCHLOM Directed by ALBERT ROGELL Starring: GRANVILLE OWEN, MARTHA O'DRISCOLL, BUSTER KEATON, CHARLES A POST, CHESTER CONKLIN, MONA RAY, JOHNNIE MORRIS, EDGAR KENNEDY Comments: The 1st movie version of Al Capp's cartoon, so badly done that Capp would never acknowledge it in subsequent interviews.
1940 YOUTH WILL BE SERVED / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by LUCIEN HUBBARD Directed by OTTO BROWER Starring: JANE WITHERS, JANE DARWELL, ROBERT CONWAY, ELYSE KNOW, JOE BROWN JR, JOHN QUALEN, CHARLES HOLLAND Comments: Hillbillyland with swamps and revenue agents chasing moonshiners. A teenaged backwoods hoyden attempts to get her father out of jail. He has been wrongly charged with moonshining and other crimes. The girl goes on the lam among hoboes, on trains, to a CCC camp.
1940 COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN / PARAMOUNT Produced by WILLIAM LEBARON Directed by GEORGE ARCHAINBAUD Starring: BOB BURNS, UNA MERKEL, JERRY COLONNA, DON WILSON, CLIFF ARQUETTE, WILLIAM DEMAREST Comments: A wacky story about Bob Burns returning to his old home in the mtns of Ark and rounding up his passel of kinfolks to make hillbilly music over Uncle Ezra's radio station at Monotony.
1941 BELLE STARR / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by KENNETH MACGOWAN Directed by IRVING CUMMINGS Starring: GENE TIERNEY, RANDOLPH SCOTT, DANA ANDREWS, SHEPPERD STRUDWICK, ELIZABETH PATTERSON, CHILL WILLS, LOUISE BEAVERS Comments: "Absurdly laundered version of the life of the West's most notorious female outlaw, with the star laughably miscast." The hillbilly gal as outlaw, a secondary approach to the Jesse James legend.
1941 BAD MEN OF MISSOURI / WARNER BROS Directed by RAY ENRIGHT Starring: DENNIS MORGAN, JANE WYMAN, ARTHUR KENNEDY, WAYNE MORRIS, VICTOR JORY Comments: Exploits of the infamous Younger brothers, associates of Jesse and Frank James.
1941 SIS HOPKINS / REPUBLIC PICTURES Directed by JOSEPH SANTLEY Starring: JUDY CANOVA, SUSAN HAYWARD, BOB CROSBY, JERRY COLONNA Comments: In a college setting, Canova is a wholesome but ignorant country girl competing with big city snobbery in the person of Hayward. A revival of the Rose-Melville-created hillbilly gal character from the turn of the century, last played on the screen by Mabel Normand in 1919.
1941 RETURN OF DANIEL BOONE / COLUMBIA Directed by LAMBERT HILLYER Starring: BILL ELLIOTT, DUB TAYLOR Comments: Apparently purely a Western.
1941 JESSE JAMES AT BAY / REPUBLIC PICTURES Directed by JOSEPH KANE Starring: ROY ROGERS, GABBY HAYES, GALE STORM Comments: Roy Rogers playing a dual role as both the Robin Hoodish Jesse James and his look-alike evil counterpoint, who is hired by a nefarious banker to tarnish James' reputation among the country folk. A Western in look and in action but pretends it's Missouri. Jesse James is a Depression-era defeater of the rich and unscrupulous.
1941 ARKANSAS JUDGE / REPUBLIC Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, ROY ROGERS, SPRING BYINGTON Comments: A small-town banker's daughter makes a false accusation which, with the help of several gossip mongers, nearly destroys a number of innocent lives. Based on Irving Stone's novel "False Witness." This--the 6th Republic pict for the Weaver Bros and Elviry--was unpopular, presumably because the trio was playing it straight rather than clowning it up as rubes.
1941 MOUNTAIN MOONLIGHT (THUNDER OVER THE OZARKS) / REPUBLIC Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, JOHNNY ARTHUR Comments: The Weavers' 8th film for Republic. "Forgettable"--W K McNeil.
1941 SERGEANT YORK / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by JESSE L LASKY Directed by HOWARD HAWKS Starring: GARY COOPER, WALTER BRENNAN, JOAN LESLIE, MARGARET WYCHERLY, GEORGE TOBIAS, WARD BOND Comments: The role that won Gary Cooper his 1st Oscar. A celebrated piece of pro-war propaganda prepared just before the onset of WWII. John Huston worked on the screenplay, which featured over 100 speaking parts. All the Tenn mtn scenes were done in-studio in Hollywood. The battlefield scenes were shot in the San Fernando Valley.
1941 PUDDEN'HEAD / REPUBLIC Starring: JUDY CANOVA Comments: Canova as hillbilly radio star, which was close to her own life story.
1941 SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS / PARAMOUNT PICTURES Produced by JACK MOSS Directed by HENRY HATHAWAY Starring: JOHN WAYNE, BETTY FIELD, HARRY CAREY, BEULAH BONDI, MARJORIE MAIN, WARD BOND, FUZZY KNIGHT Comments: The 3rd movie version of Howard Bell Wright's tale of a man who returns to the Ozarks to face his son's hatred. Opens with typical moonshiner-stealth-and-practice scenes, with John Wayne as one of the chief moonshiners. Beulah Bondi and Marjorie Main both play domineering mtn mothers, tougher than most of the men.
1941 TOBACCO ROAD / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by DARRYL F ZANUCK Directed by JOHN FORD Starring: CHARLEY GRAPEWIN, GENE TIERNEY, DANA ANDREWS, WARD BOND Comments: Screenplay by Nunnally Johnson. Much cleaned up from the controversial stage version of Erskine Caldwell's novel about backwoods Ga hillbillies.
1942 BASHFUL BACHELOR / RKO Starring: CHESTER LAUCK, NORRIS GOFF, ZAZU PITTS Comments: Another of the series of Lum & Abner comedies.
1942 THE OLD HOMESTEAD / REPUBLIC Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, DICK PURCELL, ANNE JEFFREYS Comments: One of the last films the Weavers made for Republic.
1942 JOAN OF OZARK / REPUBLIC Starring: JUDY CANOVA, JOE E BROWN, EDDIE FOY JR Comments: Canova as a war-time heroine. She destroys a Japanese submarine.
1942 SLEEPYTIME GAL / REPUBLIC Directed by ALBERT S ROGELL Starring: JUDY CANOVA, JERRY LESTER Comments: Our hillbilly gal is a cake decorator in Miami. She enters a singing competition and gets mixed up with gangsters.
1942 SHEPHERD OF THE OZARKS / REPUBLIC Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, FRANK ALBERTSON Comments: One of the last of the Weavers' films for Republic.
1942 PITTSBURGH / UNIVERSAL Produced by CHARLES K FELDMAN Directed by LEWIS SEILER Starring: JOHN WAYNE, MARLENE DIETRICH, RANDOLPH SCOTT, FRANK CRAVEN, LOUISE ALLBRITTON, SHEMP HOWARD, PAUL FIX Comments: Opens with John Wayne and Randolph Scott in the coal mines near Pittsburgh. Early WWII propaganda with this basic message--pull together in hard work for America (just like the tough men who made the coal industry profitable).
1943 TUXEDO JUNCTION / REPUBLIC Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, THURSTON HALL, SALLY PAYNE, FRANKIE DARRO, CLAYTON MOORE Comments: Based on the pop tune, this was a "slight tale about war efforts on the home front" (the song "Tuxedo Junction" was first popular in 1941). The Weavers are a kindly rural family who are unable to harvest their huge "victory crop" for the simple reason that there aren't enough farm hands available for the task. A happy ending: a hoard of "juvenile delinquents" harvest the crop.
1943 MOUNTAIN RHYTHM / REPUBLIC Starring: WEAVER BROTHERS AND ELVIRY, LYNN MERRICK, FRANK THOMAS Comments: A musical short. According to W K McNeil, this was the last movie the Weavers made for Republic (and their last movie, period).
1943 TENNESSEE JOHNSON / MGM Produced by J WALTER RUBEN Directed by WILLIAM DIETERLE Starring: VAN HEFLIN, LIONEL BARRYMORE, RUTH HUSSEY, MARJORIE MAIN, REGIS TOOMEY Comments: The up-from-nothing success story of Andrew Johnson, the east Tennesseean who became President by virtue of being Abraham Lincoln's VP. "An illiterate crusader," he marries a woman who teaches him to read.
1943 SLEEPY LAGOON / REPUBLIC Starring: JUDY CANOVA Comments: Canova becomes an improbable heroine by capturing a gang of crooks.
1943 SO THIS IS WASHINGTON / RKO Starring: CHESTER LAUCK, NORRIS GOFF, ALAN MOWBRAY Comments: Another Lum & Abner comedy, with professional snob Alan Mowbray as foil to the Ozarks hillbillies.
1944 AMOOZIN BUT CONFOOZIN' / COLUMBIA/SCREEN GEMS Starring: LI'L ABNER, DAISY MAE, MAMMY & PAPPY YOKUM Comments: The 1st of 5 cartoons based on the Al Capp cartoon characters.
1944 SADIE HAWKINS DAY / COLUMBIA/SCREEN GEMS Directed by BOB WICKERSHAM Starring: LI'L ABNER, DAISY MAE, MAMMY & PAPPY YOKUM Comments: The 2nd Li'l Abner cartoon.
1944 PEEKOOLYAR SITCHEEAYSHUN / COLUMBIA/SCREEN GEMS Directed by SID MARCUS Starring: LI'L ABNER, DAISY MAE, MAMMY & PAPPY YOKUM Comments: The 3rd Li'l Abner cartoon.
1944 GOIN' TO TOWN / RKO Starring: CHESTER LAUCK, NORRIS GOFF, BARBARA HALE Comments: Another in the significant string of Lum & Abner movies.
1944 PORKULIAR PIGGY / COLUMBIA/SCREEN GEMS Directed by BOB WICKERSHAM Starring: LI'L ABNER, DAISY MAE, MAMMY & PAPPY YOKUM Comments: The 4th Li'l Abner Cartoon.
1944 KICKAPOO JUICE / COLUMBIA/SCREEN GEMS Directed by HOWARD SWIFT Starring: LI'L ABNER, DAISY MAE, MAMMY & PAPPY YOKUM Comments: The last of the Li'l Abner cartoon experiments.
1944 APPALACHIAN SPRING Directed by PETER GLUSHANOK Starring: MARTHA GRAHAM Comments: An interpretation in dance of Aaron Copeland's music with sets by Isamu Noguchi. Winner, Venice Film Festival Award. Very arty appropriation of American backwoodsiness.
1944 SING NEIGHBOR SING / REPUBLIC Starring: ROY ACUFF, LULUBELLE AND SCOTTY WISEMAN Comments: A musical short.
1945 MURDER, HE SAYS / PARAMOUNT Produced by E D LESHIN Directed by GEORGE MARSHALL Starring: FRED MACMURRAY, HELEN WALKER, MARJORIE MAIN Comments: Caricature of a hillbilly family. Fred MacMurray is a wide-eyed investigator for a public opinion poll who wanders into the decrepit domicile of the Fleagles. Rural newspaper ad for this movie: "Feudin' fightin' and funnin' with a flock of hill- billy killer-dillers."
1946 MAKE MINE MUSIC ("THE MARTINS AND THE COYS") / WALT DISNEY/RKO RADIO Produced by WALT DISNEY Directed by JACK KINNEY, ET AL Comments: The first part of a 10-segment animated film, based on the ballad, "The Martins and the Coys," words and music by Ted Weems and Al Cameron. The comically feuding Martins and the Coys kill off all members of both families until only Grace Martin and Henry Coy remain. They fall for each other, get married, but the feud is born again as Grace henpecks her husband. This was Disney's first feature-length cartoon made primarily for an adult audience, and a huge flop.
1946 DOWN MISSOURI WAY / PRC Produced and directed by JOSEF BERNE Starring: MARTHA O'DRISCOLL, JOHN CARRADINE, EDDIE DEAN, WILLIAM WRIGHT Comments: Hillbilly musical with such original Gannon & Kent songs as "Old Missouri Hayride" and "There's a Rose That Grows in the Ozarks."
1947 THE EGG AND I / UNIVERSAL Produced by CHESTER ERSKINE Directed by CHESTER ERSKINE Starring: CLAUDETTE COLBERT, FRED MACMURRAY, MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, LOUISE ALLBRITTON, RICHARD LONG, FUZZY KNIGHT Comments: The movie that introduced Ma and Pa Kettle as prototypical hillbillies. Although Betty MacDonald's best seller, on which the film was based, was set in Washington state, the Kettles seem to be living in a very dry, very Californian Southland.
1948 TAP ROOTS / WALTER WANGER/UNIVERSAL Produced by WALTER WANGER Directed by GEORGE MARSHALL Starring: SUSAN HAYWARD, VAN HEFLIN, BORIS KARLOFF, JULIE LONDON, WARD BOND, RICHARD LONG, RUSSELL SIMPSON Comments: An expensively produced Civil War picture, many of whose scenes were shot in Transylvania Co in western NC, even though the setting is supposed to be lowland Miss.
1948 THE FEUDING HILLBILLIES / TERRYTOONS Directed by CONNIE RASINSKI Starring: MIGHTY MOUSE Comments: Mighty Mouse has his turn with cartoonized hillbillies.
1948 SMOKY MOUNTAIN MELODY / COLUMBIA Starring: ROY ACUFF, SMOKY MOUNTAIN BOYS Comments: A musical short.
1948 RACHEL AND THE STRANGER / RKO RADIO PICTURES INC Produced by RICHARD H BERGER Directed by NORMAN FOSTER Starring: WILLIAM HOLDEN, LORETTA YOUNG, ROBERT MITCHUM, GARY GRAY, TOM TULLY Comments: A tale about up-country frontier life, colonial period, with a major contrast between "civilization" and the wild and "woodsy" frontier. Mitchum is the handsome (and therefore threatening) stranger in buckskin who disrupts a pioneer's relationship with his wife, a former "bound-woman."
1948 THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS / RKO RADIO PICTURES Produced by JESSE L LASKY Directed by IRVING PICHEL Starring: FRED MACMURRAY, VALLI, FRANK SINATRA, LEE J COBB Comments: A press agent tries to do right by the memory of a dead actress by bringing her body back to her hometown in the Pa coal- mining district, where her father had died an unhonored drunk. The "miracle" of the title involves the regeneration of the grubby little town, etc. Based on a best-selling novel by Russell Janney. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Quentin Reynolds. Without any doubt Sinatra's most disastrous role, miscast as a pious priest of a poor parrish.
1949 I SHOT JESSE JAMES / SCREEN GUILD Directed by SAMUEL FULLER Starring: PRESTON FOSTER, JOHN IRELAND, BARBARA BRITTON Comments: The story of that "dirty little coward" Bob Ford.
1949 SILLY HILLBILLY / PARAMOUNT Directed by I SPARBER Starring: POPEYE Comments: Another cartoonized visitation in the hills.
1949 COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN / PARAMOUNT Directed by I SPARBER Comments: A "Screen Song" cartoon.
1949 MA AND PA KETTLE / UNIVERSAL Produced by LEONARD GOLDSTEIN Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, RICHARD LONG, MEG RANDALL, ESTHER DALE, HARRY ANTRIM, EMORY PARNELL Comments: The first starring vehicle for Ma and Pa Kettle, which launched a long series of films. Pa wins an electronic house of the future in a chewing tobacco slogan contest.
1949 ROSEANNA MCCOY / RKO RADIO PICTURES Produced by SAMUEL GOLDWYN Directed by IRVING REIS Starring: FARLEY GRANGER, JOAN EVANS, CHARLES BICKFORD, RAYMOND MASSEY, RICHARD BASEHART, ALINE MACMAHON, HOPE EMERSON Comments: Another version of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, this one ending romantically with Johnse Hatfield and Roseanna McCoy going off together and thus stopping the feud.
1949 THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN / REPUBLIC Produced by JOHN WAYNE Directed by GEORGE WAGGNER Starring: JOHN WAYNE, VERA RALSTON, OLIVER HARDY, MARIE WINDSOR, PAUL FIX Comments: John Wayne and some other coonskin-cappers from Ky are on their way back to the mtns from the Battle of New Orleans, and Wayne gets involved with a beautiful French contessa and some villains in Ala. The point is, Wayne is a natural (mtn man) aristocrat in the Daniel Boone mold.
1950 MA AND PA KETTLE GO TO TOWN / UNIVERSAL Produced by LEONARD GOLDSTEIN Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, RICHARD LONG, MEG RANDALL, JIM BACKUS, BERT FREED, HAL MARCH Comments: Ma and Pa win a trip to New York City in a soft-drink- slogan contest, and they encounter gangsters, stolen money, kidnappings, zany chases. Ma gets a "beauty treatment" at a fashionable cosmetic mill.
1950 DAVY CROCKETT, INDIAN SCOUT / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by EDWARD SMALL Directed by LEW LANDERS Starring: GEORGE MONTGOMERY, PHILIP REED, ELLEN DREW, NOAH BEERY Comments: A tough hombre, Davy gets the wagon train safely through hostile territory and also saves the cavalry from a Redskin ambush. This version of Davy makes him a part of the Wild West and does not take him to the Alamo.
1950 HILLBILLY HARE / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by ROBERT MCKIMSON Starring: BUGS BUNNY Comments: While vacationing in the Ozarks, Bugs is mistaken by Curt and his brother Pumpkinhead Martin for one of the Coys. (The "Martins and the Coys" had been a Disney-created hillbilly outfit in the 1946 MAKE MINE MUSIC.) Bugs eventually gets out of it by going in drag as a hillbilly gal and then calling a square dance that gets increasingly violent.
1950 ANNIE GET YOUR GUN / MGM Produced by ARTHUR FREED Directed by GEORGE SIDNEY Starring: BETTY HUTTON, HOWARD KEEL, LOUIS CALHERN, J CARROL NAISH, EDWARD ARNOLD, KEENAN WYNN Comments: Adaptation of the play by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, music by Irving Berlin, as produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Hillbilly gal gets involved with a gaudy Wild West show. All of the "hillbilly gal" musicals like this one contain comic cross- dressing (and are nominally Westerns by the look). And they all bring the mannish woman out of her "pretense" and into woman's clothing and a traditional woman's role by the close. Annie Oakley's song "Moonshine Lullaby" in the stage version was dropped from the film, but the character still has her hillbilly credentials intact in "Doin' What Comes Naturally."
1950 THE GREAT MISSOURI RAID / PARAMOUNT Produced by NAT HOLT Directed by GORDON DOUGLAS Starring: MACDONALD CAREY, WENDELL COREY, WARD BOND, ELLEN DREW, BRUCE BENNETT, BILL WILLIAMS, ANNE REVERE, EDGAR BUCHANAN Comments: Jesse and Frank James as Civil War guerrillas.
1951 I'D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by LAMAR TROTTI Directed by HENRY KING Starring: SUSAN HAYWARD, WILLIAM LUNDIGAN, RORY CALHOUN, ALEXANDER KNOX Comments: A newly married city wife of a north Ga Methodist minister faces life in the hills. Filmed on location in north Ga. Unstereotyped view of rural folks. The only "hillbilly" in the piece is a Harvard-educated atheist who, by movie's end, begins to mend his bleak view of life. Shows the impact of the Red scare of the 50s: "hillbilly" equals Godless, unAmerican Communism.
1951 MA AND PA KETTLE BACK ON THE FARM / UNIVERSAL Produced by LEONARD GOLDSTEIN Directed by EDWARD SEDGWICK Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, RICHARD LONG, MEG RANDALL, RAY COLLINS, EMORY PARNELL Comments: The Kettles are convinced there are uranium deposits on their farm, and they get involved with gangsters who also think the same thing. Also, in-law troubles with their oldest son's wife's meddling parents.
1951 THE BAREFOOT MAILMAN / COLUMBIA Produced by ROBERT COHN Directed by EARL MCEVOY Starring: ROBERT CUMMINGS, JEROME COURTLAND, TERRY MOORE, JOHN RUSSELL, WILL GEER, ARTHUR SHIELDS, TREVOR BARDETTE Comments: A genial con-artist and a schoolgirl try to swindle some Fla hillbillies.
1951 COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN / UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL Produced by HOWARD CHRISTIE Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: BUD ABBOTT, LOU COSTELLO, DOROTHY SHAY, KIRBY GRANT, MARGARET HAMILTON Comments: Ky hills. Lou Costello finds out he's a long-lost McCoy and returns to the mtns to claim a fabled fortune. High jinks, visual jokes that seem based on Paul Webb's "Mountain Boys" cartoons for Esquire magazine, galloping stereotypes, all ending in the gold vault at Fort Knox. (Webb had published a collection of his cartoons, called "Comin' Round the Mtn.") Night club singer Dorothy Shay billed herself as the "Park Avenue Hillbilly."
1951? FEUDIN' RHYTHM Produced by COLBERT CLARK Directed by EDWARD BERNDS Starring: EDDIE ARNOLD, GLORIA HENRY, KIRBY GRANT, FUZZY KNIGHT Comments: Eddy Arnold's first movie, largely musical numbers held together by minimal, stereotypical plot.
1952 BLOODHOUNDS OF BROADWAY / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by GEORGE JESSEL Directed by HARMON JONES Starring: MITZI GAYNOR, SCOTT BRADY, MITZI GREEN, MARGUERITE CHAPMAN, MICHAEL O'SHEA Comments: Hillbilly gal goes to the big city with her pack of hound dogs, gets involved with comic gangsters, and turns into a curvaceous Broadway babe with a successful cabaret act featuring her hounds.
1952 MA AND PA KETTLE AT THE FAIR / UNIVERSAL Produced by LEONARD GOLDSTEIN Directed by CHARLES BARTON Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, JAMES BEST, LORI NELSON, EMORY PARNELL, RUSSELL SIMPSON Comments: Pa buys a sick horse, which Ma enters in a race at the county fair by mistake. Rosie, the eldest daughter, falls in love.
1952 FEUDING FOOLS / MONOGRAM Directed by WILLIAM BEAUDINE Starring: LEO GORCEY, HUNTZ HALL Comments: The Bowery Boys get involved in a mtn feud.
1952 AARON SLICK FROM PUNKIN CRICK / PARAMOUNT Produced by WILLIAM PERLBERG/GEORGE SEATON Directed by CLAUDE BINYON Starring: ALAN YOUNG, DINAH SHORE, ROBERT MERRILL Comments: A small-town girl is tricked into selling her farm and moving to the city, but she eventually marries the simple farmer who rescues her. Another of the "hillbilly gal" musicals.
1953 THE PRESIDENT'S LADY / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by SOL C SIEGEL Directed by HENRY LEVIN Starring: CHARLTON HESTON, SUSAN HAYWARD, JOHN MCINTIRE, FAY BAINTER, CARL BETZ Comments: One of the Andy Jackson movies, this one focusing on his great love for Rachel -- inconveniently another man's wife already -- and his fight to have her.
1953 CALAMITY JANE / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by WILLIAM JACOBS Directed by DAVID BUTLER Starring: DORIS DAY, HOWARD KEEL, ALLYN MCLERIE, PHILIP CAREY Comments: One of the "hillbilly gal" musicals, featuring the mannish woman who must readopt her femininity by the closing number and marry the most eligible male available.
1953 MAW AND PAW / WALTER LANTZ Directed by PAUL J SMITH Starring: MA & PA KETTLE Comments: Cartoon based on the Ma and Pa Kettle movies.
1953 THE MAN FROM THE ALAMO / UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL Produced by AARON ROSENBERG Directed by BUDD BOETTICHER Starring: GLENN FORD, JULIA ADAMS, CHILL WILLS, HUGH O'BRIEN, VICTOR JORY, NEVILLE BRAND, TREVOR BARDETTE Comments: Not a mtn pict but a conventional Western, though it begins at the end of the Davy Crockett legend, with Trevor Bardette as Davy.
1953 MA AND PA KETTLE ON VACATION / UNIVERSAL Produced by LEONARD GOLDSTEIN Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, RAY COLLINS, BODIL MILLER, JACK KRUSHEN, RITA MORENO Comments: Ma and Pa go to Paris on vacation and get involved in international intrigue.
1954 JESSE JAMES' WOMEN / PANORAMA/UNITED ARTISTS Produced by LLOYD ROYAL, T.V. GARRAWAY Directed by DON BARRY Starring: DON BARRY, JACK BEUTEL, PEGGIE CASTLE, LITA BARON, JOYCE RHED, BETTY BRUECK, LAURA LEE, SAM KELLER Comments: Four loose women vie for Jesse's favors while he's on the lam in a Mississippi town. He is a most unsavory character despite his habit of giving money away to worthy persons.
1954 MA AND PA KETTLE AT HOME / UNIVERSAL Produced by RICHARD WILSON Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, ALICE KELLEY, BRETT HALSEY, ALAN MOWBRAY, MARY WICKES Comments: Pa tries to make the dilapidated farm into an efficient, prosperous operation, with disastrous results.
1954 BAD FOR EACH OTHER / COLUMBIA Directed by IRVING RAPPER Starring: CHARLTON HESTON, LIZABETH SCOTT, MILDRED DUNNOCK, RAY COLLINS Comments: A doctor back from the army scorns his home town--a hard-bitten mining community near Pittsburgh--for high society, but a mine disaster reverses his decision.
1955 LAY THAT RIFLE DOWN / REPUBLIC Produced by SIDNEY PICKER Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: JUDY CANOVA, ROBERT LOWERY, JIL JAMYN, RICHARD DEACON Comments: Domestic drudge Canova enrolls in a correspondence charm course, which just naturally attracts con-men. And just as naturally, down-to-earth goodness wins out.
1955 MA AND PA KETTLE AT WAIKIKI / UNIVERSAL Produced by LEONARD GOLDSTEIN Directed by LEE SHOLEM Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PERCY KILBRIDE, LORI NELSON, LOWELL GILMORE, BYRON PALMER, MABEL ALBERTSON Comments: The Kettles are invited to Hawaii by another branch of the Kettle clan who have made millions in canned fruit.
1955 NIGHT OF THE HUNTER / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by PAUL GREGORY Directed by CHARLES LAUGHTON Starring: ROBERT MITCHUM, SHELLEY WINTERS, LILLIAN GISH, PETER GRAVES Comments: Set in a WVa river town, a vision of evil inhabiting a rural paradise. Screenplay by James Agee, based on the novel by West Virginia writer Davis Grubb.
1955 NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS / THE THEATRE GUILD/ABC-TV Produced by THE THEATRE GUILD Directed by ALEX SEGAL Starring: ANDY GRIFFITH, HARRY CLARK, ROBERT EMHARDT, EDDIE LE ROY, ALEXANDER CLARK, ARTHUR STORCH, BOB HASTINGS, G ALBERT SMITH Comments: Live TV production of Ira Levin's own adaptation of his stage play, broadcast 15 March 1955, several months before Griffith opened in the play on Broadway. Available on VHS from Wood Knapp Video.
1955 PAW'S NIGHT OUT / WALTER LANTZ Directed by PAUL J SMITH Starring: MA & PA KETTLE Comments: Another cartoon version of the Ma and Pa Kettle characters.
1955 DAVY CROCKETT, KING OF THE WILD FRONTIER / WALT DISNEY/BUENA VISTA Produced by BILL WALSH Directed by NORMAN FOSTER Starring: FESS PARKER, BUDDY EBSEN, HANS CONRIED Comments: The movie based on the three-part TV series that was one of the cultural events of the '50s, the movie that started the rage among youngsters for coonskin caps.
1955 THE LAST COMMAND / REPUBLIC PICTURES Directed by FRANK LLOYD Starring: STERLING HAYDEN, ANNA MARIA ALBERGHETTI, ERNEST BORGNINE, RICHARD CARLSON, ARTHUR HUNNICUT, J CARROL NAISH Comments: Alamo story, with Davy Crockett, though this is really Jim Bowie's story. Takes place entirely in Tex. Arthur Hunnicut's Crockett is the best ever.
1955 CAROLINA CANNONBALL / REPUBLIC Produced by HERBERT J YATES Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: JUDY CANOVA, ANDY CLYDE, ROSS ELLIOTT, SIG RUMAN, JACK KRUSCHEN Comments: Canova & her grandpap run a short-line railroad connecting their home in a virtual ghosttown to the main line. A US guided missle lands there by mistake, attracting foreign agents and other Cold War types.
1955 THE KENTUCKIAN / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by HAROLD HECHT Directed by BURT LANCASTER Starring: BURT LANCASTER, JOHN CARRADINE, WALTER MATTHAU Comments: A story of a simple mtn man and his boy setting out to traipse "like natural men" to Tex to find their fortune. Instead, in the settlements, the mtn man loses his manhood temporarily but has it restored when his son retrieves the hunter's horn and teaches his father the value again of being free, natural men. Features a background anachronistic feud between the Wakefields and the Fromeses.
1956 THE KETTLES IN THE OZARKS / UNIVERSAL Produced by RICHARD WILSON Directed by CHARLES LAMONT Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, ARTHUR HUNNICUTT, UNA MERKEL, TED DE CORSIA, RICHARD DEACON Comments: One of two Ma and Pa Kettle movies made after the death of Percy Kilbride. Ma visits Pa's lazy brother and gets in the middle of a heap of trouble with bootleggers.
1956 THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES / CINEMASCOPE Produced by HERBERT SWOPE JR Directed by NICHOLAS RAY Starring: ROBERT WAGNER, JEFFREY HUNTER, HOPE LANGE, AGNES MOOREHEAD, JOHN CARRADINE, ALAN HALE JR, ALAN BAXTER Comments: "This time Yankees' injustice and persecutions, instead of a railroad's greed for land, set the Missourians on their career of crime, and many of the real events of the James history were worked into the script, even though at times considerably distorted." "Based on a screen play by Nunnally Johnson," who did the script for the celebrated 1939 Jesse James for 20th Century Fox, so this looks like recycled material.
1956 THE FIRST TEXAN / ALLIED ARTISTS Directed by BYRON HASKIN Starring: JOEL MCCREA, FELICIA FARR Comments: Biography of Sam Houston, the renegade Tennesseean, shot entirely in Calif.
1956 WOODY MEETS DAVY CREWCUT / WALTER LANTZ Directed by ALEX LONG Starring: WOODY WOODPECKER Comments: Woody Woodpecker meets the coonskin-capper of legend.
1956 HILLBILLING AND COOING / PARAMOUNT Directed by SEYMOUR KNEITEL Starring: POPEYE Comments: Popeye gets his turn with some hillbilly cartoon characters.
1956 TENNESSEE PLOWBOY / UNIVERSAL Produced by WILL COWAN Directed by WILL COWAN Starring: EDDY ARNOLD, GOGI GRANT Comments: A musical short capitalizing on Arnold's popularity then as "The Tennessee Plowboy."
1956 DAVY CROCKETT AND THE RIVER PIRATES / WALT DISNEY/BUENA VISTA Produced by BILL WALSH Directed by NORMAN FOSTER Starring: FESS PARKER, BUDDY EBSEN, JEFF YORK Comments: Adapted for theatrical release from the "Disneyland" TV production's second set of stories about the famous coonskin- capper. Features authentic settings along the Ohio R.
1957 THE KETTLES ON OLD MACDONALD'S FARM / UNIVERSAL Produced by HOWARD CHRISTIE Directed by VIRGIL VOGEL Starring: MARJORIE MAIN, PARKER FENNELLY, GLORIA TALBOT, JOHN SMITH, GEORGE DUNN, CLAUDE AKINS Comments: The last Ma and Pa Kettle movie with Fennelly as Pa.
1957 ANNIE GET YOUR GUN / I W FILMS INC/NBC-TV Produced by EDWIN LESTER, RICHARD HALLIDAY Directed by VINCENT J DONEHUE Starring: MARY MARTIN, JOHN RAITT Comments: Stage production by San Francisco Light Opera Co done live for NBC-TV on 27 Nov 1957, available on Hen's Tooth Video.
1957 TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR / CINEMASCOPE Produced by ROSS HUNTER Directed by JOSEPH PEVNEY Starring: DEBBIE REYNOLDS, WALTER BRENNAN, LESLIE NIELSON, MALA POWERS, FAY WRAY, SIDNEY BLACKMER, MILDRED NATWICK Comments: A hillbilly gal, swamp division, goes to town, gets her heart broken, but comes out triumphant because she's such a good judge of human character. This film launched a series of "Tammy" films. Brennan plays Tammy's moonshining grandpa.
1957 DANIEL BOONE, TRAILBLAZER / REPUBLIC PICTURES Produced by ALBERT C GANNAWAY Directed by ALBERT C GANNAWAY AND ISMAEL RODRIQUEZ Starring: BRUCE BENNETT, LON CHANEY JR, FARON YOUNG Comments: Another version of the intrepid frontiersman leading a gang of settlers through the mtn wilderness to new lives on the other side. A lot of "Americans are this-away" speeches, with Boone as the Nordic embodiment of "blondness," rightness, defeating the darkness and dirtiness of Indians, who are enemies of progress. Progress is blond, by God!
1958 THUNDER ROAD / DRM PRODUCTIONS Produced by ROBERT MITCHUM Directed by ARTHUR RIPLEY Starring: ROBERT MITCHUM, GENE BARRY, KEELY SMITH, JIM MITCHUM Comments: Set in Tenn, filmed near Asheville. Besides writing the original scenario, Mitchum also composed the two songs for the film, "The Ballad of Thunder Road" and "Poor Whippoorwill." One of the most influential of all hillbilly movies and one of the few to see moonshining from the inside, without cartoonizing it. A tragic tale that begat a whole string of "good-ole-boy" roadrunning comedies.
1958 GOD'S LITTLE ACRE / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by SIDNEY HARMON Directed by ANTHONY MANN Starring: ROBERT RYAN, ALDO RAY, BUDDY HACKETT, TINA LOUISE, JACK LORD, DICK MORROW, MICHAEL LANDON Comments: Based on the novel by Erskine Caldwell. Bizarre family of north Ga hill people.
1958 A FACE IN THE CROWD / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by ELIA KAZAN Directed by ELIA KAZAN Starring: ANDY GRIFFITH, PATRICIA NEAL, LEE REMICK, WALTER MATTHAU, ANTHONY FRANCIOSA Comments: Written by Budd Schulberg. A raucous, vulgar hillbilly--Ozarks branch--is discovered by a radio-show host while he is serving time in jail. He becomes an instant sensation as an on-the-air personality, and rises to great fame and fortune and power as a TV personality. He is a NY intellectual's nightmare of the absolute worst that TV--and media manipulation in general--might be able to make politically powerful. Andy Griffith's best acting, ever.
1958 NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by MERVYN LE ROY Directed by MERVYN LE ROY Starring: ANDY GRIFFITH, NICK ADAMS, MYRON MCCORMICK, DON KNOTTS, DUB TAYLOR Comments: Based on a stage-play version of Mac Hyman's novel about a north Ga bonehead who gets drafted.
1958 APPALACHIAN SPRING / PHOENIX FILMS INC Produced by NATHAN KROLL Directed by PETER GLUSHANOK Starring: MARTHA GRAHAM, STUART HOVES, BERTRAM ROSS Comments: A second version of the Copeland/Martha Graham ballet-- an interpretation of a folk tale about the wedding day of a young couple living in the Appalachian wilderness during pioneer days.
1958 COUNTRY MUSIC HOLIDAY / AURORA PRODUCTIONS Produced by RALPH SERPE, HOWARD KREITSEK Directed by ALVIN GANZER Starring: FERLIN HUSKY, JUNE CARTER, ZSA ZSA GABOR Comments: A small-town singer of rhythm and blues gets conned by his army buddies into taking a shot at big-time TV. The hillbilly goes to the city but comes back home and marries his sweetheart in Puffin Bluff, Tenn.
1959 ALIAS JESSE JAMES / HOPE ENTERPRISES Produced by JACK HOPE Directed by NORMAN MCLEOD Starring: BOB HOPE, RHONDA FLEMING, WENDELL COREY Comments: A Bob Hope spoof in which he plays an incompetent insurance salesman who sells a policy to Jesse James.
1959 BACKWOODS BUNNY / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by ROBERT MCKIMSON Starring: BUGS BUNNY Comments: Bugs burrows his way South to the Ozarks for a vacation where he encounters two hillbilly buzzards who want to make him the main ingredient in their rabbit stew.
1959 LI'L ABNER / TRIAD PRODUCTIONS/PARAMOUNT Produced by NORMAN PANAMA Directed by MELVIN FRANK Starring: PETER PALMER, STUBBY KAYE, LESLIE PARRISH, HOWARD ST JOHN, JULIE NEWMAR, STELLA STEVENS Comments: This is the musical version, based on the Broadway musical stageplay with tunes by Johnny Mercer.
1959 THE LEGEND OF TOM DOOLEY / COLUMBIA Directed by TED POST Starring: MICHAEL LANDON, RICHARD RUST, JO MORROW Comments: Although supposedly based on the ballad about the NC mtn boy who murdered his pregnant lover, this movie version came off as a conventional Western.
1959 THE HOUND DOG MAN / 20TH CENTURY FOX Directed by DON SIEGEL Starring: STUART WHITMAN, FABIAN, CAROL LYNLEY, ARTHUR O'CONNELL Comments: Filmed in Calif, so the backwoods are all wrong (with windmills!), but all the stereotyped props are in place: coonhounds, mules, moonshine whiskey. The "Hound-dog Man" of the title is a free, unmarried hunter who disdains farming and marriage. Hound dogs seem to symbolize what isn't house-broke and woman-broke about men and what ought to remain free. A film about what is manly and what ain't.
1960s? BIG ABNER Comments: Hardcore porn & a take-off on "Li'l Abner."
1960s? BAD BEULAH Comments: Hardcore porn with hillbilly setting.
1960s? DAISY MAE Produced by VINCENT ROSSI Directed by VINCENT ROSSI Starring: HOLLY JOY, HEATHER GORDON Comments: Hardcore hillbilly porn, a supposed spoof of Li'l Abner set in Pussypatch.
1960 INHERIT THE WIND / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by STANLEY KRAMER Directed by STANLEY KRAMER Starring: SPENCER TRACY, FREDRIC MARCH, GENE KELLY Comments: Based on the stage play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee, this treatment of the infamous Scopes "Monkey Trial" in Dayton, Tenn, in the 1920s emphasizes the bigotry and know- nothingness of rural hill folks.
1960 DANIEL BOONE, JR / TERRYTOONS Directed by DAVE TENDLAR Starring: HECTOR HEATHCOATE Comments: A cartoon take-off on the coonskin-capper.
1960 OZARK LARK / WALTER LANTZ Directed by PAUL J SMITH Starring: WOODY WOODPECKER Comments: Woody Woodpecker meets cartoon hillbillies in the Ozarks.
1960 CROCKETTE DOODLE-DO / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by ROBERT MCKIMSON Starring: FOGHORN LEGHORN Comments: Cartoon rooster Foghorn, in a coonskin cap, tries to teach Miss Prissy's little egghead nephew Eggbert all about woodcraft, hiking, and camping, but the kid figures out everything mathematically and does better than Foghorn.
1960 THE ALAMO / BATJAC PRODUCTION/UNITED ARTISTS Produced by JOHN WAYNE Directed by JOHN WAYNE Starring: JOHN WAYNE, RICHARD WIDMARK, LAURENCE HARVEY Comments: John Wayne's notorious portrayal of Davy Crockett: A "splashy, simple-minded reenactment.... there is little excuse for the outrageous historical inaccuracies found everywhere throughout this irritating cliche-ridden script."
1960 WILD RIVER / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by ELIA KAZAN Directed by ELIA KAZAN Starring: MONTGOMERY CLIFT, LEE REMICK, JO VAN FLEET Comments: Set during the '30s. The struggle of the TVA to bring the rivers under control means moving out families who don't want to go. Lee Remick is a Daisy Mae who ends up flying off with a TVA man. Based on two novels, one of them by Borden Deal.
1961 THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME / ASSOCIATED PRODUCERS INC/20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by MAURY DEXTER Directed by ANDREW B MCLAGLEN Starring: JIMMIE RODGERS, LUANA PATTEN, CHILL WILLS, LINDA HUTCHINS, GEORGE KENNEDY Comments: Heart-throb teenie-bopper Jimmie Rodgers in the limpest version of the Fox novel. Filmed on location in the San Bernadino mtns of Calif and on a back lot in Hollywood, so none of it looks right. Sample line: "We mtn people all got the same blood. That makes us all kin to each other. We all got the same grandsires."
1962 FOLLOW THAT DREAM / UNITED ARTISTS/MIRISCH Produced by DAVID WEISBART Directed by GORDON DOUGLAS Starring: ELVIS PRESLEY, ARTHUR O'CONNELL, JOANNA MOORE Comments: Elvis is part of a group of hillbilly homesteaders who settle in a small Fla town.
1962 THE METHOD AND MAW / PARAMOUNT Directed by SEYMOUR KNEITEL Starring: SNUFFY SMITH Comments: The first of three "Comic Kings" Cartoons featuring Snuffy Smith.
1962 SNUFFY'S SONG / PARAMOUNT Directed by SEYMOUR KNEITEL Starring: SNUFFY SMITH Comments: Another cartoon featuring the Billy De Beck-created Snuffy Smith.
1962 TAKE ME TO YOUR GEN'RUL / PARAMOUNT Directed by SEYMOUR KNEITEL Starring: SNUFFY SMITH Comments: A Snuffy-Smith cartoon short.
1963 SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS / MACCO PRODUCTIONS/HOWCO INTERNATIONAL Produced by JIM MCCULLOUGH Directed by BEN PARKER Starring: RICHARD ARLEN, JAMES W MIDDLETON, SHERRY LYNN, JAMES COLLIE, LLOYD DURRE, HAL MEADOWS Comments: The fourth version of Harold Bell Wright's novel of the Ozarks, filmed in and around Branson, Mo. Rereleased as Thunder Mountain.
1963 SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by DELMER DAVES Directed by DELMER DAVES Starring: HENRY FONDA, MAUREEN O'HARA, JAMES MACARTHUR, WALLY COX Comments: Although set in Wyoming, this is the original Earl Hamner story/ prototype for "The Waltons" TV show. Hamner had set the story in Depression-era Blue Ridge mtns of his native Va, but the Hollywood bosses changed it to the Grand Tetons. Fonda is most notable as a whiskey-drinking reprobate, with James MacArthur in the John-Boy role.
1963 ALL THE WAY HOME / TALENT ASSOCIATES/PARAMOUNT Produced by DAVID SUSSKIND Directed by ALEX SEGAL Starring: ROBERT PRESTON, JEAN SIMMONS, MICHAEL KEARNEY, PAT HINGLE, ALINE MACMAHON, JOHN CULLUM Comments: Film version of James Agee's A Death in the Family. Sex and religion between a lusty man and his prudish wife plus a boy and his father's special relationship. Includes a return home to the mtns and the boy's view of his mtn relatives as frightening specters.
1963 COMMON LAW WIFE / TEXAS FILM PRODUCERS/CINEMA DISTRIBUTORS OF AMERICA Produced by FRED KADANE Directed by ERIC SAYERS Starring: LACY KELLY, SHUGFOOT RAINEY, ANNABELLE LEE, JODY WORKS, BULL CONNORS, EMMA LOU WATKINS Comments: Uncle Chug has been living peacefully with his common- law wife until the arrival of his senuous niece, who does a striptease in a local dive and becomes involved with a nasty moonshiner. The niece and the moonshiner kill Uncle Chug with poisoned whiskey for his money. The common law wife kills the niece and drinks the poisoned whiskey to end her own life. Soft- core porn.
1963 SHOTGUN WEDDING / ARKOTA PRODUCTIONS Produced and directed by BORIS L PETROFF Starring: JENNY MAXWELL, VALERIE ALLEN, NAN PETERSON, J PAT O'MALLEY, PETER COLT Comments: A comedy-drama focusing on the Ankers family that has lived in a houseboat stuck in the mud for 30 years, An Ankers son is in love with Honey Bee Heller, the daughter of the moonshining Heller clan. Hillbilly sexploitation/softcore porn. Newspaper ad: "Child brides of the Ozarks! See how they live! See how they love! See them as they really are!"
1964 THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN / MGM Produced by LAWRENCE WEINGARTEN Directed by CHARLES WATERS Starring: DEBBIE REYNOLDS, HARVE PRESNELL, ED BEGLEY, JACK KRUSCHEN, HERMIONE BADDELEY, MARTITA HUNT Comments: Another of the "hillbilly gal" musicals, this one slightly more biting in its depiction of the gender wars, as the backwoods gal struggles for some measure of equity with the overbearing alpha-male.
1964 KISSIN' COUSINS / FOUR LEAP PRODUCTIONS/METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Produced by SAM KATZMAN Directed by GENE NELSON Starring: ELVIS PRESLEY, ARTHUR O'CONNELL, GLENDA FARRELL, JACK ALBERTSON, PAMELA AUSTIN, CYNTHIA PEPPER, YVONNE CRAIG Comments: Elvis Presley in a dual role. Elvis Number One is a G I scout, sent to Tenn to talk his hillbilly relatives into leasing a mtn for an ICBM base. Elvis Number Two is a surly blonde who hates his city-reared cousin. The boys tangle, they toss off songs, and they magnetize swarms of scantily-clad young beauties roamin' them hills wild.
1964 MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN / HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS MOTION PICTURE ENTERPRISES/CREATIVE COMMUNICATIONS INC Produced and directed by HERSCHEL GORDON LEWIS Starring: JEFFREY ALLEN, CHUCK SCOTT, BONNIE HINSON, ADAM SORG, CARMEN SOTIR Comments: Filmed in the Blue Ridge mtns of NC. "[This] is Jeb's country 'n Lord help th' revenoor that comes around. This is the goldarndest pit'cher 'bout making moonshine likker you ever seen!" A tale of moonshine and country music made to exploit popularity of Thunder Road. Contained some gore: a retarded girl axes a sheriff, who has previously himself killed a girl who refused his clumsy advances. A K A White Trash on Moonshine Mountain.
1964 TWO THOUSAND MANIACS (2000 MANIACS) / THE JACQUELINE KAY INC Produced by DAVID F FRIEDMAN Directed by HERSCHEL GORDON LEWIS Starring: THOMAS WOOD Comments: Hillbilly gore exploitation. An unmapped town full of hillbilly cannibals lures unsuspecting travelers to their gruesome deaths. A send-up of Northern fears about backward Southerners during the height of the civil rights movement, when the South's public relations was the worst.
1965 SHENANDOAH / UNIVERSAL Produced by ROBERT ARTHUR Directed by ANDREW B MCLAGLEN Starring: JAMES STEWART, ROSEMARY FORSYTH, DOUG MCCLURE, GLENN CORBETT, KATHARINE ROSS Comments: Civil War tale of valley people caught between the two sides. James Stewart is a valley farmer who will not support the Confederacy because he is opposed to slavery and will not support the Union because he is opposed to war. So he has a dilemma, as neither side will leave him alone.
1965 THE NEST OF THE CUCKOO BIRDS / BERT WILLIAMS MOTION PICTURE PRODUCERS & DISTRIBUTORS Produced and directed by BERT WILLIAMS Starring: BERT WILLIAMS, ANN LONG Comments: Sadism, horror, and moonshining hillbillies.
1965 WHITE LIGHTNIN' ROAD / J R T FILMS/ORMOND ORGANIZATION Produced by JUNE AND RON ORMOND Directed by RON ORMOND Starring: EARL "SNAKE" RICHARDS, ARLINE HUNTER, TIM ORMOND Comments: "Ruby wanted a bang-up wedding--so her pappy used his shotgun." Moonshine-car racing epic. "Souped up cars and barnyard babes!" "Fighting women, moonshining men and free-for- all love!"
1965 LEGEND OF BLOOD MOUNTAIN / CRADDOCK FILMS Directed by GEORGE CRADDOCK Comments: Hillbilly horror film, very low-budget 16 mm.
1965 RAW LOVE / STARDUST PRODUCTIONS/GOLD STAR PICTURES/GRADS CORP Produced by JOHN PETRELLS, MARY GRACE GORDON Directed by KENT OSBORNE Starring: SUZANNE ANDERSON, MIKE PERRY Comments: A moonshiner named Skeeter lives and loves in the backwoods. He pimps his voluptuous daughter to the high sheriff, which is only the beginning of multiple couplings and recouplings, some for pleasure, some for revenge. Hillbilly sexploitation.
1965 FORTY ACRE FEUD / ORMOND ORGANIZATION/ATLANTA PRODUCTIONS Produced by BILL PACKHAM Directed by JUNE AND RON ORMOND Starring: FERLIN HUSKY, GEORGE JONES, LORETTA LYNN, RAY PRICE, MINNIE PEARL, BOB CORLEY, DEL REEVES Comments: Peculiar exploitation pict featuring "feudin' and fightin'" and country music. The 40-acre community of Shagbottom has been inadvertently left out of the legislative reappointment in Tenn, so they are informed they must elect a representative, which reignites an old feud. A country music jamboree arrives to bring peace. Filmed in and around Nashville.
1966 MUDHONEY / RM FILMS Produced by RUSS MEYER Directed by RUSS MEYER Starring: LORNA MAITLAND, HAL HOPPER, ANTOINETTE CRISTIANI Comments: One of Russ Meyer's most intricate "morality plays," featuring voluptuous town harlots and corrupt preachers in an intense study of a Depression town's twisted sexual underbelly. Set in the Ozarks.
1966 THAT TENNESSEE BEAT / ROBERT L LIPPERT PRODUCTIONS/20TH CENTURY FOX Produced and directed by RICHARD BRILL Starring: SHARON DEBORD, EARL RICHARDS, DELORES FAITH, MINNIE PEARL, MERLE TRAVIS Comments: Story of a rich Tenn horse farmer's rebellious and arrogant son who runs to Nashville on the lam from the law and who redeems himself through country music.
1966 JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER / CIRCLE PRODUCTIONS/EMBASSY PICTURES Produced by CARROLL CASE Directed by WILLIAM BEAUDINE Starring: JOHN LUPTON, CAL BOLDER, NARDA ONYX, STEVEN GERAY, FELIPE TURICH, ROSA TURICH, JIM DAVIS, WILLIAM FAWCETT Comments: Lady scientist, descendant of you-know-who, turns the outlaw's wounded friend into a monster. "Monstrous Western- horror thriller."
1966 JOHN LAIR'S RENFRO VALLEY BARN DANCE / JOHN LAIR PRODUCTIONS/SEVEN ARTS PICTURES Produced by JAMES F SULLIVAN, ARTHUR W STANISCH Directed by WILLIAM R JOHNSON Starring: RED BRIGHAM, OLD JOE CLARK, RUSS FISHER, JOE FISHER, FARMER SISTERS, PETE STAMPER, JEAN GIBSON, BOYD INGRAM, ANN HONEYCUTT, LILY MAY LEDFORD Comments: Country music revue, with the citizens of Renfro Valley telling of their Ky settlement.
1966 GIRLS FROM THUNDER STRIP / BOREALIS ENTERPRISES Produced by DAVID L HEWITT, MICHAEL MEHAS Directed by DAVID L HEWITT Starring: JODY MCRAE, MARAY AYRES, MICK MEHAS, CASEY KASEM, LINDSAY CROSBY Comments: Three young women in "a rural area" are involved in moonshining and violence. Newspaper ad: "Moonshining! Bootlegging! Sisters that turn Thunder Road wild!" Made for the drive-in trade and likely shot on location in the Carolinas.
1966 LAS VEGAS HILLBILLYS / WOOLNER BROTHERS Produced by LARRY E JACKSON Directed by ARTHUR C PIERCE Starring: JAYNE MANSFIELD, MAMIE VAN DOREN, FERLIN HUSKY, DON BOWMAN, BILLIE BIRD Comments: Country boy inherits a broken-down saloon, turns it into a success by bringing hillbilly music to Las Vegas. Early scenes set in mtns depict comic moonshining.
1966 NASHVILLE REBEL / FRED A NILES PRODUCTIONS/AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL Produced by FRED A NILES Directed by JAY SHERIDAN Starring: WAYLON JENNINGS, GORDON OAS-HEIM, MARY FRANN, CECE WHITNEY, TEX RITTER, HENNY YOUNGMAN, SONNY JAMES, WILBURN BROTHERS, LORETTA LYNN, FARON YOUNG, PORTER WAGONER, ARCHIE CAMPBELL Comments: Filmed in and around Nashville. About a down-and-out former soldier who comes by his musical talent naturally but who is almost cheated out of everything by a crooked talent agent. Though he marries the lovely and voluptuous Molly, his drinking almost destroys his marriage too, but he has a big comeback at the Grand Ole Opry, and Molly gives birth to a son.
1967 HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE / WOOLNER BROTHERS Produced by BERNARD A WOOLNER Directed by JEAN YARBOUROUGH Starring: MERLE HAGGARD, FERLIN HUSKY, JOI LANSING, LON CHANEY JR, BASIL RATHBONE, JOHN CARRADINE Comments: On their way to the Nashville Jamboree, two singers and their agent seeking rest are directed to a ramshackle house to spend the night. They get comically involved with fake ghosts and foreign spies.
1967 HELL ON WHEELS / ROBERT PATRICK PRODUCTIONS/CROWN INTERNATIONAL Produced by ROBERT PATRICK Directed by WILL ZENS Starring: MARTY ROBBINS, JOHN ASHLEY, GIGI PERREAU, ROBERT DORNAN, CONNIE SMITH, THE STONEMANS Comments: Three brothers: one's a stock car driver; the 2nd is a resentful and jealous car mechanic; the 3rd is a revenue agent. The 2nd brother tries to break out of the shadow of his siblings by building "tankers" for hauling moonshine. Almost too late, he decides to end his relationship with the moonshiners, who almost kill him and his brother. Happy ending, with the brothers reconciled as the best racing team in the country.
1968 THE ROAD HUSTLERS / SATURN PRODUCTIONS Produced by ROBERT M NEWSOM Directed by LARRY E JACKSON Starring: JIM DAVIS, SCOTT BRADY, BRUCE YARNELL, ROBERT DIX, VICTORIA CARROLL, ANDY DEVINE, SUE RANEY Comments: Newspaper ad: "Filmed in the Carolinas. The red hot story of Tarheel Moonshiners--their souped up cars and their lovin' women. Could be another Thunder Road." Could be but wasn't. A mtn patriarch & his three sons, named Matt, Mark, & Luke, engage in battles on the usual three fronts (the law, the mob, and women) to maintain their illegal whiskey-making.
1968 FORBIDDEN FLESH; AS SEEN FROM A HAYLOFT IN THE HILLS / BARRY MAHON PRODUCTIONS/CHANCELLOR FILMS Comments: The proverbial traveling salesman dirty joke. Trying to bed down in a hayloft, the salesman is beset by two insatiable country gals who want sex sex sex.
1968 FEUDIN', FIGHTIN', 'N' FUSSIN' / WALTER LANTZ Directed by PAUL J SMITH Starring: WOODY WOODPECKER Comments: A cartoon in which Woody Woodpecker has a run-in with hillbillies.
1968 MOONSHINER'S WOMAN / WORLDWIDE FILMS/STARLINE PICTURES Produced and directed by D E DAVIDSON Starring: ALAN DAVIS, LINDA LEE, ROY HUSTON, "GEORGEANNE," BILL CRISP Comments: Exploitation sex pict about gangsters, bookies, moonshine, and LSD made on a budget of $1,500. D.E. Davison and Alan Davis are the same person.
1968 THE ABOMINABLE MOUNTAINEERS / TERRYTOONS Directed by ART BARTSCH Starring: SAD CAT Comments: Another hillbilly cartoon.
1968 FEUD WITH A DUDE / WARNER BROTHERS Directed by ALEX LOVY Starring: MERLIN THE MAGIC MOUSE Comments: Merlin and Second Banana are crossing the Ozarks in their magic flying carpet when they run into a mtn feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Their carpet is shot down, and our heroes get involved with both factions. They extract themselves eventually by rocket.
1969 MEDIUM COOL / PARAMOUNT Produced by JERROLD WEXLER Directed by HASKELL WEXLER Starring: ROBERT FORSTER, HAROLD BLANKENSHIP Comments: A TV cameraman becomes sensitized because of his involvement with a WVa woman and her son who are living in a Chicago ghetto. With the 1968 Democratic convention as a backdrop. Mtn migrants in the big city are seen as the same sorts of victims as African Americans. Haskell Wexler also wrote the script and photographed the movie. One of the most celebrated movies of '69, drenched in late-Vietnam exhaustion, which virtually no one went to see.
1969 PASSION IN HOT HOLLOWS / CINETEX INDUSTRIES/CRADDOCK FILMS Produced by PEGGY STEFFANS Directed by JOE SARNO Starring: BRITT HANSEN, LOLA VALENTINE, CHARLES DOBSON, AARON GREEN, JUNE DALEY, MONIQUE DREVON, LUTHER BRAUN Comments: The mtn people of Hot Hollows grow sexually restive from unemployment when the local mill closes. Hillbilly porn. "The plot is unbelievable ... like Beverly Hillbillies with a kinky twist, including the expected lesbian scene and some rape and incest." The main lesbian heat is between sisters.
1969 FUTZ / GUVNOR PRODUCTIONS Produced by ALAN STROH, BEN SHAPIRO Directed by TOM O'HORGAN Starring: LA MAMA REPERTORY TROUPE Comments: Cyral Futz passionately loved a sow named Amanda and was as passionately persecuted by his fellow hillbillies. This allegory about a society that approves of killing but punishes an act of love is based on Rochelle Owens' off-Broadway play. Featured a potpourri of behaviors safely attributed to hillbillies, including nudity, masturbation, incest, transvestism, homosexuality, exhibitionism, and group sex.
1969 RIDE A WILD STUD / VEGA INTERNATIONAL PICTURES/GOLD STAR PICTURES Produced by WILLIAM EDWARDS Directed by REVILO EKARD Starring: HALE WILLIAMS, JOSIE KIRK, FRENCHY LEBOYD, CLIFF ALEXANDER, WILLIAM FOSTERWICK, C C CHASE, BARBARA PARKS Comments: Sexploitation, set post-Civil War, when Missouri bad boy Quantrill rules the bandits of Kansas, and Frank James helps free an abducted and raped young woman from Quantrill's "pleasure house."
1969 SOD SISTERS / POPULAR PRODUCTIONS Produced by J T URISHIN Directed by LESTER WILLIAMS Starring: GENIE PALMER, BREEGE MCCOY, HANK HARRIGAN, TIM E LANE, JAMES SCHACHT, GLEN STANNEL Comments: A young man knocked unconscious while involved in a robbery is taken home by a hillbilly named Zeb, where his two licentious daughters take turns using the young man's body for sexual pleasure. Meanwhile, Zeb is protecting his moonshine still.
1969 THE DEVIL'S EIGHT / AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL Produced and directed by BURT TOPPER Starring: CHRISTOPHER GEORGE, FABIAN, RALPH MEEKER Comments: A rip-off of The Dirty Dozen set in moonshining country with dastardly moonshiners taking the place of the Nazi high command. Group of former prisoners trained by Christopher George to raid and break up one of the largest moonshining operations in the South. John Milius contributed to the script.
1970 THE MOLLY MAGUIRES / TAMM PRODUCTIONS/PARAMOUNT Produced by MARTIN RITT/WALTER BERNSTEIN Directed by MARTIN RITT Starring: RICHARD HARRIS, SEAN CONNERY, FRANK FINLAY, SAMANTHA EGGAR, ANTHONY ZERBE, ART LUND Comments: Mine owners hire Pinkerton spies to crack a secret organization that is using violence to attack the powerful and ruthless coal industry. Based on fact and filmed on location in Eckley, Pa, and in other Pa towns.
1970 THE MOONSHINE WAR / FILMWAYS INC/METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Produced by MARTIN RANSOHOFF Directed by RICHARD QUINE Starring: ALAN ALDA, PATRICK MCGOOHAN, RICHARD WIDMARK, WILL GEER, TERRY GARR Comments: Script by Elmore Leonard, from his novel. "Ballad of the Moonshine" sung by Hank Williams. Bizarre movie about government agents and bad guys trying to get their hands on Alan Alda's stock of fine moonshine before the repeal of Prohibition. Alda as a mtn moonshiner is an unintentional hoot.
1970 I WALK THE LINE / COLUMBIA Produced by HAROLD D COHEN Directed by JOHN FRANKENHEIMER Starring: GREGORY PECK, TUESDAY WELD, RALPH MEEKER, ESTELLE PARSONS, CHARLES DURNING Comments: A Tenn mtn sheriff, whose own marriage is a painful series of suppressions and evasions, becomes adulterously involved with the beautiful daughter of a stereotyped moonshiner, which compromises him as an enforcer of the law. The film might also be called "A Buried Life," with all the imagery of the TVA lake and dam and the sheriff's buried past and suppressed sexuality. The sheriff winds up broken and alone, a total chump. Screenplay by Alvin Sargent, based on the novel An Exile by Madison Jones. Theme music by Johnny Cash.
1970 ALL THE LOVIN' KINFOLK / LIMA PRODUCTIONS/CLOVER FILMS Produced by DANIEL CADY/JOHN HAYES Directed by JOHN HAYES Starring: MADY MAGUIRE, JAY SCOTT, ANN RYAN, JANICE DOUGLAS, DONNA YOUNG Comments: A naive young mtn woman and her really dense male cousin (he's never seen a prophylactic) head for town, but all their dreams net them are empty physical pleasures and heartache. Rated R. "They did more than kissin' ... cousin." A drive-in sexploitation number with a hillbilly setting.
1970 MISS JESSICA IS PREGNANT / TRISKELE LTD/JOSEPH BRENNER ASSOCIATES Produced by FRANKLIN MILLER, J L ANDERSON Directed by J L ANDERSON Starring: LARUE HALL, TED HEIM, MARJ JOHNSON, JOHN CRAWFORD, TRACY SMITH, DAVID AYRES Comments: Filmed in 1965 in and around Canaan, Ohio. Incest between brother and sister, children of a bitter ex-coal mining hillbilly living a grim subsistence lifestyle. The pregnant Jessica is freed from her rural hell by the father of her baby, who takes her away from the hostile environment.
1970 TOBACCO ROODY / BOXOFFICE INTERNATIONAL PICTURES-GLOBAL PICTURES Produced and directed by BUCKALEW Starring: DIXIE DONOVAN, JOHNNY ROCCO, DEBBIE OSBORNE, WENDY WINTERS, GIGI PEREZ, JOHN LAW, JOE DUNNIGAN, BUCKALEW Comments: Tennessee moonshiner and his sex-starved daughters. A farce with group sex.
1970 ORGY IN THE OZARKS / MJ PRODUCTIONS/MARJON FILM DISTRIBUTORS Comments: Two families in the Ozarks, the Humpers and the Comes, decide to end a 100-year-old feud by getting it on instead. One brother and two sisters on each side try all the combinations imaginable. Hillbilly sexploitation.
1970 A WALK IN THE SPRING RAIN / COLUMBIA/BINGEE Produced by STIRLING SILLIPHANT Directed by GUY GREEN Starring: INGRID BERGMAN, ANTHONY QUINN, FRITZ WEAVER Comments: Absolutely dreadful attempt at making Anthony Quinn a sexually attractive and supernally "natural" mtn man, following his great success as "Zorba the Greek." His rival is Fritz Weaver as a limp academic. Ingrid Bergman is the (rather plump) plum waiting to drop. "Star-powered and post-menopausal romance in which a lecturer's wife finds fulfillment while vacationing in the boondocks." Shot on location in and around Knoxville, Cades Cove, and Gatlinburg, using the Great Smokies in some shots for Quinn's mtn home. Based on a Rachel Madux short story, this was intended to be Ingrid Bergman's comeback film. It bombed big.
1971 NO DRUMS, NO BUGLES / JUD-LEE PRODUCTIONS INC Directed by CLYDE WARE Starring: MARTIN SHEEN Comments: A quirky (Sheen is the sole actor seen on screen, though other voices are heard) and very beautiful Vietnam-era anti-war meditation, focused on a (legendary?) West Virginian who chose to become a fugitive hermit in the mtns rather than fight for either the Union or the Confederacy during the Civil War. The hillbilly as conscientious objector, the first since Sergeant York, with a very different outcome.
1971 CORKY / MGM Produced by BRUCE GELLER Directed by LEONARD HORN Starring: ROBERT BLAKE, PARTICK O'NEAL, CHARLOTTE RAMPLING, CHRISTOPHER CONNOLLY, LAURENCE LUCKINBILL, BEN JOHNSON Comments: An arrogant auto mechanic and anti-hero becomes a stock car racer.
1971 PREACHERMAN / PREACHERMAN CORP Produced by ALBERT T VIOLA Directed by ALBERT T VIOLA Starring: ALBERT T VIOLA ("AMOS HUXLEY"), W HENRY SMITH, ESTY F DAVIS JR, MARIAN BROWN, ADAM HESSE, ILENE KRISTEN Comments: A farmer's daughter, a phony preacher, and a county sheriff. Exploitation pict with a thick sense of humor. Raucous bluegrass score by W Henry Smith, a one-legged, one-armed drive- in owner who also contributed to other scripts for subsequent Preacherman films.
1971 IN YA BLOOD / APPALSHOP Produced by APPALSHOP Directed by HERB E SMITH Comments: A young man must make the decision faced by all App youth: whether to stay in the mtns or to leave in search of "a better life." The first and for a long time the only fictional film--with a script and actors--that the documentary filmmaking "collective" Appalshop ever produced.
1971 FOOL'S PARADE / COLUMBIA PICTURES Produced by ANDREW B MCLAGLEN Directed by ANDREW B MCLAGLEN Starring: JAMES STEWART, GEORGE KENNEDY, STROTHER MARTIN, KURT RUSSELL, WILLIAM WINDOM, ANNE BAXTER Comments: When an old con (Stewart) is let out of prison, he is given $25,000.00 that he has carefully saved up, but he is trailed by his old Bible-spouting prison guard (Kennedy) who hopes to steal the money. Based on the novel by Davis Grubb.
1971 THE HOMECOMING, A CHRISTMAS STORY / LORIMAR PRODUCTIONS/CBS Produced by ROBERT L JACKS Directed by FIELDER COOK Starring: PATRICIAL NEAL, RICHARD THOMAS, EDGAR BERGEN, ELLEN CORBY, CLEAVON LITTLE, WILLIAM WINDOM, ANDREW DUGGAN Comments: Earl Hamner's story of the Walton family of the Va Blue Ridge during the Depression, here in its second guise as a made- for-TV movie. The same family had earlier appeared as "the Spencers" in Hamner's "Spencer's Mountain." This hugely popular Christmas show spun off the hugely popular and long-running Waltons.
1972 THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID / UNIVERSAL/ROBERTSON & ASSOC Produced by JENNINGS LANG Directed by PHILIP KAUFMAN Starring: ROBERT DUVALL, CLIFF ROBERTSON, LUKE ASKEW, R G ARMSTRONG, DANA ELCAR, DONALD MOFFAT Comments: One of the strangest of the Jesse James movies in that it portrays Jesse as half-cracked and Cliff Robertson's Cole Younger as the hero.
1972 BOXCAR BERTHA / AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES Produced by ROGER CORMAN Directed by MARTIN SCORSESE Starring: BARBARA HERSHEY, DAVID CARRADINE, BARRY PRIMUS, BERNIE CASEY, JOHN CARRADINE Comments: In the 1930s in the Ark Ozarks, an unhappy girl falls in with gangsters and train robbers. A competent ripoff of Bonnie and Clyde. One of Scorsese's 1st films.
1972 SIXTEEN / PRODUCERS FUNDING CORP Produced by HARVEY BERNHARD, CURTIS TAYLOR Directed by LAWRENCE DOBKIN Starring: MERCEDES MCCAMBRIDGE, FORD RAINEY, SIMONE GRIFFETH, BEVERLY POWERS, JOHN LOZIER Comments: Hillbilly gal, swamp division, finds bittersweet love at a country carnival. Borders on sexploitation.
1972 DELIVERANCE / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by JOHN BOORMAN Directed by JOHN BOORMAN Starring: JOHN VOIGHT, BURT REYNOLDS, NED BEATTY, RONNY COX, JAMES DICKEY Comments: Four city men go to the wilderness of north Ga to reassert their manhood in a society that is making gonads obsolete, but they encounter real savagery in the form of stereotypical mtneers. The ones that survive are better for it. Screenplay by James Dickey, based on his best-selling novel. Boorman remade this story in 1985 and called it The Emerald Forest, and he used South American cannibals instead of degenerate hillbillies to menace his interloping city people. In both films a big dam is being built that will symbolically curtail "wildness," which is what Boorman wants to celebrate.
1972 THE FIVE HUNDRED-POUND JERK / WOLPER PRODUCTIONS/CBS Produced by DAVID WOLPER Directed by WILLIAM KRONICK Starring: ALEX KARRAS, JAMES FRANCISCUS, HOPE LANGE, HOWARD COSELL Comments: A hillbilly giant is groomed as an Olympic weight- lifter so that his sponsor can cash in on product endorsements. But the hillbilly falls for a Russian gymnast and almost starts an international incident. Made-for-TV, you bet!
1972? PREACHERMAN MEETS WIDDERWOMAN / PREACHERMAN CORP Produced by ROBERT W MCCLURE Starring: ALBERT T VIOLA ("AMOS HUXLEY") Comments: The sequel to "Preacherman." Said Preacherman Corp's pres Robert W McClure: "Hell, I know my pictures aren't art, but I don't think they're offending anybody, either. You gotta have some sex and enough pretty girls, you know, Daisy Mae-type characters. Then, of course, there's the car chases and the moonshining and some good country music, and maybe some square- dance clogging."
1973 WHITE LIGHTNING / UNITED ARTISTS Directed by JOSEPH SARGENT Starring: BURT REYNOLDS, JENNIFER BILLINGSLEY, NED BEATTY, MATT CLARK, BO HOPKINS, LOUISE LATHAM, DIANE LADD Comments: Burt Reynolds as moonshiner, swamp division, who escapes jail to get vengeance on a corrupt sheriff who killed his brother.
1973 THE LEGEND OF HILLBILLY JOHN / JACK H HARRIS ENTERPRISES INC Produced by BARNEY ROSENZWEIG/PERCY RODRIQUEZ Directed by JOHN NEWLAND Starring: SEVERN DARDEN, HEDGES CAPERS, SIDNEY CLUTE, DENVER PYLE Comments: Filmed in NC and Ark and based on a book by Manly Wade Wellman. This weird movie had the look of Hippie Storybook Theatre--a Jack tale in which Jack encounters a seemingly limitless series of embodiments of Old Lucifer himself (the corrupt adult world?), and defeats every one of them. This is the mtneer as classic "fool"--the naif who blunders across a boundary into what is taboo and has to deal with the devil.
1973 BLACK HARVEST / CHRISTIAN BLACKWOOD Comments: A family in Ky is torn apart by strip mining and its social impact.
1973 WALKING TALL / BING CROSBY PRODUCTIONS Produced by MORT BRISKIN Directed by PHIL KARLSON Starring: JOE DON BAKER, ELIZABETH HARTMAN Comments: Not set in the mtns but in McNairy Co, Tenn. But some characters are the moonshining characters of yore. One of the few films in the early '70s that went against the prevailing lore of the moonshine-runner as folk hero. Here the lawman is more conventionally the hero, with the moonshiners (and their ilk), a bunch of scumbags. Based on the real-life adventures of Sheriff Buford Pusser.
1973 CHALLENGE: THE TOUGHEST MAN ALIVE / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by MARTIN BECK Starring: EARL OWENSBY, WILLIAM T HICKS, KATHRYN THOMPSON, JOHNNY POPWELL Comments: The first film of "redneck auteur" Earl Owensby, who launched his film career with this macho action flick and built a successful independent studio that turned out action/horror flicks until well into the '80s. Theme of this 1st film: revenge of the death of a man's wife and daughter.
1973 LOLLY MADONNA XXX / METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Produced by RODNEY CARR-SMITH Directed by RICHARD SARAFIAN Starring: ROBERT RYAN, ROD STEIGER, JEFF BRIDGES, SEASON HUBLEY, ED LAUTER, GARY BUSEY, SCOTT WILSON, KIEL MARTIN, RANDY QUAID Comments: One of the last MGM films before the company went under in
1973, under the ministrations of Pres and CEO James T Aubrey, who was also the man who brought The Beverly Hillbillies to TV. This is a feud movie which attempts to capitalize on the popularity of Deliverance the year before, so there's more depravity, more violence, more weirdness per square minute. The Gutshalls and the Feathers have been fighting over some pastureland, but the plot is incomprehensible, featuring a poor innocent girl kidnapped from a Greyhound bus stop and used as bait in the feud. There's also a still and some implied homosexuality between brothers. A great cast, wholly wasted.
1973 HARD DRIVER (SEE LAST AMERICAN HERO)
1973 THE LAST AMERICAN HERO (HARD DRIVER) / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by ROBBE ROBERTS, JOHN CUTTS Directed by LAMONT JOHNSON Starring: JEFF BRIDGES, VALERIE PERRINE, GERALDINE FITZGERALD, NED BEATTY, GARY BUSEY, ART LUND, ED LAUTER Comments: Based on Tom Wolfe's article in Esquire magazine on Junior Johnson, called "Junior Jackson" in the movie. Shot on location near Kings Mountain, NC. The story of a Southern mtn boy who became a hot-rodder genius by running his father's moonshine whiskey in the middle of the night.
1973? THE PIGKEEPER'S DAUGHTER Produced by HARRY NOVAK Comments: "There once was a pigkeeper's daughter/ Who raised what she shouldn't ought'er/ So all the boys came/ As they played her game/ And took her three pigs when they caught'er." Hillbilly porn.
1974 THE BRASS RING / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by MARTIN BECK Starring: EARL OWENSBY, JOHNNY POPWELL, ELIZABETH UPTON, DOUG HALE, JEFF MARKAY, KATHLEEN DEVINE, DENNIS OWENSBY Comments: Owensby's sequel to Challenge (see above)
1974 FRANK CHALLENGE: MANHUNTER / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Starring: EARL OWENSBY, JOHNNY POPWELL, ELIZABETH UPTON, DOUG HALE, JEFF MARKAY, KATHLEEN DEVINE, DENNIS OWENSBY Comments: A remake of The Brass Ring (see above). "Move over, James Bond, the Lone Ranger, and Hopalong Cassidy, Frank Challenge is here!" "The poor man's James Bond!"
1974 WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by ROBERT RADNITZ Directed by WILLIAM A GRAHAM Starring: JULIE GHOLSON, JAN SMITHERS, HARRY DEAN STANTON, SUDIE BOND Comments: Screenplay by Earl Hamner Jr. Original music composed by Earl Scruggs. Females have the upper hand during these tough times among the NC herb gatherers. Filmed on location in the NC mtns and foothills and immensely popular with h s teachers because of its "positive" portrayal of mtn people.
1974 THE GRAVY TRAIN (SEE THE DION BROTHERS)
1974 THE DION BROTHERS (THE GRAVY TRAIN) / TOMORROW ENTERTAINMENT/COLUMBIA Directed by JACK STARRETT Starring: STACY KEACH, FREDERIC FORREST, BARRY PRIMUS Comments: Two WVa coal miners, dressed like stereotypical rubes in loud clothes, go to the big city to make a success in crime and end badly. Originally released as The Gravy Train.
1974 WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS / DOTY-DAYTON Directed by NORMAN TOKAR Starring: JAMES WHITMORE, BEVERLY GARLAND, JACK GING, STEWART PETERSEN Comments: A boy yearns for two coonhounds that his Ozark parents can't afford to buy for him. He decides to earn them himself when his grandfather assures him that God will meet him halfway.
1974 A GIRL NAMED SOONER / FREDERICK BROGGER ASSOCIATES-20TH CENTURY FOX/NBC Produced by FRED HAMILTON Directed by DELBERT MANN Starring: CLORIS LEACHMAN, RICHARD CRENNA, LEE REMICK, DON MURRAY, ANNE FRANCIS Comments: Cloris Leachman dominates this story in a searing portrayal of a mean, unwashed, brittle, shabby, old, shrewd Indiana hill woman. She knows where a dollar can be turned for her moonshine whiskey. She plans to disown her granddaughter in order to get a government handout.
1974 BOOTLEGGERS / HOWCO INTERNATIONAL PICTURES Produced and directed by CHARLES B PIERCE Starring: PAUL KOSLO, DENNIS FIMPLE, SLIM PICKENS, BETTY BLUETT, STEVE WARD, SEAMON GLASS, JACLYN SMITH, Comments: A moonshine-running, car-smashing drive-in picture probably made on location in North Carolina. Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto. Rereleased after Jaclyn Smith made a hit as one of Charlie's Angles under the title Bootlegger's Angel.
1974 JACK AND THE ROBBERS / PIED PIPER PRODUCTIONS Starring: RICHARD CHASE Comments: The veteran poseur Richard Chase, who popularized Jack tales to a huge American public in the late '40s and '50s, narrates a Jack tale in App dialect.
1974 HOT SUMMER IN BAREFOOT COUNTY / PREACHERMAN CORP Produced by W HENRY SMITH Directed by WILL ZENS Starring: SHERRY ROBINSON, DON JONES, TONIA BRYAN, JEFF MACKAY, CHARLES ELLEDGE, NED AUSTIN Comments: "Hot rods ... hot lips ... and white lightnin'!" Filmed in Mecklenberg Co, NC, and York Co, SC. The part of the bumbling sheriff was played by Charles Elledge, a Wilkes Co actor who starred for many years in the outdoor drama "Horn in the West." Boone native Ned Austin was also featured as a bartender.
1974 MOONRUNNERS / UNITED ARTISTS Directed by GY WALDRON Starring: JAMES MITCHUM, KIEL MARTIN, ARTHUR HUNNICUT Comments: Events and characters based on the life of Jerry Rushing who also served as technical advisor. About an old moonshiner who believes in two things: the Bible and good home- made whiskey. Other moonshiners are making "garbage" and trying to run the old man out of business. His high standards are maintained by his nephew, and good honest moonshining prevails against gangsters and the law. "'Thunder Road' was only a practice run. This is the real thing" (newspaper ad). Rushing's tape-recorded stories, which formed the basis for this script, were subsequently pirated for The Dukes of Hazzard on TV. Rushing successfully sued for damages for unauthorized use of his life story and then later appeared in some episodes of The Dukes.
1975 WALKING TALL PART II / AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL Directed by EARL BELLAMY Starring: BO SVENSON, LUKE ASKEW, NOAH BEERY, RICHARD JAECKEL Comments: Takes up precisely where Part I left off. Lawman- extraordinaire (the moonshiner's enemy) Buford Pusser, played now by Svenson, tracks the man who killed his wife and left him severely wounded in the ambush that ended Part I.
1975 DEATH DRIVER: THE TRUE STORY OF REX RANDOLPH / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by JIMMY HOUSTON Starring: EARL OWENSBY, MIKE ALLEN, PATTY SHAW, MARY ANN HEARN Comments: Original score by Arthur Smith and Clay Smith. The story of a fictional former stunt-driving champion and Motor Rodeo King of
1965 ("the true story" in the title was purely a come-on). Some 87 cars were wrecked making this extravaganza.
1975 W W AND THE DIXIE DANCEKINGS / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by STANLEY S CANTER Directed by JOHN G AVILDSEN Starring: BURT REYNOLDS, CONNIE VAN DYKE, ART CARNEY, NED BEATTY, JERRY REED Comments: Set in the backwoods South, presumably rural Tenn where the Grand Ole Opry is the mecca for The Dixie Dancekings of the title. Combines blockade-running bandit with Music City success story. Screen play by Tom Rickman, who would also write Coal Miner's Daughter.
1975 THE HATFIELDS AND THE MCCOYS / CHARLES FRIES PRODUCTIONS/ABC-TV Produced by GEORGE EDWARDS Directed by CLYDE WARE Starring: JACK PALANCE, STEVE FORREST, RICHARD HATCH, KAREN LAMM, JAMES KEACH, ROBERT CARRADINE Comments: A supposedly more authentic version of the famous WVa/Ky feud than any of the other filmed versions, though this one also has its howlers, including a fanciful concluding shoot- out between Devil Anse and Randall McCoy in which both are wounded repeatedly but neither is killed. They end up reconciling and strolling off together. Shot on a back lot in Hollywood, so it looks like The Big Valley.
1975 NASHVILLE / PARAMOUNT Directed by ROBERT ALTMAN Starring: HENRY GIBSON, RONEE BLAKLEY, KAREN BLACK, LILY TOMLIN, KEITH CARRADINE, NED BEATTY, GERALDINE CHAPLIN, SHELLEY DUVALL, KEENAN WYNN Comments: Screenplay by Joan Tewkesbury. Vandalizes Loretta Lynn for the Ronee Blakley part. One of the most celebrated and debated movies of
1975, wherein hillbilly music is both the soul of America and America's delusion.
1975 THE CHERRY TREE CAROL / ACI MEDIA Comments: Choreographer Agnes De Mille's troupe performs a modern dance version of this traditional App Christmas ballad.
1975 HANSEL & GRETEL--AN APPALACHIAN VERSION / TOM DAVENPORT FILMS Produced by TOM DAVENPORT Directed by TOM DAVENPORT Comments: The parents are mtn, but the witch is strictly fairy- tale. The father passively submits to the wife. One actress plays both the step-mother and the witch.
1976 GATOR / UNITED ARTISTS Directed by BURT REYNOLDS Starring: BURT REYNOLDS, LAUREN HUTTON, JACK WESTON, JERRY REID, DUB TAYLOR Comments: The sequel to White Lightning. A convicted moonshiner, swamp division, is blackmailed into becoming a government undercover man.
1976 DARK SUNDAY / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by JIMMY HOUSTON Starring: EARL OWENSBY, MONIQUE PROULX, PHILLIP LANIER, RON LAMPKIN, MAGGIE LAUTERER Comments: Original music by Arthur Smith and Clay Smith. Revenge of a minister (this time) against a drug ring (this time) that killed his family (uh-huh). "The story of a corrupt small town ... and a minister hell-bent on vengeance." "He left it to the Lord ... until they wiped out his family."
1976 MOONSHINE COUNTY EXPRESS / UNIVERSAL Directed by GUS TRIKONIS Starring: JOHN SAXON, SUSAN HOWARD, WILLIAM CONRAD, DUB TAYLOR, JEFF COREY Comments: Three attractive daughters carry on their father's 'shine operation after he is murdered by another kingpin 'shiner. A stock-car racing blockader called "J B Johnson" (pace Junior Johnson) helps out the girls and proves that it takes a man to do the job. "100 proof women runnin shine cross the county line!" (rural mtn newspaper ad). But John Saxon just can't pull off the Petruchio/moonshiner part. Compare Gary Lockwood in the year following in the blistering Bad Georgia Road.
1976 SCUM OF THE EARTH / DIMENSION PICTURES Directed by S F BROWNRIGG Comments: Also released in
1976 as Poor White Trash II. A deranged 'Nam vet knocks off members of an incestuous hillbilly clan. "These people ... who marry their own daughters an' live like trash ... they do exist. They are out there."
1976 DIXIE DYNAMITE / DIMENSION PICTURES INC Produced by WES BISHOP Directed by LEE FROST Starring: WARREN OATES, CHRISTOPHER GEORGE, JANE ANNE JOHNSTONE, KATHY MCHALEY, STANLY ADAMS Comments: A sleepy Ga town is suddenly brought to life when two daughters of a murdered moonshiner seek revenge.
1976 FIGHTING MAD / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by ROGER CORMAN Directed by JONATHAN DEMME Starring: PETER FONDA, LYNN LOWRY, PHILIP CAREY Comments: Questionable for inclusion here because it's more Western than Eastern (looks to be Arkansas or maybe eastern Okla that's being strip mined). But the writers seem to have had exploited App in mind, for there are greedy mine-owners and unscrupulous developers. Peter Fonda as native-son-returned-home fights back.
1977 CHRISTMAS MIRACLE IN CAULFIELD, U S A / 20TH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION/NBC-TV Produced by LIN BOLEN Directed by JUD TAYLOR Starring: MITCHELL RYAN, KURT RUSSELL, ANDREW PRINE, JOHN CARRADINE, DON PORTER, BARBARA BABCOCK, KAREN LAMM, MELISSA GILBERT Comments: A coal mine owner is the villain in this story. Union workers, threatened with replacement by scabs, are forced to enter an unsafe mine on Christmas Eve 1951 and are trapped underground.
1977 BUCKSTONE COUNTY PRISON (THE HELL HOLE OF NORTH CAROLINA) / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by JIMMY HOUSTON Starring: EARL OWENSBY, DAVID ALLAN COE, DON "RED" BARRY, "SUNSET" CARSON Comments: Original music by David Allan Coe. "White Indian" half-breed named Seabo lives alone in the mtns making his living as a bounty hunter, capturing escaped convicts. "A cross between Cool Hand Luke and Deliverance." Owensby's most successful feature film: shown on HBO some 75 times.
1977 A DAY OF JUDGMENT (THE NIGHT HE CAME TO COLLECT HIS OWN) Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by C D H REYNOLDS Starring: WILLIAM T HICKS, HARRIS BLOODWORTH, BROWNLEE DAVIS, TOBY WALLACE, HELENE TRYON, CAREY ANN SUTTON, CARLTON BORTELL, JERRY RUSHING, RICHARD DEDMON, LARRY SPRINKLE Comments: Nothing of the content of this film is presently known.
1977 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by ROGER CORMAN Directed by COREY ALLEN Starring: DAVID CARRADINE, KATE JACKSON, STERLING HOLLOWAY, ROGER C CARMEL Comments: "It's 250 proof fun! As they bust up the biggest moonshine racket in the country" (newspaper ad). This is moonshine highjinks, Everglades branch, with most of the character types and situations from typical moonshine-running hillbilly films.
1977 NIGHTMARE COUNTY Produced and directed by SEAN MACGREGOR Comments: "An incoherent jumble about a hippie commune battling rednecks that features some unnerving violent scenes."
1977 HAY COUNTRY SWINGERS / HEMISPHERE PICTURES INC Directed by ALOIS BRUMMER Starring: EVA KARINKA, SANDRA RENI, PETER MUHLEN Comments: Newspaper ad pictured three busting Daisy Maes lolling on a hay wagon: "They have more room for it, more time for it ... and they're in hay #1 shape!"
1977 HOOCH / AMERICAN NATIONAL ENTERPRISES Produced by THIERRY PATHE Directed by EDWARD MANN Starring: GIL GERARD Comments: Another of the many Thunder Road-inspired good-old-boys running moonshine in defiance of the law pictures, but the tone is far from Thunder Road tragic. Comic mafioso come to North Carolina to try to muscle in. Filmed in the Carolina foothills.
1977 BAD GEORGIA ROAD / PRODUCERS GROUP INC Produced by JOHN C BRODERICK Directed by JOHN C BRODERICK Starring: GARY LOCKWOOD, CAROL LYNLEY Comments: Another Thunder Road imitation, with the good ole boy moonshine-runner vs "the Syndicate." But in this story, the technical owner of the business is a New York society-type bitch who gets her comeuppance, and she also gets the man (who is her comeuppance). In other words, this is a braying no-holds-barred backlash picture against women's lib. It's the best, most outrageous portrayal of the moonshiner-as-Petruchio in the whole moonshine movie tradition. Gary Lockwood all but reeks testosterone in the best performance of his nowhere career. A movie that ought to be an underground classic for mtn hellraisers, but isn't.
1977 GREASED LIGHTNING / WARNER BROTHERS Produced by HANNAH WEINSTEIN Directed by MICHAEL SCHULTZ Starring: RICHARD PRYOR, BEAU BRIDGES, PAM GRIER, CLEAVON LITTLE, VINCENT GARDENIA, RICHIE HAVENS, JULIAN BOND Comments: The biopic of Wendell Scott, the first black driver accepted into NASCAR. A native of Danville, Va, Scott got his start at fast driving by running moonshine for white moonshiners.
1977 WALKING TALL--THE FINAL CHAPTER / AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL Directed by JACK STARRETT Starring: BO SVENSON, MARGARET BLYE, FORREST TUCKER Comments: The last installment in the Walking Tall theatrical saga (though see A Real American Hero below), which shows the death under mysterious circumstances of the crusading Sheriff Buford Pusser.
1978 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE / CINEMAGIC PICTURES Produced by JOSEPH ZBEDA, MEIR ZARCHI Directed by MEIR ZARCHI Comments: Worldly New Yorker and would-be author goes to the mtns (filmed at Kent, Conn.) and encounters local hillbilly denizens, all predatory males. Not only do the men gang-rape her, they make fun of her writing too, which is going tooooo far. She butchers or otherwise kills all four of them. But her into avenger is not credible. This movie frankly celebrates rape, but has a kind of grunge style that never gets in a hurry.
1978 LIVING LEGEND / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by WORTH KEETER Starring: EARL OWENSBY, GINGER ALDEN, WILLIAM T HICKS, TOBY WALLACE, JERRY RUSHING, MAGGIE LAUTERER, KRISTINA REYNOLDS, GREG CASWELL Comments: Original music by Roy Orbison and David Allan Coe. Earl Owensby does Elvis (actually, an Elvis "type"). Nominated "best picture" by the Academy of Country Music.
1978 THE LAST GAME / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by MARTIN BECK Starring: HOWARD SEGAL, ED L GRADY, TERRY ALDEN, JERRY RUSHING, MIKE ALLEN, TOBY WALLACE, JULIAN MORTON, JOAN HOTCHKIS Comments: Dramatization of the country song "The Blind Man in the Bleachers." "The story of a boy's love for his girl, his game [football], but most of all, for his Dad."
1978 A REAL AMERICAN HERO / BING CROSBY PRODUCTIONS/CBS Produced by SAMUEL A PEEPLES Directed by LOU ANTONIO Starring: BRIAN DENNEHY, FORREST TUCKER, BRIAN KERWIN, KEN HOWARD, SHEREE NORTH, BRAD DAVIS Comments: This was the made-for-TV version of Buford Pusser's moonshine-smashing life as a lawman. "Walking Tall" sung by Don Williams. Technical consultants: John Howard Pusser and Dwana Pusser, Sheriff Buford's children.
1979 LADY GREY (COUNTRY GIRL) / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by WORTH KEETER Starring: GINGER ALDEN, DAVID ALLAN COE, PAUL OTT, HARRIS BLOODWORTH, PAULA BALDWIN, ED GRADY, CAREY ANN SUTTON Comments: The sequel to Living Legend, focusing on the Elvis- type's girlfriend.
1979 NORMA RAE / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by TAMARA ASSEYEV, ALEX ROSE Directed by MARTIN RITT Starring: SALLY FIELD, RON LEIBMAN, PAT HINGLE, BEAU BRIDGES Comments: Sally Field's Academy-Award-winning performance as a cottonmill worker who learns union. Based on the real life experiences of Crystal Lee Sutton.
1979 THE DEER HUNTER / UNIVERSAL Directed by MICHAEL CIMINO Starring: ROBERT DE NIRO, MERYL STREEP, CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, JOHN SAVAGE, JOHN CAZALE Comments: Begins with sensitive portrait of life among Russian immigrants in a small steel-mill town in Pa; ends with a Daniel Boone-ish hunting trek into the western Pa mtns (which are obviously really the Canadian Rockies), with a lot of Vietnam sturm-und-drang in between.
1979 THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY OF DR MEG LAUREL / COLUMBIA PICTURES TELEVISION/CBS Produced by PAUL B RADIN Directed by GUY GREEN Starring: LINDSAY WAGNER, JANE WYMAN, ANDREW DUGGER, GARY LOCKWOOD, BROCK PETERS, JOHN REILLY, JAMES WOODS, DOROTHY MCGUIRE Comments: A woman physician comes to the mtns to improve the medical care of the superstitious mtn folk and runs afoul of the local herb doctor. By the end the city doctor has learned to be humble about what she knows, a slight twist on expectations.
1980 BELLE STARR / ENTHEOS UNLIMITED PRODUCTIONS/HANNA-BARBERA PRODUCTIONS/CBS Produced by DOUG CHAPIN Directed by JOHN ALONZO Starring: ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY, CLIFF POTTS, MICHAEL CAVANAUGH, FRED WARD, JESSE VINT, ALAN VINT, GARY COMBS Comments: Well-received made-for-TV version which featured the James boys, the Youngers, and the Daltons but focuses on the last few months in the life of the title character, with feminist overtones. Set in Texas and the West, where many of our hillbilly gals ended up.
1980 COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER / UNIVERSAL Produced by BERNARD SCHWARTZ Directed by MICHAEL APTED Starring: SISSY SPACEK, TOMMY LEE JONES, LEVON HELM, PHYLLIS BOYENS, BEVERLY D'ANGELO Comments: The "up from Appalachia" success story of Loretta Lynn and her stormy marriage to Doolittle Lynn. Script by Tom Rickman, who was also nominated for an Oscar. Filmed on location in eastern Ky.
1980 THE GEORGIA PEACHES / NEW WORLD PICTURES/CBS Produced by ROGER CORMAN Directed by DANIEL HALLER Starring: TANYA TUCKER, TERRI NUNN, DIRK BENEDICT, LANE SMITH, SALLY KIRKLAND, DENNIS PATRICK Comments: A country singer and her sister, along with a moonshiner, help the government track down a criminal. This was the pilot for a prospective TV series that didn't make it.
1980 ANGEL CITY / FACTOR-NEWLAND PRODUCTIONS/CBS-TV Produced by ALAN JAY FACTOR, JOHN NEWLAND Directed by PHILIP LEACOCK Starring: RALPH WAITE, PAUL WINFIELD, JENNIFER WARREN, JENNIFER JASON-LEIGH, MITCHELL RYAN Comments: West Virginians in Fla in a migrant labor camp. Extraordinarily condescending, in such a way that Waite comes off as the dumbest of dumb hillbillies: weak, flaccid, indecisive. Even his own wife at one point denies he's the father of her children. Though made by liberals with a liberal message against big vegetable and fruit growers, this is one of the worst libels on mtn people ever made. Done for TV.
1980 THE LONG RIDERS / UNITED ARTISTS Produced by STACEY KEACH/JAMES KEACH Directed by WALTER HILL Starring: STACEY KEACH, JAMES KEACH, DAVID CARRADINE, KEITH CARRADINE, ROBERT CARRADINE, RANDY QUAID, DENNIS QUAID Comments: The best of the Jesse James movies, much of the at-home scenes shot in Ozarks-looking country, possibly north Georgia, with brothers playing brothers.
1981 PICK-UP Starring: JILL SENTER, ALAN LONG, GINI EASTWOOD Comments: Probably soft-core porn, rated R. Newspaper ad pictured seven hillbilly-looking men standing around a pickup truck, with a bosomy gal in the foreground.
1981 THE PRIDE OF JESSE HALLAM / KONIGSBERG CO/CBS-TV Produced by SAM MANNERS Directed by GARY NELSON Starring: JOHNNY CASH, BRENDA VACCARO, BEN MARLEY, ELI WALLACH, GUY BOYD Comments: Though Johnny Cash's character is from Muhlenberg Co, which is western Ky, the script wants to make him a mtn man. He mentions "the laughter of sweet mtn women" at one point. Realistically set in Cincinnati, tracing the experience of an illiterate rural man trying to make it as a newcomer to the city. A couple of parallels with The Dollmaker.
1981 RETURN OF THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES / CBS-TV Produced by PAUL HENNING Directed by ROBERT LEEDS Starring: BUDDY EBSEN, DONNA DOUGLAS, NANCY KULP, RAY YOUNG, IMOGENE COCA, WERNER KLEMPERER, EARL SCRUGGS Comments: Jed and all the clan help solve the "energy crisis," with Imogene Coca as Granny's 100-year-old ma (Irene Ryan having died in 1973). This was a pilot for a perspective new Beverly Hillbillies show, but it didn't happen.
1981 MY BLOODY VALENTINE / PARAMOUNT Directed by GEORGE MIHALKA Starring: PAUL KELMAN, LORI HALLIER, NEIL AFLECK, KEITH KNIGHT Comments: Part of the wave of slasher films, this one set in a contemporary coal mining town, the horror set in motion by a coal mine accident that could have and should have been prevented. The slasher wears coal mining gear and takes revenge first on the mine bosses who allowed deadly methane to build up in the mine.
1982 BUTTERFLY / ANALYSIS Produced and directed by MATT CIMBER Starring: STACY KEACH, PIA ZADORA, ORSON WELLES, LOIS NETTLETON, EDWARD ALBERT, JAMES FRANCISCUS, STUART WHITMAN, ED MCMAHON, JUNE LOCKHART Comments: Based on James Cain's novel of the same title, which came out of his 1922 experience as a coal miner in WVa, so naturally incest is a major ingredient.
1982 COUNTRY GOLD / CBS ENTERTAINMENT/CBS-TV Produced by ANN WESTON, MARCY GROSS Directed by GILBERT CATES Starring: LONI ANDERSON, EARL HOLLIMAN, LINDA HAMILTON, COOPER HUCKABEE, DENNIS DUGAN, LEE RICHARDSON, MEL TILLIS, LYNN ANDERSON, REBA MCENTIRE, BOX CAR WILLIE, STELLA PARTON, BARBARA MANDRELL, RALPH EMERY Comments: Made-for-TV. Behind-the-scenes story of an overworked country music star who wants a rest (echoes of Loretta Lynn). Linda Hamilton plays a simple country girl who double-crosses everyone on her way to the top (echoes of All About Eve).
1982 A WEDDING ON WALTONS MOUNTAIN / AMANDA PRODUCTIONS INC/LORIMAR PRODUCTIONS/NBC-TV Produced by CLAYLENE JONES Directed by LEE PHILIPS Starring: RALPH WAITE, JON WALMSLEY, JUDY NORTON-TAYLOR, ERIC SCOTT, MARY BETH MCDONOUGH, ELLEN CORBY Comments: The 1st of three TV movies inspired by the long-running series The Waltons. Set immediately after WWII, focuses on wedding plans of Erin Walton. Michael Learned, Richard Thomas, and Will Geer sat this one out.
1982 MOTHER'S DAY ON WALTON'S MOUNTAIN / AMANDA PRODUCTIONS INC/LORIMAR PRODUCTIONS/NBC-TV Produced by CLAYLENE JONES Directed by GWEN ARNER Starring: RALPH WAITE, MICHAEL LEARNED, JON WALMSLEY, JUDY NORTON-TAYLOR, MARY BETH MCDONOUGH, ERIC SCOTT Comments: The 2nd made-for-TV movie to cash in on The Waltons' popularity. Excessively sentimental tale set in motion when daughter Mary Ellen is in a car accident on her honeymoon, which may mean she can never have children. Richard Thomas is missing again.
1982 A DAY FOR THANKS ON WALTONS MOUNTAIN / AMANDA PRODUCTIONS INC/LORIMAR PRODUCTIONS/NBC-TV Produced by CLAYLENE JONES Directed by HARRY HARRIS Starring: RALPH WAITE, JON WALMSLEY, JUDY NORTON-TAYLOR, ROBERT WIGHTMAN, ERIC SCOTT, ELLEN CORBY, MARY BETH MCDONOUGH Comments: The family is reunited for Thanksgiving ca. 1946. John-Boy (Robert Wightman, replacing Richard Thomas) joins the family from New York, and his siblings share their diverse plans and dreams. The last of this series until 1993's A Walton Thanksgiving.
1982 THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON / CANNON-GOLAN-GLOBUS Produced by MENAHEM GOLAN Directed by JASON MILLER Starring: MARTIN SHEEN, ROBERT MITCHUM, BRUCE DERN, STACY KEACH, PAUL SORVINO Comments: Set in Scranton, Pa. Early scenes are good northern App: decaying urban centers, strip mining, courthouse politics. "Sad examination of the collapse of the American dream ... corrupt politics, shady business deals, infidelity, alcoholism, and other symbols of promise gone awry."
1982 HIT THE ROAD RUNNING / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by WORTH KEETER Starring: BILL GRIBBLE, LYNELLE VENZA, JAMES ERIC, RUDY THOMPSON, CHARLEY JOHN SMITH, STEVE BOLES Comments: Title song sung by David Allan Coe. Another of Earl Owensby's 3-D experiments.
1983 KENTUCKY WOMAN / WALTER DONIGER PRODUCTIONS/20TH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION/CBS-TV Produced by WALTER DONIGER Directed by WALTER DONIGER Starring: CHERYL LADD, NED BEATTY, PHILIP LEVIEN, SANDY MCPEAK, TESS HARPER, PETER WELLER Comments: To support her black-lung-suffering father and her son, a divorced woman goes to work in a Ky coal mine. Rats and jeering miners snuggle up to Cheryl Ladd, and she gets kicked out of the church choir. Made on location in eastern Ky for TV.
1983 THE EVIL DEAD / RENAISSANCE PICTURES LTD Produced by ROBERT TAPERT Directed by SAM RAIMI Starring: BRUCE CAMPBELL, ELLEN SANDWEISS, HAL DELRICH, BETSY BAKER, SARAH YORK Comments: The gut-wrenching and gruelling story of five college students, vacationing at a cabin in the mtns of Tenn, who unknowingly call forth some blood-thirsty demons that proceed to possess them one by one. Filmed on location near Morristown, Tenn, and in a studio in Detroit.
1983 WHEN THE LINE GOES THROUGH / JUD-LEE PRODUCTIONS Directed by CLYDE WARE Starring: MARTIN SHEEN Comments: Bizarre, incomprehensible story shot on location in WVa. Two Daisy Maes and old grandpap who cannot speak, plus a stranger in the hollow.
1983 A BREED APART / HEMDALE FILM CORP Produced by JOHN DALY/DEREK GIBSON Directed by PHILIPPE MORA Starring: RUTGER HAUER, POWERS BOOTHE, KATHLEEN TURNER, DONALD PLEASENCE Comments: Crazy and absurdly wealthy egg collector Donald Pleasence hires mtn climber Powers Boothe to go to vague Southern uplands to acquire eggs of rare species of bald eagle, which are being watched over by an "army-type psycho" played by Hauer, who is beloved by downhome mtn gal Turner (yeah, right). Made at Earl Owensby's studio in western NC and on location in the mtns.
1983 HEART OF STEEL / BEOWULF PRODUCTIONS/ABC-TV Produced by RICHARD A BRIGGS Directed by DONALD WRYE Starring: PETER STRAUSS, PAMELA REED, JOHN DOUCETTE, JOHN GOODMAN, ROBERT SWAN, BARRY PRIMUS, GARY COLE Comments: The plight of unemployed steel workers in northern Appalachia, including alcoholism and wife abuse. Made-for-TV.
1983 ROTTWEILER / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by WORTH KEETER Starring: EARL OWENSBY, BILL GRIBBLE, JERRY RUSHING, KATHY HASTY, BOB BLOODWORTH, ASHLEY BLYTHE, ED L GRADY, DAMIEN Comments: Earl Owensby's 1st experiment in 3-D, actually made in 1981. Owensby is sheriff of a mtn county that must protect locals and vacationers at a resort from 12 army-trained killing machines.
1983 CHAIN GANG / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by WORTH KEETER Starring: EARL OWENSBY, CAROL BRANSFORD, LEON RIPPY, TERRY LOUGHLIN, ROBERT BLOODWORTH, JAMES ERIC, PAUL HOLMAN, GENE KUSTERER, MARK FERRI, STEVE BOLES, LASH LARUE Comments: Owensby plays "the convict of steel" (a la Cool Hand Luke?). Another of Owensby's 3-D flicks.
1983 BEARSKIN / TOM DAVENPORT FILMS Produced by TOM DAVENPORT, MIMI DAVENPORT Directed by TOM DAVENPORT Starring: ROBERT WESTENBERG, RICHARD BAUER, GLENN TAYLOR, SUSAN SHIELDS Comments: An Americanization of the Grimm folktale about a soldier who bargains with the devil for wealth by agreeing not to wash or change his clothes for seven years. Set in the Southern mtns after the Civil War. Music by Alan Jabbour.
1983 ALL THE RIGHT MOVES / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by STEPHEN DEUTSCH Directed by MICHAEL CHAPMAN Starring: TOM CRUISE, CRAIG NELSON, LEA THOMPSON, CHARLES CIOFFI Comments: Decaying northern Appalachian rustbowl realism. The son of a factory worker struggles to make football his ticket to American success.
1984 WE LIVE BY THE CODE OF THE HILLS / ESTILL DREW Produced by ESTILL DREW Directed by ESTILL DREW Starring: ESTILL DREW, DALE DREW, CITIZENS OF HAMILTON COUNTY, ILLINOIS Comments: The home movie that first got Estill Drew national attention. A revenue officer is shot and killed while trying to bust up a moonshine operation, goes to heaven where he is entertained by a circle of angels, etc.
1984 BURNING RAGE / CBS-TV Directed by GIL CATES Starring: BARBARA MANDRELL, TOM WOPAT, EDDIE ALBERT, BERT REMSEN, CAROL KANE Comments: Broadcast Sept 21. Country music's Mandrell and Dukes of Hazzard star Tom Wopat play do-gooders battling a greedy mine owner in an App coal town.
1984 JACK AND THE DENTIST'S DAUGHTER / TOM DAVENPORT FILMS Produced by TOM DAVENPORT Directed by TOM DAVENPORT Comments: A clever hero wins his true love by using his wits in this comic adaptation of an Appalachian Jack tale.
1984 EDUCATING WANDA Comments: Hardcore porn, shot on location apparently on an Ozarks farm. Virgin Wanda's guardian decides she needs some sex schooling. "The guys have pretty big bellies, and the women aren't 18 or very pretty."
1984 THE RIVER / UNIVERSAL Produced by EDWARD LEWIS/BOB CORTES Directed by MARK RYDELL Starring: SISSY SPACEK, MEL GIBSON, SCOTT GLENN Comments: Filmed on location in east Tenn. The story of Tom and Mae Garvy who struggle to hang onto their river-bottom farm (originally written for a totally different locale), against the double threats of flood and unscrupulous developers.
1984 THE DOLLMAKER / FINNEGAN ASSOCIATES/IPC FILMS INC/DOLLMAKER PRODUCTIONS/ABC SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE Produced by BILL FINNEGAN Directed by DANIEL PETRIE Starring: JANE FONDA, LEVON HELM, AMANDA PLUMMER, GERALDINE PAGE Comments: Script by Susan Cooper & Hume Cronyn, from Harriette Arnow's novel. With a happy ending substituted for Arnow's bleak naturalism. Mtn wonder woman Gertie Nevels goes to Flint, Michigan, and becomes a wimpy victim. Message: the city ain't no fittin' place for mtn folks.
1984 CALAMITY JANE / CBS ENTERTAINMENT/CBS-TV Produced by HERBERT HIRSCHMAN, JANE ALEXANDER Directed by JAMES GOLDSTONE Starring: JANE ALEXANDER, FREDERIC FORREST, DAVID HEMMINGS, KEN KERCHEVAL Comments: Made-for-TV. "Alexander's Calamity is not the tomboy next door as depicted in previous movies and musicals, but a grimy, gritty, independent woman who prided herself on being able to compete with men on an equal basis."
1985 MRS SOFFEL / MGM Produced by SCHERICK/RUDIN/NICKSAY Directed by GILLIAN ARMSTRONG Starring: DIANE KEATON, MEL GIBSON, MATTHEW MODINE, EDWARD HERMANN Comments: Based on a true story and set in 1901 Pittsburgh, with the ominous steelmills as framing landscape. Two bandit brothers are imprisoned and awaiting execution, while the public outside regards them as heroes and the warden's wife inside falls in love with one of them (Mel Gibson, natch!) and helps them escape.
1985 THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER / ESTILL DREW Produced by ESTILL DREW Directed by ESTILL DREW Starring: ESTILL DREW, DALE DREW, CITIZENS OF HAMILTON COUNTY, ILLINOIS Comments: Another of Estill Drew's home-grown Super-8 epics of southern Illinois life, with a heavy emphasis on hillbilly stereotyping as part of the home-town clowning.
1985 THE RUTHERFORD COUNTY LINE / EO CORPORATION Produced by EARL OWENSBY Directed by THOM MCINTYRE Starring: EARL OWENSBY, TERRY LOUGHLIN, MARILYN CARTER, JAMES ERIC, DEAN WHITWORTH, MIKE HUSSEY, PALMER OWENSBY Comments: The true story (for a change) of Rutherford Co sheriff Damon Huskey, who was one tough hombre in the mtn tradition.
1986? CURSE OF THE QUEERWOLF Produced and directed by MARK PIRRO Comments: A Super-8 spoof in which backwoods males get infected in the usual way and become "queerbillies."
1986 EVIL DEAD II: DEAD BY DAWN / RENAISSANCE PICTURES Produced by ROBERT G TAPERT Directed by SAM RAIMI Starring: BRUCE CAMPBELL, SARAH BERRY, DAN HICKS, KASSIE WESLEY, THEODORE RAIMI Comments: Same setup as Evil Dead (1983) but with more hilarity at the idea of it all and a bigger budget for the special effects. The mountains absolutely ooze evil. Shot mainly in Anson Co, NC.
1986 HARD CHOICES / BREAKOUT PRODUCTIONS Produced by ROBERT MICHELSON Directed by RICK KING Starring: GARY MCLEERY, JOHN SEITZ, JOHN SAYLES Comments: Low-budget drama about a teenage prisoner (Bobby) awaiting trial in a Tenn county jail. "Worshipful Bobby acts as a lookout for his older brothers, two poor, dim mtn brutes who kill a deputy in a drugstore robbery." Later the boy's woman lawyer helps him to escape.
1986 OUR COUNTRY COUSIN / ESTILL DREW Produced by ESTILL DREW Directed by ESTILL DREW Starring: CITIZENS OF HAMILTON COUNTY, ILLINOIS Comments: "A shoot-out between two mtn men, Pa Greenfield and Pa Snodgress. A heart-warming love story. And a wedding of the young couple. Near the end Snodgress and Greenfield make friends..."
1986 HUNTER'S BLOOD / CINEVENTURE Produced by MYRL A SCHREIBMAN Directed by ROBERT C HUGHES Starring: SAMUEL BOTTOMS, CLU GULAGER, MAYF NUTTER, KEN SWOFFORD, JOEY TRAVOLTA, KIM DELANEY Comments: An abomination, apparently never released theatrically but dumped on the home video market in 1987. From a novel by Jere Cunningham (who has also done a lame horror-fantasy novel with an east Tenn setting). This is a Deliverance rip-off (with a little Cormac McCarthy gothicism thrown in): five Okla guys (well, one is a New Yorker with pretensions for handling guns) go into the Ark Ozarks to hunt and stumble into a nest of depraved "rednecks" (the word "hillbilly" is never used). In amongst the gore effects, there are plenty of suggestions that these mountain mutants always rape city boys first and then eat their hearts out, literally.
1986 HOUSTON, THE LEGEND OF TEXAS / TAFT ENTERTAINMENT /CBS-TV Produced by FRANK Q DOBBS Directed by PETER LEVIN Starring: SAM ELLIOTT, DONALD MOFFAT, G D SPRADLIN Comments: Opens with Houston as governor of Tenn before moving the action to Texas and the war with Mexico for independence.
1986 AT CLOSE RANGE / HEMDALE FILM CORP/ORION Produced by ELLIOTT LEWITT Directed by JAMES FOLEY Starring: SEAN PENN, CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, MARY STUART MASTERSON, CRISPIN GLOVER, CANDY CLARK, MILLIE PERKINS, KEIFER SUTHERLAND, TRACEY WALTER Comments: Rural Pennslyvania, based on real facts. A son gets involved in his father's burglary ring, then repents, gets arrested, comes to be in mortal opposition to his father. A contemporary updating of the old "mama's-boy" plotline.
1986 THE LAST DAYS OF FRANK AND JESSE JAMES / JOE CATES PRODUCTIONS/NBC-TV Produced by PHILLIP CATES Directed by WILLIAM A GRAHAM Starring: JOHNNY CASH, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, DAVID ALLAN COE, JUNE CARTER CASH, WILLIE NELSON Comments: A supposedly accurate divulging of the ins and outs of the extended families of the James boys and their kin. Made for TV.
1986 SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS, A FAIRY TALE / SAND DOLLAR PRODUCTIONS/ABC-TV Produced by ROBERT LOVENHEIM Directed by HENRY WINKLER Starring: DOLLY PARTON, LEE MAJORS, BO HOPKINS, DAN HEDAYA Comments: Story by Dolly Parton, about a country gal who's made it big in Hollywood but who feels empty. A trip back to the mountains and her saving a gaggle of cute orphans is just what she needs to return her life to balance.
1986 RETURN TO MAYBERRY / NBC-TV Produced by ROBIN S CLARK Directed by BOB SWEENEY Starring: ANDY GRIFFITH, DON KNOTTS, RON HOWARD, JIM NABORS, HOWARD MORRIS, DENVER PYLE, GEORGE LINDSAY Comments: Someone's bad idea of reuniting the cast of The Andy Griffith Show and setting a plot in motion wherein hillbilly hellraiser Ernest T Bass is up to no good at Myer's Lake. Also featured bluegrassers The Dillards reprising their roles as the hillbilly Darling family.
1986 ALIEN OUTLAW / TRIAD MOTION PICTURES INC Produced by PHIL SMOOT Directed by PHIL SMOOT Starring: LASH LARUE, KARI ANDERSON Comments: Filmed on location in Alleghany Co, NC. An alien outlaw crash-lands in the mountains, steals an arsenal from an Annie Oakley-type who sets out to retrieve her guns and dispatch the alien, who is also pursued by other aliens. Pretty unwatchable, though the premise had promise.
1986 CROCODILE DUNDEE / RIMFIRE FILMS/PARAMOUNT Produced by JOHN CORNELL Directed by PETER FAIMAN Starring: PAUL HOGAN, LINDA KOZLOWSKI Comments: Co-written by Paul Hogan who created the character, an Australian version of Davy Crockett (and the best characterization of what the backwoodsman has always meant in American mythology).
1987 MATEWAN / RED DOG FILMS/CINECOM Produced by PEGGY RAJSKI/MAGGIE RENZI Directed by JOHN SAYLES Starring: CHRIS COOPER, JAMES EARL JONES Comments: The long-awaited story of the very real "Matewan Massacre" in WVa in 1920. It's oppressed coal miners against vicious company thugs. The cinematography won Haskell Wexler an Oscar nomination. Filmed on location not too far from Beckley, WVa.
1987 FOXFIRE / HALLMARK HALL OF FAME/CBS-TV Produced by DOROTHEA G PETRIE Directed by JUD TAYLOR Starring: JESSICA TANDY, HUME CRONYN, JOHN DENVER Comments: Based on the successful Broadway play by Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn. Filmed on location in Rabin Co, Ga and in western NC. How a widowed mtn granny stuggles to hang onto her mtn homestead, when her husband has died and her child has run off to town.
1987 ROSES ARE FOR THE RICH / CBS-TV Directed by MICHAEL MILLER Starring: LISA HARTMAN, BRUCE DERN, BETTY BUCKLEY, BRITTON ELLIOTT, JIM YOUNGS, KATE MULGREW, JOE PENNY, SHARON WYATT Comments: A made-for-TV miniseries, broadcast May 17 and May 19. A flinty orphan living with her dear old Aunt Molly in an impoverished App mining town (eastern Ky, but filmed in Ala). She marries a young miner who dies in a mine explosion caused by the negligence of the rich, evil owner (Bruce Dern). The rest of the plot is how the widow gets her revenge. "The Ky mining town scenes have a certain novelty for this kind of show."
1987 RAISING ARIZONA / CIRCLE FILMS/20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by ETHAN COEN Directed by JOEL COEN Starring: NICOLAS CAGE, HOLLY HUNTER, JOHN GOODMAN, WILLIAM FORSYTH Comments: A geekoid hillbilly bounce-back clown battles it out in Arizona for a piece of the American dream--"We got us a family here!" A hillbilly slam-dunk of the Baby Boom-obsessed Reagan '80s.
1988 END OF THE LINE / IMAGINE ENTERTAINMENT/ORION Produced by MARY STEENBURGEN Directed by JAY RUSSELL Starring: WILFORD BRIMLEY, LEVON HELM, BOB BALABAN, MARY STEENBURGEN, BARBARA BARRIE, KEVIN BACON, HOLLY HUNTER Comments: Arkansas hillbillies steal a locomotive and drive it to Chicago to force a heartless company not to kill their town. This movie got the intelligentsia in Little Rock up in arms, especially at home-town-gal Steenburgen, who should have known better than make this stereotype-strewn flick. Rita Kempley: "It's hick-bashing--full of hound dawgs, dadgummits, greasy food and good ol' boys."
1988 STARS AND BARS / COLUMBIA PICTURES Produced by SANDY LIEBERSON Directed by PAT O'CONNOR Starring: DANIEL DAY LEWIS, MARTHA PLIMPTON, HARRY DEAN STANTON, SPALDING GRAY Comments: A pooh-bearish English gentleman comes to Manhattan to learn to be American, goes South to acquire a Renoir masterpiece from a cracker millionaire, and encounters the inbred Gage clan, who are "like the 'Deliverance' cast in a party mood."
1988 BIG BUSINESS / TOUCHSTONE/SILVER SCREEN PARTNERS III Produced by STEVE TISCH, MICHAEL PEYSER Directed by JIM ABRAHAMS Starring: BETTE MIDLER, LILY TOMLIN, FRED WARD Comments: Another film (like End of the Line this same year) that appears to bash big business in favor of rurality, but this is strictly reactionary politics. A comedy of errors featuring two sets of identical twins, one the children of moronic West Virginians. The plot involves the small-towners trying to save their little Jupiter Hollow from strip mining.
1988 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN / ESTILL DREW Produced by ESTILL DREW Directed by ESTILL DREW Starring: CHARLES BOWERS, CITIZENS OF HAMILTON COUNTY, ILLINOIS Comments: What Estill Drew called his "last picture show," another of his home-made Super-8 extravaganzas: "Well, it's about moonshiners and hillbillies. It's got the Hatfields and McCoys in it. And it's got a love story. A revenue man gets shot and killed, and all that stuff. It's a good show."
1988 PUMPKINHEAD / LION FILMS/UNITED ARTISTS Produced by HOWARD SMITH/RICHARD C WEINMAN Directed by STAN WINSTON Starring: LANCE HENRIKSEN, JEFF EAST, JOHN DI AQUINO, KIMBERLY ROSS, JOEL HOFFMAN, KERRY REMSEN Comments: Teenage urban invaders violate nature and suffer the revenge of Pumpkinhead, a hillbilly monster raised by a mtn witch out of a mtn cemetery. Stan Winston was the man who created the monster in Alien, so Pumkinhead bears more than a faint resemblance.
1988 DAVY CROCKETT: RAINBOW IN THE THUNDER / WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY/NBC-TV Produced by FRANK FISCHER Directed by DAVID HEMMINGS Starring: TIM DUNAGIN, GARY GRUBBS, JOHNNY CASH Comments: Another take on the Davy Crockett legend, made for TV, with Johnny Cash as the older Col David Crockett remembering his youth (embodied by the young actor Tim Dunagin).
1988 THE PRINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA / NEW LINE CINEMA Produced by JOAN FISHMAN Directed by RON NYSWANER Starring: FRED WARD, KEANU REEVES, BONNIE BEDELIA, AMY MADIGAN Comments: The script also by Ron Nyswaner (who scripted Mrs Soffel and recently won an academy award for his screen play Philadelphia). In a coal-mining town in Pa, a precocious teenager is disillusioned with the grown-up world. Nyswaner is himself from a small coal-mining town in Pa.
1989 CHILLERS / BIG PICTURES INC/TROMA INC Produced by DANIEL BOYD Directed by DANIEL BOYD Starring: JESSE EMERY, MARJORIE FITZSIMMONS, LAURIE PENNINGTON, JIM WOLFE, DAVID WOHL Comments: Danny Boyd's first experiment in feature-length, made- in-WVa. material. An anthology of 5 disconnected tales tied together by 5 stranded travelers in a mtn bus station. Horror/fantasy with no particular regional twist, except the Boy Scout story with its echoes of Deliverance.
1989 BLAZE / TOUCHSTONE/SILVER SCREEN PARTNERS IV Produced by GIL FRIESEN/DALE POLLOCK Directed by RON SHELTON Starring: PAUL NEWMAN, LOLITA DAVIDOVICH, GAILARD SARTAIN, JEFFREY DEMUNN, JERRY HARDIN, RICHARD JENKINS, MICHAEL BROCKMAN, ROBERT WUHL Comments: Based on the book by WVa writer Huey Perry and featuring the cinematography of Haskell Wexler. The biopic about stripper Blaze Starr, the hillbilly gal from WVa who made a fool out of the governor of La.
1989 LIGHTNING OVER BRADDOCK: A RUSTBOWL FANTASY / ZIETGEIST FILMS Produced by TONY BUBA Directed by TONY BUBA Starring: TONY BUBA, SAL CARU Comments: Tony Buba's 16th film, essentially a documentary fantasy about the director's getting his big break in Hollywood. A slice of life about a down-at-the-heels Pittsburgh suburb.
1989 NEXT OF KIN / LORIMAR Produced by LARRY DE WAAY Directed by JOHN IRVIN Starring: PATRICK SWAYZE, ADAM BALDWIN, HELEN HUNT, LIAM NEESON, JEAN RITCHIE Comments: A feud between an Appalachian family and the Chicago Mafia. The mtn portions of this film were shot near Hazard, Ky, in the summmer and early fall of 1988. A Ky Film Office underling said: "The Kentuckians here are definitely the heroes. There has been a real effort on the part of the production team to portray them authentically, even to the extent that script changes were made after consultations with area residents." An empty claim, as it turned out. Gawdawful!
1989 THE WINTER PEOPLE / NELSON ENTERTAINMENT Produced by ROBERT H SOLO Directed by TED KOTCHEFF Starring: KELLY MCGILLIS, KURT RUSSELL, LLOYD BRIDGES, MITCHELL RYAN, JEFFREY MEEK, DON MICHAEL PAUL, EILEEN RYAN, AMELIA BURNETTE Comments: Based on John Ehle's 1981 novel. Filmed in late fall 1987 and early winter 1988 in Plumtree, Avery Co, NC. A convoluted tale of two feuding mtn families, an interloping city man who refinds his masculinity, and the Sophie's Choice-like dilemma of a mtn beauty who must give up her child to save her family.
1989 TRAPPER COUNTY WAR / NOBLE ENTERTAINMENT INC Comments: A casting call for extras went out in Jan 1988 for this "action-packed adventure" to be filmed in the Asheville-Marshall, NC area.
1990 STRANGEST DREAMS: THE INVASION OF THE SPACE PREACHERS / BIG PICTURES INC/RHINO VIDEO Produced by DAVID WOHL, A.V. GALLAGHER, DANIEL BOYD Directed by DANIEL BOYD Starring: JIM WOLFE, GUY NELSON, ELISKA HAHN, GARY BROWN, JESSE JOHNSON, JOHN RIGGS Comments: Shot on location in Tornado, WVa. A spoof of both Deliverance and space invaders movies. A big-city dentist and an accountant come to the mtns to get away from it all and run into campy hillbillies and giant green lizards from outer space. A hoot from beginning to end, especially the "Grey Poupon" scene. Title was shortened to Invasion of the Space Preachers by Rhino Video.
1990 FAT MONROE / APPALSHOP FILMS Directed by ANDREW GARRISON Starring: NED BEATTY, WILLIAM JOHNSON Comments: The first of Garrison's adaptations of Gurney Norman short stories, a rite de passage for 9-yr-old Wilgus Collier who must deal with the serio-comic challenge presented by Fat Monroe, who picks him up one day on his way home from the picture show in town in the eastern Ky coal fields. Filmed on location in Letcher Co, Ky.
1991 NIGHT OF THE HUNTER / DIANA KEREW PRODUCTIONS/ABC-TV Produced by DIANA KEREW Directed by DAVID GREENE Starring: RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN, DIANA SCARWID, AMY BEBOUT, REID BINION, BURGESS MEREDITH Comments: A TV remake, lousy beyond belief. Filmed in SC.
1991 THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFE / MERCHANT IVORY PRODUCTIONS Produced by ISMAIL MERCHANT Directed by SIMON CALLOW Starring: VANESSA REDGRAVE, KEITH CARRADINE, CORK HUBBERT Comments: Brusque, tomboyish spinster Miss Amelia (Redgrave), who doctors the locals and makes moonshine in her swamp-hidden still, virtually runs her sad-sack Depression-era mill town. She dukes it out with her no-count husband and is brought down by an evil dwarf.
1991 THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS / ORION PICTURES Produced by KENNETH UTT, E SAXON, RON BOZMAN Directed by JONATHAN DEMME Starring: JODIE FOSTER, ANTHONY HOPKINS, SCOTT GLENN Comments: A WVa lawman's daughter must deal with her personal history in facing a mad serial killer. Exteriors filmed near McKeesport, Pa.
1991 THELMA AND LOUISE / PERCY MAIN PRODUCTIONS/MGM-PATHE Produced by RIDLEY SCOTT, MIMI POLK Directed by RIDLEY SCOTT Starring: SUSAN SARANDON, GEENA DAVIS, HARVEY KEITEL, BRAD PITT Comments: Women find freedom on the hillbilly highway too, though it's a short tether in this case. Two working-class gals in Arkansas light out for "the mtns," and they get onto rocky ground in more ways than one, shedding their weakness and dependence along the way. This is the one that made 'em stand up and cheer in the theaters, so Rush Limbaugh called it femi-nazi propaganda.
1991 WINSTROM / BACKWOOD FILM PRODUCTIONS Produced by RICHARD BROPHY Directed by JAMES CUMMINS Comments: A horror/fantasy picture announced in 1990 but never made. It was to have been filmed around Asheville by this Asheville-based independent company. It was to feature a mtn warlock who discovers that he came from a family of witches in the NC backwoods.
1992 MUTZMAG / TOM DAVENPORT Produced by TOM & MIMI DAVENPORT Directed by TOM DAVENPORT Starring: ROBBIE SAMS, SHEILA BARNHILL, MICHELLE JOHNSON, JERRY PLEMMONS, JAN MEREDITH Comments: Based on the mtn folk tale about a gutsy 12-year-old and her wild adventures. The 10th item in the Davenports' "From the Brothers Grimm" series of short movies. The cast was drawn from western NC amateurs. Story is set in App mtns during the '20s. Mutzmag lives with her mom and two dumb, mean sisters. Shot at Delaplane, Va, mainly, but some scenes taken in western NC.
1992 PSYCHEDELIC GLUE SNIFFN' HILLBILLIES / FACE ATTACK FILMS Produced and directed by CRAIG SMITH Starring: JIMMY THE KID Comments: An over-the-top experiment by West Virginian Smith, using various geekoid rural denizens, in-camera effects, and plotless collages from other films: "Here you will meet the swingers, the hipsters, the beatniks, and the acid heads who live from pill party to pill party...."
1992 PARADISE PARK / BIG PICTURES INC Produced by DAVID WOHL, A V GALLAGHER, DANIEL BOYD Directed by DANIEL BOYD Starring: LARRY GROCE, LINA BASQUETTE, JENIPHER GURNEY, MARTHA ELLEN SENSENEY, DUSTY RHODES, JOHN MCINTYRE, WEBB WILDER, PORTER WAGONER, JOHNNY PAYCHECK Comments: Shot on location near St Albans, WVa. The sensitive story of a trailer-park full of people down on their luck. They are told that God is coming to grant all their wishes. The only film that talks back to LBJ's "War on Poverty" from the mtneers' perspective.
1992 LAST OF THE MOHICANS / FORWARD PASS/20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by HUNT LOWERY Directed by MICHAEL MANN Starring: DANIEL DAY-LEWIS, MADELEINE STOWE, ERIC SCHWEIG, RUSSELL MEANS Comments: On location in western NC, Summer 1991, the Blue Ridge mtns serving as suitable savage backdrop for this remake of James Fennimore Cooper's 1826 novel, set in New York's Adirondack mtns.
1992? DARK-THIRTY / BACKWOOD FILM PRODUCTIONS Produced by MERWIN GROSS Directed by JAMES CUMMINGS? / RICHARD BROPHY? Comments: This Asheville-based independent production company put out a casting call for this "psychological thriller" in early fall '92, but the project was never completed (like Winstrom: see above under '91). Early reports said it would involve lesbianism.
1992 JOEY LEARNS TO FLY / A FILM BY ED COUNTS Produced and directed by ED COUNTS Starring: TOMMY RAY BLEDSOE (NARRATOR) Comments: A wee little animated folk tale for children about necessity being the mother of invention. A story about magic, which seems just possible enough in the Appalachian mountains under the influence of Tommy Ray Bledsoe's voice.
1993 FEUD / DEAD COW PRODUCTIONS Produced by BRIAN BRADLEY Directed by BRIAN BRADLEY Starring: TRAVIS HERRON Comments: Script by Brian Bradley, a Kingsport, Tenn, native and a graduate of USC's film school. A mockumentary: Hollywood documentary-maker comes to the Southern mtns to film a stereotypical feud. But when he finds no stereotypes to satisfy him, he decides to stage a feud (or provoke one) that will satisfy his demanding backers. Funny, inventive, with amateurish acting but watchable.
1993 THE THING CALLED LOVE / Directed by PETER BOGDANOVICH Starring SAMANTHA MATHIS, RIVER PHOENIX, DERMOT MULROONEY, SANDRA BULLOCK, K T OSLIN, TRISHA YEARWOOD Comments: Nashville meets Singles: a young-talent-tries-to-break- into-the-county-music-scene soap opera with some of the texture of contemporary Nashville thrown in for atmosphere. Hillbilly gone slick.
1993 THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES / 20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by IAN BRYCE, PENELOPE SPHEERIS Directed by PENELOPE SPHEERIS Starring: CLORIS LEACHMAN, JIM VARNEY, DIEDRICH BADER, ERIKA ELENIAK, LILY TOMLIN, DABNEY COLEMAN, ROB SCHNEIDER, LEA THOMPSON Comments: The abominable movie adaptation of the long-running '60s TV hit comedy, another send-up of California chic that we could have done without.
1993 A WALTON THANKSGIVING / CBS-TV Starring: RALPH WAITE, MICHAEL LEARNED, RICHARD THOMAS, JUDY NORTON, ERIC SCOTT, JON WALMSLEY, MARY MCDONOUGH, DAVID HARPER, KAMI COTLER Comments: Another reuniting of the original Waltons cast, set in 1963 at Thanksgiving when TV-commentator John-Boy gets to pontificate about the assassination of President Kennedy. Jason has become a professional musician and sells one of his songs to Elvis Presley.
1993 KALIFORNIA / POLYGRAM FILMED ENTERTAINMENT/VIACOM Produced by STEVE GOLIN, SIGURJON SIGHVATSSON, ARISTIDES MCGARRY Directed by DOMINIC SENA Starring: BRAD PITT, JULIETTE LEWIS, DAVID DUCHOVNY, MICHELLE FORBES Comments: Pitt plays a hillbilly psycho whose yuppie victim bonds with him because he sees in Pitt his other self, his incomplete yearning for total human experience. Pitt gives him that in spades. Hillbilly horror not unlike Deliverance in the way it gives urban joyriders their worst imaginable comeuppance.
1993 RUBY IN PARADISE / REPUBLIC PICTURES Directed by VICTOR NUNEZ Starring: ASHLEY JUDD, TODD FIELD, BENTLEY MITCHUM, DOROTHY LYMAN, ALLISON DEAN, Comments: Judd's character, Ruby Lee Gissing, a put-upon Tenn housewife with a no-count husband, might have stepped out of one of her kinsfolks' (The Judds) country songs. She lights out like Thelma & Louise for the "redneck Riviera" of the Florida coast where she rethinks her world view, makes big mistakes, takes disastrous turns, but somehow muddles through. As she puts it, "I got out before I got pregnant or got beat up, and that's something."
1993 NIGHT RIDE / NORTH FORK FILMS/INDEPENDENT TV SERVICE Produced and directed by ANDREW GARRISON Starring: FRANK HOYT TAYLOR, WILLIAM JOHNSON, EMMA GOOD, ROBIN MULLINS, ANNA RICHARDSON Comments: Garrison's 2nd adaptation of a Gurney Norman short story (see Fat Monroe above), continuing the saga of young Wilgus Collier as he grows up. This story introduces Wilgus to the male pleasures of running the roads drinking beer with his uncle Delmer, but also to the way men deal with loss. A jewel of a film, very complex in its emotional layering, and with a good sense of humor about rural life. Filmed on location in Letcher Co, Ky.
1993 CAPE FEAR / AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT/UNIVERSAL Produced by BARBARA DE FINA Directed by MARTIN SCORSESE Starring: ROBERT DE NIRO, JESSICA LANGE, NICK NOLTE, JULIETTE LEWIS, JOE DON BAKER, ROBERT MITCHUM, GREGORY PECK Comments: The remake that made the bad-guy ex-con Max Cady a hillbilly psycho from a snake-handling mtn clan, so that the smug adulterous lawyer would have to face his own worst nature reflected in the face of the depraved cultural "other." "You don't know what suffering is, counsellor." De Niro learned the dialect by listening to tapes of Southern mtn preachers.
1994 BROTHER'S KEEPER / CREATIVE THINKING INTERNATIONAL & AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE THEATRICAL FILMS Produced and directed by JOE BERLINGER, BRUCE SINOFSKY Comments: Stunning documentary about the impoverished, backward, and uneducated Ward brothers who live in hillbilly dilapidation in upstate New York. One of the brothers is accused of killing his sibling (out of incestuous love, the state claims), and as a matter of fact this ain't Green Acres, but the people of Munnsville love these old guys and rally for their sake against mechanistic state police and prosecutors. This film makes us root for the Ward bros against the authorities.
1994 CHRISTY / FAMILY PRODUCTIONS INC/CBS-TV Produced by BARNEY ROSENZWEIG, KEN WALES, PATRICIA GREEN Starring: KELLIE MARTIN, RANDALL BATINKOFF, TYNE DALY, STEWART FINLAY-MCLENNAN, MIKE HICKMAN Comments: Based on the popular 1967 novel by Catherine Marshall about her missionary mother going to the benighted backwoods. Filmed on location near Townsend, Tenn, this is CBS's answer to DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN, a cliche-ridden sentimental pile of dog-poop which will be much-loved by viewers who want their stereotypes reinforced, especially the one about "isolated" mtneers and the other one about "saintly school teachers."
1995 THE JOURNEY OF AUGUST KING / MIRAMAX FILMS Produced by SAM WATERSTON, NICK WEXLER Directed by JOHN DUIGAN Starring: JASON PATRIC, THANDIE NEWTON Comments: This movie based on John Ehle's novel set in 1815 in western NC was being cast early in 1994. The story is about a mtn man who risks his own life to save a runaway black slave woman. It was set to begin shooting in western NC in July '94.
1995 NELL / EGG PICTURES/20TH CENTURY FOX Produced by JODIE FOSTER, RENEE MISSELL Directed by MICHAEL APTED Starring: JODIE FOSTER, LIAM NEESON, NATASHA RICHARDSON Comments: Foster plays the title character, a "wild child" who grew up in total isolation in the NC mtns, her only companion her retarded mother. The two of them have developed their own "language." Nell is eventually found by a local doctor who introduces her to the outside world. The myth of total isolation once again applied to Southern mtneers is a hard pill to swallow here, despite the good intentions behind this script. Should be noted, however, that the play upon which the script is based was set in the Pacific Northwest (shades of Ma & Pa Kettle!); the production was moved to Appalachia for budgetary reasons.
1995? SUNRISE IN HIS POCKET Produced by DAVID ZUCKER Directed by JERRY ZUCKER Starring: ROBIN WILLIAMS? Comments: Williams was being considered, at any rate, to play Davy Crockett in this biography based on historian Paul Hutton's writing, which ought to make this the most authentic film about Crockett ever. But we'll see.
1995? SILLY HILLBILLIES ON MARS / DISNEY Comments: A new animated feature said to be in the planning stages in June '92.
1995? PUMPKINHEAD II: BLOOD WINGS Comments: In development in 1993. President's brother Roger Clinton was said to have a part as "Mayor Bubba" and was credited for writing and singing the title song: "Pumpkinhead, Be My Man." The mayor's dumb hick constituents serve as appetizers to the return of the monster.
1995? FRANK AND JESSE Starring: ROB LOWE Comments: A retelling of the Jesse James story, with Rob Lowe as Jesse. This movie was shooting in Arkansas in Nov '93.
