Did I Miss Anything? I guess TV was never a big part of my life back than. I gave up on this movie after about ten minutes. The dialog/accents were getting on my nerves. I really don't have an interest in life in Dick Chaney country. I did stop and watch some scenes featuring Virginia Gregg. Now she was great. She must have appeared on every TV show that was ever made during the '50's!
shareNo, you didn't miss a thing. Each episode generally suffered from different writers, meaning that, for an example, aside from the well define eldest son and the youngest daughter, all of the rest of the children's ages were really off...one daugheter will be older then her brother inside one episode, then the next one, she will be younger. 70's haircuts and bell bottoms were a little off for the 1930's, also, for being pretty poor (as they were supposed to be) they seemed to be able to have many little luxeries (hot cocoa everytime they wanted, for another example). Also the accents were a little pretend, with the exception of sissy spacek, of whom was a guest s star in one episode. I grew watching these because my mom loved it, but after a lifetime of watching it, she has decidedly quit watching for the same reasons why i don't much care for it.
shareThe pre-WWII portion of the series was authentic and well-organized. Story-wise, things went downhill once they got out of the Depression. Early stories focused on the oldest son's desire for an education, and how this was a struggle because of the world-wide Depression. Stories built on character development, the strength and love of a family working together, and the bonds formed across a very isolated community. In a way, it shared these lines with M*A*S*H, also running during that time. Somehow, M*A*S*H managed to drag out the Korean Conflict many times longer than the war lasted, all without losing its focus on the community of characters. At the same time, The Waltons were dragged through the end of the Depression and into WWII without regard to character development, and certainly without regard to skipping years and events that would have been worthy of better stories. I loved the show up to that point, and it was no longer worth the effort to keep straight who was married, sick, deployed, or in trouble. The main character vanished into "working somewhere else," they stuck the mother into a hospital, and other stories more fitting to a bad soap opera. All it needed were evil twins and someone with amnesia.
Those were not 70s hairstyles or bell-bottom jeans. The jeans and overalls they wore were baggy, authentic to the Depression era. They did not wear "skinny jeans" in that era and area. If you saw someone wearing true bells, they must have gotten them second-hand from a Navy vet. :) As for hair, the Waltons were not wearing layered or shag cuts or any other style resembling 70s fashion. Cocoa must not have been horribly expensive; if you can find some people who lived through the Depression, many will tell you that even poor people enjoyed hot cocoa. Being a dry product, shipping and keeping it would not add much to the price. Citrus fruit, for instance, were very expensive anywhere away from their growing area, so a single orange was a huge treat at Christmas. If you saw the Waltons chowing on oranges and grapefruit, that would be worthy of a gripe.
~If you go through enough doors, sooner or later you're gonna find a dog on the other side.~
Good comment. I love the first 5 seasons of the Waltons. But it went downhill when John-Boy left. It's the classic example of a show that should have quit while it was still ahead. Actors were quitting (even the mother and father!) and in the storyline of the show they kept coming up with such lame excuses for the characters' absences. It felt really fragmented. What an embarassing decline for an initially great show.
I guess even the first season or two with John-Boy gone were still pretty good as TV shows go. But if I ever watch any old episodes on DVD now, I always figure why watch one of those when I can watch a John-Boy episode?
And the chronology was messed up. They spent the first 5 season or so in the Depression, but then didn't they run through World War II in just one season or so? Maybe I'm wrong, since I never re-watch those later ones.
I didn't watch it when it was originally on because I was watching now classic shows on another channel but have seen them all since and have the DVDs.
The show is probably more significant to me because this is my parents' era, all my aunts and uncles. Instead of "the recipe" I'm surprised there's no dandelion wine.
Also the accents were a little pretend,I agree. The only genuine Northern Virginia accent I remember hearing on that show was the opening and closing voice-over by Earl Hamner, author of the novel that inspired both "Spenser's Mountain" and "The Waltons".
Both "Spencer's Mountain" and "The Waltons" were based on the memoirs of Earl Hamner, Jr.
Had you seen both, you'd have noticed that both families were very similar:
• Hard-working, rural, depression-era.
• Harvesting lumber for a living.
• Lots of children.
• Multi-generational household.
• Eldest son first in the family to go to college.
It's been many years since I last saw "Spencer's Mountain". I do recall that the start and end of each episode of "The Waltons" had a brief voice-over by Mr Hamner. — And his was the only genuine Northern Virginia accent on the show. (Everyone else's accent was all over the US Southeast.)
---
I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.
---
The real "Waltons" are from Schuyler, Virginia, about 40 minutes (25 miles) south of Charlottesville. This is actually central Virginia - the foothills of the Blue Ridge. The Waltons was based on a book called "The Homecoming", which was based on Earl Hamner's recollections of his childhood. Spencer's Mountain was an earlier work.
shareThanks for the info.
I lived in Richmond for only 6 years — and that was some years ago — and I never had the opportunity to see much of the state.
It did seem to me that the families in the two movies were so similar that they might have been inspired by the same body of work.
Being from Schuyler explains the occasional mention of the nearby town of Rockfish on "The Waltons" — and I just found them on the map. And just north of them (closer to Charlottesville) are the towns of Crozet and Afton. Crozet is the setting for a series of mystery stories by Rita Mae Brown of Afton.
I remember when Cleopatra went to the Temple of Ra to lead a few cheers?share
Well, some of us couldn't help being born in "Dick Cheney country" so don't be condescending about our place of origin. And it doesn't mean we necessarily like Dick Cheney. I don't, just for the record.
To address your question, I like the Waltons TV series quite a lot. But I didn't care much for the Spencers Mountain movie. Maybe it's only because I was already won over by the show and the different actors and different approach of the movie just didn't feel right to me.
The first 5 seasons or so of the Waltons TV show were very good, but it kind of went downhill after that. I think many people perceive it as the prototypical goody-two-shoes syrupy show, and it did have its sappy moments. I'm not usually an easy mark for sugar coating myself. But in the case of the Waltons, I tell people if they can get past that prejudice, they'll find it actually contains genuine drama with a great sense of place and well-fleshed characters. True, as another poster said, the accents were a little off and a few times they were inconsistent in some fine details. But to dismiss it for those reasons is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
So bottom-line: you didn't miss much by not finishing Spencers Mountain, but not seeing the Waltons is your loss IMO!