Home from the Hill 1960

     This film is based on a novel with the same title by William Humphrey and the setting is Clarksville, Texas.  Captain Wade Hunnicutt is the wealthiest and most powerful citizen in this East Texas town.  He’s married to Hannah and they have a teen son Theron.  It’s well known to everyone that Wade’s other son is Rafe Copley.  Hannah has raised Theron and he doesn’t know much about being a man.  In high school, Wade tells Hannah that he is going to take over the  education of Theron and teach him how to hunt.  Rafe works for Wade and he’s given the job to work with Theron. Rafe knows they are brothers but Theron hasn’t learned this yet.  Theron's new freedom and lifestyle leads to him finding out information about his family that he wasn’t aware of before.

     Wade is very bold, Hannah is exactly the opposite and she’s very restrained.  Wade believes since he’s the man of the house, he can do anything with his life that he wants.  Wade has never acknowledged Rafe as his son because he believes he can claim who is his own and who is not.  Hannah has been hurt many times by his behavior and she wants nothing to do with Wade.  She is only staying in the home because of Theron.  The scenes of the countryside and the town are beautiful.  The Hunnicutt’s live in a very lovely house with beautiful hunting dogs but it was and becomes emptier inside.  I didn’t see the twists coming in the ending.  4* (I really liked this movie)

150 min, Drama directed by Vincente Minnelli with Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard, George Hamilton, Everett Sloane, Luana Patten, Anne Seymour, Constance Ford, Ken Renard, Ray Teal.

Note:  Imdb 7.5 out of 10, 100% critic 93% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 175 reviews, TCM Leonard Maltin 3* out of 4* 4.79 average user rating,

Special Note:  Filmed in Oxford and Greenwood, Mississippi; Clarksville, Paris and Dallas, Texas.  A lot of scenes were filmed near the University of Mississippi campus.  William Faulkner was a writer-in-residence at the university.  He would climb up a tree and stay there for several hours to watch the filming.  Originally, Bette Davis and Clark Gable were suggested as stars.  Eleanor Parker was unhappy when she learned that Robert Mitchum was getting $200,000 plus a percentage of the gross.  She was getting only a flat $75,000 and no percentage.  The premier was at Radio City Music Hall and this film was the American entry at Cannes.  The budget was $1,818,688 and gross was $2,184,558 plus $1 million more in foreign rentals.  MGM recorded a loss of $122,000 ($1.02M in 2017)?  Robert Mitchem is the father of George Peppard in the film but he was only 11 years older than Peppard.  The title is from the last line of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short poem Hamilton.  Vincente Minnelli directed 40 films between 1942 and 1976.