atlasmb Featuring strong performances, "Stars in My Crown" could have been an inspiration for "To Kill a Mockingbird". It has a narrator, a strong-willed central character who is a man of local authority, and a scene of mortal confrontation. But it lacks the focus and the depth of the "Mockingbird" story.Also, its central theme is not about the goodness of men, because its story implies that all goodness comes through faith, undercutting the hopefully humanist message that makes "Mockingbird" such a wonderful story.Still, "Stars" is an engaging film. It evokes the atmosphere of a small town. And the incidental music is strong. Joel McCrea plays a no-nonsense parson who is seen as the town's conscience. He is both pragmatic and a man of principles. A young Dean Stockwell plays the parson's boy with a convincing yet childish intensity.

Richie-67-485852 It gets high marks because of Joel McCrea right off. Then, it is a Western and there is always so much to learn about the early wild days and how towns got started along with laws, rules, regulations and all the rest. I always notice how the buildings of these start-up towns were built one right next to another. One fire takes them all out. I wonder how many times a town was actually re-built from fire losses? Notice too the streets and roads. Good community flick with everyone knowing everyone else and helping each other too. What an interesting way to live and grow up in. You got characters both good and not so good, the Klan, greed, fever, love interest, and a nice, happy ending. Such clean, fun and wholesome entertainment. Even if it is not true to life it can be and restores faith in human-kind just by watching. Warm and fuzzies will visit with you guaranteed. Narrator does an excellent job helping us to get the flick and not work too hard. Pay attention to Uncle Famous and his attitude on life. He lives simply, has all he needs, bothers no one likes everybody and is thankful just to be here. What a role model if there ever was one. This movie shows you what life can be like if we just let it. Good sandwich movie and tasty drink with a snack to follow will keep you happy and content to the satisfying end

Robert J. Maxwell Narrated by a now grown-up Dean Stockwell, this is the story of an ex-Confederate soldier, Joel McRea, who comes to the town of Whalesville, hangs up his guns, and becomes the town preacher.There are multiple narrative threads. The town's old doctor dies and his stern, somewhat atheistic son takes over. A little friction there. Then there's the typhoid epidemic which lays much of the town low. One glimpse of chubby, perky little Dean Stockwell and you know he's going to be one of the patients. Then there's the conflict between old Famous, played by Juano Hernandez, Hollywood's Negro, and blowhard, greedy Ed Begley who wants Hernandez's land because Begley's mica vein runs through it. This leads to the final confrontation in which the Ku Kux Klan comes to lynch old Famous and take his land. They're talked down by the patient, honest, true-blue Joel McRea. Everybody winds up singing the hymn, "Stars in My Crown," in church and they all live happily ever after. Well, Ol' Famous isn't seen singing in the white church. We don't want the fantasy to turn clotted.There are a couple of notably above average elements in the film. One is Jacques Tourneur's direction. It can't be reproached. Like his mentor, Val Lewton, he's seen to period detail. Watch the fly scarers swirl over the freshly baked chocolate cake. Watch the mechanical apple peeler at work. He overplays nothing, nor do the actors. (Interesting to see James Arness and Amanda Blake working together before "Gunsmoke.") The director and the performers don't overplay anything, and they deserve thanks, because the script overplays everything for them.It's really a rural wonderland we see, and a slightly anti-modernistic one, a little sour beneath all the treacle. Any movie in which a disabled ex-Confederate soldier and his half-dozen sons break out their guns and ride to save an old Darkie from losing his pitiful plot of farm land represents something other than a naturalistic view of humanity.The town's new doctor is described by his dying father, the town's old doctor, as "long on learning and short on experience." (Something like that.) The experience he must learn is to give up his claim to Aesculapian authority and become just one of the folks, not hoisty-toity, not an elitist, singing in church, smiling happily, settling in.This is John Ford territory but I doubt that Ford would have been so committedly earnest. The narration wouldn't have to spell out for us how essential it is that we all hang together, that we don't feel innately superior to anyone else, that we treat each other fairly, that we think of the community before we think of ourselves. Ford would have shown it. There would be dances, humor, drinking, a comic fist fight, a miscreant boy being spanked lovingly.If you liked the TV series, "The Waltons," you'll probably kvell over this one. If you liked "To Kill a Mockingbird," you'll like this too, although "Mockingbird" is in many ways a more demanding tale.I was trying to think about audience responses to this. It was released in 1950. There were people in the rural audiences for whom this represented a kind of glowing memory, blended with a certain dreaminess; there were people who could easily recall their youth from forty years earlier, in 1910, when many of the characteristics of small-town Southern life would have been living reminiscences. The horses, the drinking out of wells, everybody deferring to the Parson, the reassuring doc making house calls with his black bag, the town meanies who are good at heart. That traditional life style was no farther back in time for them than Vietnam is for us.The movie is like one of those Twilight Zone episodes in which a harassed modern man is transported back to his innocent, happy childhood. It's satisfying in its own way.

Neil Doyle STARS IN MY CROWN takes its time in setting up the pastoral story it tells about a small town preacher and his effect on a western town after the Civil War period. JOEL McCREA is perfect as the stalwart preacher who carries his gun into the town saloon to get attention for his sermon and finds it an effective way to get the men to listen.He also has to deal with a typhoid epidemic, conflict with the local doctor (JAMES MITCHELL), defending a dignified black man (JUANO HERNANDEZ), and caring for his adopted son (DEAN STOCKWELL). But director Jacques Tourneur takes his time in telling the tale, narrated in lazy fashion by MARSHALL THOMPSON who is supposed to be the grown-up version of Dean Stockwell's character.It spins dangerously close to cloying sentiment but never oversteps the bounds and is especially compelling when it shows how McCrea manages to dissuade a mob bent on violence with a clever way of defending Juano Hernandez from a lynching. It's this episode that makes the last portion of the story crackle with genuine suspense--although, in some respects, it's rather hard to believe how easily the mob is persuaded to drop the whole idea.Summing up: Earnest and heartwarming, it's a likable treat.Trivia note: Catch JAMES ARNESS and AMANDA BLAKE in the same film, before they became famous on "Gunsmoke."