Cheap Friendly Persuasion (Video) (William Wyler) Price

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Customer Reviews of Friendly Persuasion

Five Stars Just Aren't Enough!
There aren't many films from any era that come close to being "perfect" (though that's not really the right word) in just about every way--probably you could count them on your fingers and have some left over. <
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>"Friendly Persuasion" is one of those films--in spades. Directed by William Wyler and starring Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, and Tony Perkins, it is a wonderful, human story about a loving family of Quakers (also known as Friends) living in one of the Union-Confederate "border" states at the time of the Civil War in the 1860s. <
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>The cast, in small roles and large, is uniformly excellent, none calling attention to themselves but rather becoming their characters and making us understand them. Led by beloved, legendary star Gary Cooper in a great performance as the head of the Quaker family Jess Birdwell, they are marvelous, including child actor Richard Eyer as feisty "Little Jess", scrapping with his big sister or partaking in a running feud with "Samantha", his mother Eliza Birdwell's pet goose, who more than carries her end of the feud with scene-stealing craftiness. <
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>There are incidents of family humor and love and occasional disagreements, and a hilarious episode in which eldest son Josh (Perkins) accompanies father Jess on a sales trip and is set upon by the scrappy, amorous daughters of one of Jess's customers (Marjorie Main). We are settled into a lovely, lively exploration of the Birdwell family's idyllic existence. <
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>Then the war intrudes. <
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>Josh feels he must volunteer to fight as long as others have to, even though it is against the teachings of his faith. His younger sister loves a young Union officer who is soon to go into battle. Rebel troops are nearing the region where they live, and no one, including the audience, quite knows what will happen. <
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>There is a beautifully honest and dramatic sequence in which young Josh gets his first taste of battle, which Perkins performs with heartbreaking realism. I recall my father, a World War II veteran, saying that this scene was the most realistic depiction of a young man's first time in battle that he had ever seen in the movies. <
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>When it is all over and the Birdwells return to their quiet, hard-working, loving life as a family, the music (Dimitri Tiomkin's marvelous score) swells, the wonderful lyrics to the song "Friendly Persuasion" are sung sweetly by the young Pat Boone, and you realize you have spent two wonderful hours with these genuinely fine, completely human characters in ordinary life and in challenging times. <
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>The story has been told with integrity, honesty, humanity, gentle humor, kind restraint and, yes, love--all of these also attributes of the Birdwell family that we have come to know. That is the "genius" of this film. Along with a very few others, it shows us who we are, who we can be, and how we can live, all with a grace and humility that is almost poetic. And the film never, ever loses its balance. <
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>It's just a great and good movie. I've seen it almost a dozen times, and it can still move me to tears. I'm betting it could be released today, amid the ridiculously over-budgeted, badly executed films that rely too much on computer effects and star charisma, and that it would clean up at the box office. <
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>The term "family values" has been kicked around a lot lately, and nobody quite seems to know what is really meant by it. Watch this truly beautiful film and you'll get a pretty good idea of the genuine meaning of those words.

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The Way (we might like to wish) We Were
Friendly Persuasion (1956) is my favorite 1950s movie. It always reminds me of Fiddler on the Roof (1971) as both films have analogous existentialist values; questions of faith, meaning and test of personal resolve. Tevye the Milkman must face the challenge to his sense of self and traditional way of doing things, by the increasingly independent ways his three daughters go about selecting a husband. Jess Birdwell (Gary Cooper) and his family must face the challenge to their pacifist Quaker values by the personal demands of the American Civil War. <
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>But this is a review of Friendly Persuasion, so let's confine ourselves to discussion the William Wyler film. It is 1862 and Jess Birdwell and his family are farmers in south Indiana. The harbinger of danger is Maj. Harvey (Theodore Newton) visiting a Quaker Meeting House to warn of approaching Confederate raiders. He has "had the duty placed upon [him] by the army" to urge Quakers to take up arms. It is a tense scene, but the gentle humor pervading the script is in evidence when "friend" Purdy (Richard Hale) angrily "declare[s] to all that nothing will move me to violence NOTHING!" <
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>But the raiders, Morgan's men, "the toughest troops in the Confederacy" do come and storm the Birdwell farm. The elder of the Birdwell children Josh (Anthony Perkins) departed earlier to join the ambush of Confederate cavalry at the river, "because he has to fight as long as others do". <
>When Josh's horse returns without him, Jess is spurred to action to find his son; musket in hand, despite the vociferous protests of his wife Eliza (Dorothy McGuire). When his young son, Little Jess (Richard Eyer) exhorts his father to "Kill a Johnny Reb. for me, Pa," Jess gently admonishes him "Son, never talk that way about a man's life". <
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>The only other man on the farm, the runaway slave, Enoch (Joel Fluellen) joins Josh at the ambush, but with conflicted feelings, he respects the Birdwells' Quaker sentiments about violence and the sanctity of human life, indeed he was granted refuge on the strength of those very values. Enoch's explanation is poignant, "I hate to cross you like this Mr. Birdwell. Don't seem grateful. But you see sir; a runaway slave like me wouldn't stand a chance with some of those men. So if I'm goin' down, I'm goin' down fightin'!" <
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>Josh and Enoch premeditated their decision, but Jess and Eliza responded to immediate circumstance. Jess finds his friend Sam Jordan (Robert Middleton) lying mortally wounded by a Rebel bushwhacker (Richard Garland). He stops to render assistance and he too falls victim to the shooter. Jess is merely grazed by the shot and momentarily rendered unconscious. He recovers as the Bushwhacker reloads his rifle. They struggle, but Jess disarms him and points the rifle at his stomach. The man is naturally terrified but bewildered when Jess tells him to "Git, I'll not harm thee." Jess shows himself a man of great character, after all besides being an enemy soldier, the man has just killed Jess's best friend. <
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>Eliza is not so gentle, when she realizes that Samantha is about to be killed, she attacks the assailant, Buster (Don Kennedy) ...with a broom. Samantha is of course the family's pet goose. Eliza screams at the soldier, "Samantha's a pet...she's a pure pet!" Eliza covers her face in shame; mortified when she suddenly realises that she has raised her hand in anger. <
>The assailant retrieves his hat from a water barrel, and comments reflectively, "Sure wish I'd known that sooner, Ma'am... much obliged," as he departs. <
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>Friendly Persuasion is a charming mix of drama, pathos and humor. Much of the humor revolves about the horse racing sub-plot between the good friends, Sam and Jess. Sam has the much faster animal, until Jess finds the mare "Lady" owned by The Widow Hudspeth (Marjorie Main, in her Ma Kettle specialty). The widow has three daughters, all agressively anxious to marry, but their plans are continually thwarted by Lady's "racing notions". Whenever the women are out in their buggy hoping to meet suitors driving on the road, Lady takes off, refusing to let any other horse catch up with her. Jess and the widow see a mutual advantage in trading horses. <
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>The Production Code was still in force in 1956 and a happy melodramatic ending to the film is obligatory; so is the avoidance of sexual violence. Mattie (Phyllis Love) the Birdwell's teenage daughter is present when "the toughest troops in the Confederacy" raid the Birdwell farm and yet she is not raped, indeed she seems to just vanish from the narrative. The closing shot leaves the audience in suspense, as all of the Birdwell's, but Mattie drive off to the Meeting House. Mattie waits for 'Gard' Jordan (Mark Richman) her love interest and Union Officer in charge of the riverside ambush. Will Mattie compromise her Quaker upbringing and go to Gard's more mainstream chruch? <
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>It should be noted that Michael Wilson who wrote a draft of the script was Blacklisted by H.U.A.C. <
>Wilson also wrote the Script for Salt of the Earth,(1954) the only American film to be blacklisted. <
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>Just a parting comment on a fairly common practice in 1950s Hollywood movies ~ the "audience inside joke"; sometimes this was an allusion to an actor's previous films. In the case of "the Coop" in Friendly Persuasion it was that flower. Way back in "Morocco" (1930) Gary Cooper, as the lady-killer Légionnaire Tom Brown, places behind his ear, the flower tossed to him in a night club by singer/camp follower Amy Jolly (Marlene Dietrich).She also slips him her apartment key and Cooper later wears the flower "when he goes up to see her". <
>In Friendly Persuasion, Sam Jordan playfully puts the flower Eliza has left in the barn behind Jess's ear. <
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"I Will Not Harm Thee" ~ Can Family, Faith And Passivism Endure In Time Of War?
`Friendly Persuasion released in '56 is a life affirming tale of faith, family and passivism against the heartbreaking backdrop of the bloody American Civil War. Directed by William Wyler the film focuses on a small Quaker community in the South, more specially on one particular family in that community, the Birdwell's. <
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>This quiet, contemplative community is turned upside down when war is declared between North and South and the sound of gunfire and conflict draws ever closer. With the inevitable intrusion of the outside world comes the expected re-evaluation of both individual and community beliefs and what actions must be taken to protect family and property. Can passivism survive in a time of war? <
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>Starring two of my favorites, Gary Cooper (Jess Birdwell) and Dorothy McGuire (Eliza Birdwell). Also wonderful performance by Anthony Perkins as Josh Birdwell. <
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>Highly recommended!