Spencer’s Mountain

“Spencer’s Mountain” was released in 1963, and it was based on a novel by Earl Hamner, Jr.  The cast included Henry Fonda, Maureen O’Hara, James MacArthur, Donald Crisp, Wally Cox, Veronica Cartwright, Barbara McNair, and Victor French.  The movie was about a family named Spencer in a small town in Wyoming.  The oldest son, Clayboy, has a dream of going to college.  The family was a lot like the Waltons that we would see on television during the 1970s.  Barbara McNair’s character apparently didn’t have a name, and she only appeared at the graduation ceremony to sing “American the Beautiful.”  It looked as if she was the only person of color in the entire movie.  I thought the scene with Preacher Goodman getting drunk was not the greatest scene in the movie, and some moments were melodramatic.  The running time was 118, and it felt a bit too long.  Still, I enjoyed most of it.  The movie makes you root for Clayboy.  The family is made up of decent people, unlike what you see in real life in today’s world.  I wondered how Barbara McNair came to appear in this film.  Earl Hamner was born in 1923.  He created the Falcon Crest television series.  He died at age 92 of bladder cancer on March 24, 2016.  The director Delmer Daves was born in 1904.  Some of his films were “Dark Passage,” “Broken Arrow,” “3:10 to Yuma,” and “The Hanging Tree.”  After “Spencer’s Mountain,” we directed two more films, “Youngblood Hawke” and “The Battle of Villa Fiorita.”  He died at age 73 on August 17, 1977.  Some of the people who died on June 14 include Emma Goldman (1940), Sidney Bechet (1959), Billie Burke (1970), Hugh Griffith (1980), Rita Hayworth (1987), Lyle Alzado (1992), Frank Sinatra (1998), Dave DeBusschere (2003), Robert Stack (2003), B.B. King (2015), Powers Boothe (2017), Tom Wolfe (2018), Tim Conway (2019), Phyllis George (2020), and Joel Whitburn (2022).  Today is a birthday for Sofia Coppola (53), Cate Blanchett (55), Tim Roth (63), David Byrne (72), Robert Zemeckis (72), and George Lucas (80).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for June 14, “The Stars and Stripes Forever” was first performed at Willow Grove Park in Pennsylvania in 1897.  In 1957, Elvis Presley was rushed to the hospital after he accidentally swallowed a tooth cap.  In 1982, the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Conan the Barbarian” was released.  In 1989, NBC aired the last episode of “Family Ties.”  In 1998, Frank Sinatra died of a heart attack at age 82.  Also in 1998, the last episode of “Seinfeld” aired on NBC.