Friendly Persuasion **** (1956, Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Anthony Perkins, Marjorie Main) – Classic Movie Review 8275

Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire (as the family’s parents) head the worthy cast of director William Wyler’s friendly 1956 movie tale of the Quaker Birdwell family’s hardships in Southern Indiana in 1862 during the American Civil War.

[Spoiler alert] Jess (Cooper) and his son Josh (Anthony Perkins) must decide whether to take up arms or abide by their pacifist views. Against his mother’s wishes and his own principles, Josh (Perkins) feels compelled to enlist in the militia and is wounded.

Friendly Persuasion is maybe on the cosy and unsophisticated side, but it is also thoughtful and involving Western entertainment, with much comedy (especially from Marjorie Main), some songs (including Pat Boone’s title number hit ‘Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)’) and many welcome faces. It is beautifully acted (with one of Cooper’s most typical turns) and intelligently written, but it is arguably perhaps too self-satisfied and over-long at 138 minutes.

In only his second movie role (after the 1953 The Actress), a 24-year-old Perkins plays Cooper’s son so well that he earned an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer – Male.

The writer Michael Wilson’s blacklisting problems with the Un-American Activities Committee (leading him to be uncredited) are not reflected in the easygoing screenplay, based on the novel by Jessamyn West. In December 2002 the Academy reinstated Mr Wilson’s Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is an Oscar winner (shared) for A Place in the Sun (1951) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

Friendly Persuasion is the winner of the Palme D’Or best film award at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. There were six Oscar nominations but no wins, and three Golden Globe nominations but no wins.

Also in the cast are Richard Eyer, Phylllis Love, Richard Hale, Robert Middleton, Walter Catlett, William Schallert, Peter Mark Richman, Russell Simpson, Charles Halton, Joel Fluellen, John Smith, Mary Carr, Theodore Newton, James Dobson, Everett Glass, Edna Skinner, Marjorie Durant, Frances Farwell, Robert Fuller, Frank Hagney, Earle Hodgins, Frank Jenks, Helen Kleeb, Norman Leavitt, Tom London, Doug McClure, John Pickard, Gene Roth, James Seay, Frank Sully, Joe Turkel, Steve Warren, Henry Rowland and Ralph Sanford.

It was remade as the TV movie Friendly Persuasion in 1975 with Richard Kiley, Shirley Knight, Clifton James and Michael O’Keefe.

The Oscar nominations are for Best Picture, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Director, Best Writing, Best Screenplay – Adapted, Best Sound, Recording and Best Music, Original Song (Dimitri Tiomkin music, Paul Francis Webster lyrics).

William Wyler also directed Cooper in The Westerner (1940).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8275

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