The Shepherd of the Hills **** (1941, John Wayne, Betty Field, Harry Carey Sr, Beulah Bondi, James Barton, Samuel S Hinds) – Classic Movie Review 10,230

Betty Field and John Wayne in The Shepherd of the Hills (1941).

Director Henry Hathaway’s 1941 Technicolor Western film The Shepherd of the Hills is based on Harold Bell Wright’s 1907 novel, also filmed in 1919, 1928 and 1964, and stars John Wayne, Betty Field, Harry Carey Sr, Beulah Bondi as Aunt Mollie Matthews, James Barton as Old Matt Matthews, and Marjorie Main as Granny Becky. It is Wayne’s first film in Technicolor.

Missouri mountain people clash with land-grabbers in this robust tale, with John Wayne giving a notable performance as the moonshiner hero Young Matt Matthews pledged to punish the father he has never seen, the man who apparently ill-treated his dead mother, deserting her and leaving her to die.

Young Matt’s young backwoods fiancé Sammy Lane (Betty Field) won’t wed him because of the hate and anger in his heart. The arrival of mysterious stranger Daniel Howitt (Harry Carey Sr) in the Missouri hills affects the Ozark Mountain people, and he befriends Sammy Lane, angering Young Matt.

Betty Field in The Shepherd of the Hills.

And so Carey Sr returns, but isn’t at all an ogre, being now dubbed The Shepherd of the Hills for all his kindnesses.

The Shepherd of the Hills is further lifted by the expert character playing of the likes of Carey, Bondi and Main, plus Charles Lang Jr and W Howard Greene’s eye-catching Technicolor photography. Hathaway directs a robust, striking film, marred only by some easy sentimentality of the kind you would expect from Wayne’s regular director John Ford. The characters in the screenplay by Grover Jones and Stuart Anthony differ markedly from Wright’s novel.

Harry Carey Sr and John Wayne in The Shepherd of the Hills (1941).

Also in the cast are Samuel S Hinds as Andy Beeler, Ward Bond, John Qualen, Marc Lawrence, ‘Fuzzy. Knight, Tom Fadden, Olin Howland, Dorothy Adams, John Harmon, Selmer Jackson, Charles Middleton, Hank Bell, William Haade, Henry Brandon and Jim Corey.

It was shot between 9 September 1940 and 14 November 1940 at Big Bear Lake, Cedar Lake, Barlett’s Lake and Moon Ridge, California, and Branson, Missouri, as well as at Paramount Studios, 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood.

‘There’s a Happy Hunting Ground’ (words and music by Sam Coslow) is sung by ‘Fuzzy’ Knight and again by the chorus over the closing credits.

The Shepherd of the Hills is directed by Henry Hathaway, runs 98 minutes, is made by Paramount Pictures, is released by Paramount Pictures (1941) (US) and Paramount British Pictures (1941) (UK), is written by Grover Jones and Stuart Anthony, based on Harold Bell Wright’s novel, is shot in Technicolor by Charles Lang Jr and W Howard Greene, is produced by Jack Moss and is scored by Gerard Carbonara, with Art Direction by Roland Anderson and Hans Dreier.

Hathaway directed several other Wayne films, most notably True Grit almost three decades later.

The story was filmed in the silent era by author Wright in 1919 and again as The Shepherd of the Hills in 1928 starring Molly O’Day, and remade as The Shepherd of the Hills in 1964, also in colour.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,230

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