"The Homecoming," the Waltons prequel from 1971

Neal tried in vain to catch John Boy beating off.

Heeeeeey Mary...

What’s the door locked for?

Patricia Neal was not good in that part. She looked ancient, for one.

Mama, Mary-Ellen called us all pissants.

My grandma always called us pissants!

I felt sorry for Olivia when she was forced to walk over all that snow to get to Ike's store. Patricia Neal looked kind of frail to begin with - why did the director make her trudge through the snow? She looked like she was about to tip over.

What happened to the turkey that Charlie brought to Olivia? She said she was going to cook it tonight. Did they all eat it? Pretty mean of Olivia to just offer coffee to John when he stumbled through the front door. How about giving him a turkey dinner as well?

How come the girls only got pretty dresses but the boys all got something to play with?

Hate it. Maudlin. Trying to be Grapes of Wrath.

john boy, John Boy,

JOHN BOY!

I just finished watching it. I thought it was terrific. Patricia Neal and Richard Thomas were both excellent. Olivia was so hard on John-Boy.

Loved the score by Jerry Goldsmith.

She was cray cray about me and called me her little Jason. Imagine, me little !

I can't believe old Strokeisha Patricia Neal played Liv, she looked more like Grandma Walton's younger sister.

"Patricia Neal was not good in that part. She looked ancient, for one.'

You'd look ancient too if you were trying to raise seven kids during the depression. What was she supposed to look like, a model? I thought she was great as Olivia Walton, a woman whose life had obvious not been easy. And Patricia Neal was an infinitely better actress than the pretty but wooden Michael Learned.

It wasn't about her being prettied up, R13, but she was supposed to be playing a woman in her 40s and she looked 70.

She looked older than her years because of her hard life. Why is that so difficult to understand? And by they way, she did NOT look 70. She looked more someone in her fifties.

Neal was 46 when that was made.

I liked her better than Michael Learned who left me cold.

YOU SHOT A SITTIN’ STILL BIRD!!

She wasn’t too old to catch her eldest son beatin his meat behind a locked door!

[quote] She wasn’t too old to catch her eldest son beatin his meat behind a locked door!

What’s this about? It’s the second reference to that.

John Boy tried his door locked to have privacy while he tried to write; he got little privacy in a house with 6 brothers and sisters and two parents and two grandparents. He didn't lock it because he was "beating his meat." That's just some lame joke.

You'd be grouchy too if you were soon going to have a debilitating stroke from which you won't fully recover.

Patricia Neal had the stroke six years earlier. The producers didn't ask her back for the series because they thought she was too frail for a weekly production schedule.

She was hurt by the snub and later wrote that she would've accepted the part if asked.

The Homecoming is really wonderful, and it makes me cry. I think it's better than any episode of the series.

Jesus wept

Used to love this show when I was a kid, always made me cry. Now I find them the Breeders from Hell, all those kids and no money, completely selfish. Odd how that happens.

I loved the original The Homecoming. To me it represented the era better than the saccharine sweet series The Waltons. I love the comeback role the Patricia Neal was able to play, especially after her stroke at a young age. She portrayed the weariness, harder life the family had to contend with, still with the love of family around. Even Grandma Ellen Corbin was harsher in The Homecoming than the series. I did watch and loved The Waltons. In was originally on when I was in high school. In chorus, the core misfits that I hung out with used nicknames like Ellen-bob, Jim-bob, Billy-bob, etc. from The Waltons. Fun times.

Patricia Neal seemed unfuckable. And kinda unclean.

Debilitating stroke And married to serial cheater Ronald Dahl.

Edgar Bergen played Grandpa Walton in "The Homecoming". I can't remember for sure, but when the family was listening to the radio, wasn't it an old recording of a radio broadcast of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy?

Fibber McGee and Molly

Patricia Neal was quite sexy in Hud.

By, Earl Hamner, Jr. really milked that Depression-era Virginia adolescence for all it was worth on the screen, didn't he?

"Spencer's Mountain"... "the Homecoming"... "The Waltons"...

Loved it. Loved Patricia Neal. Loved it all.

The part where Elizabeth’s doll broke creeped me out.

r34 the doll was already broken after Elizabeth opened it. That was the creepy part to me. And that strange woman giving out free presents if a child would recite a Bible quote to her.

The broken doll was very disturbing to me as a child, as was John Boy telling his sister Mary Ellen that her bosoms would grow.

R35- That religious woman was more like comic relief. "Why look to some foreign country for heathens when the Blue Ridge mountains are filled with them!"

The homecoming was far more realistic than the damn Waltons.

It was very well written. It's almost like a play.

Cleavon Little was also excellent.

The great 70s film blog recently covered this movie. Take a look.

This is on Monday, 3-5, on INSP, whatever channel that is. It’s at 84% on Rotten Tomatos, which is very high.

The actor who played Grandpa was Gay. You all knew that, right?

My grandmother ran a rooming house. In particular, like Mr. Walton, her renters were family men who stayed for 4 or 5 nights a week, then went home to families on the weekend in East Bumfuck where there were no jobs. No women allowed in the house!

Edgar Bergen, the best ventriloquist...on radio.

I think Ellen Corby, Grandma Walton was also gay.

The two fine actresses playing the Baldwin Sisters, Josephine Hutchinson, and Dorothy Stickney, both leading and character actresses from the pre-code era were replaced by the excellent and endlessly watchable Mary Jackson and Helen Kleeb, both of whom are memorable to anyone who watched the "The Waltons". Amazingly all of the actresses lived into their mid 90s or older!

Will Geer, the Grandpa from THE WALTONS was gay. Edgar Bergen wasn’t. He played Ellen Corby’s husband before, in I REMEMBER MAMA.

There is a clever in-joke where Grampa Walton snaps, "I know how to work a radio!" - a sly reference to Bergen's long career as one of radio's biggest stars.

I heard the boys on the Waltons set were nervous around Will Greer.

She was the first actress to win a Tony Award, and the first to win Tony-Oscar.

The character Olivia's name was to be changed, but Neal would have quit: her first daughter was named Olivia and had died tragically.

There is no way they were all able to say good night to each other without shouting. Weren't the parents' or the grandparents' (or both) bedrooms downstairs? Did no one shut their doors at night?

*I lost a line in my post that defined it as being about Patricia Neal.

She was also the sexy sugar mama in Breakfast at Tiffany's. 2-E.

[quote]There is no way they were all able to say good night to each other without shouting.

They were shouting. Ever been upstairs in an average sized house in the quiet of night? My siblings and I shouted many things from room to room like that at bedtime.

[quote]They were shouting.

No they weren't. Watch the final scene of any episode of the series - they are speaking in normal conversational tones. I call bullshit!!

This is the origin of the Jon-Boy masturbating joke.

It's the original made-for-TV movie, not a "prequel." you idiot.

R55, don't be such an idiot yourself.

The proper insult is "you fat whore", not "you idiot".

No, R49. Her character in the Homecoming is Olivia, which was originally another name, but Patricia and Earl Hamner Jr. changed it to pay tribute to her daughter.

In the Mad Magazine parody, her name was Olive-Drab.

[quote] Will Geer, the Grandpa from THE WALTONS was gay. Edgar Bergen wasn’t.

If he wasn’t then why did he always have his hand up my ass?

In his Archive of American Television interview, Richard Thomas talks about going swimming naked with Will Geer. I guess there's actually footage of it. Geer was a rascal, it would appear.

Loooooove, R59.

Will Geer was somewhat of a radical. He was a member of the Communist Party of the United States in 1934. He acted with the Group Theatre (New York) studying under Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg. He was blacklistedi in the early 1950s for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He couldn't get much work but did appear in a "subversive" movie called "Salt of the Earth", which which had a pro-Union standpoint. It was produced, directed written and acted by blacklisted personnel, and found little distribution.

It's too bad Geer didn't last longer. I thought his Grandpa Walton was one of the best characters on the show.

I just watched it and Patricia is totally too old for the role and far too angry and nasty to ever be a loveable mom.

Elizabeth looks like her granddaughter

Found this quote on a previous thread that made me LOL

"Grandma was a narrow minded bitch, so provincial and self-righteous. I wish John Boy had thrown her and her rocking chair off the front porch."

Anyone ever see Spencer's Moutain which The Walton's was kind based off of? Henry Fonda and Clay Boy played by james MacArthur.

I'm sure John Boy had some substantial meat to beat.

[quote] And married to serial cheater Ronald Dahl.

Any relation to ROALD Dahl?

About 7 or 8 years ago I was at Jensen's Deli in Palm Desert, in walks Ralph Waite, I was thrilled. The Waltons was such a big part of my childhood, I'm sure I've seen each episode several times. Waite looked much like he did on the show, but much older of course...bushy hair, jeans, flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

Will Geer was at one time in a relationship with gay rights pioneer Harry Hay.

It's not whiskey, momma, it's eggnog. Now calm down before you have another stroke.

Interesting that both actors playing the grandparents were gay.

r68 Ralph Waite ran for Congress three times in Palm Springs. The last time he lost to the widow Bono.

R72 Santimonious do-gooder Bono from U2 is dead?!

r73. No, dear.

Good shit! They have another house in this film! Looks like a dump. And Momma sur' is ugly!

The man playing Grandpa was far to posh and elegant to play a country hick

Patricia Neal's Livvie Walton is very like Mommie Dearest.

She allows the kids to only go watch the Missionary give out gifts so long as they take none, takes a sadistic interest in what John-Boy is doing in his locked room, and snaps at everyone to be quiet.

R65. I loved Spencer’s Mountain’ when I was a child I hadn’t seen it in years and watched it not long ago

I embarrassed myself by bursting into tears when the tree fell on the grandpa.

Earl Hamner also wrote "A Dream For Christmas", a spinoff loosely based on the preacher character originally played by Cleavon Little (Hari Rhoades takes over the role).

I think I'd have rather lived in the Little House on the Prairie days than in the Walton days.

Of all the series they've rebooted why not The Waltons?

The movie was pretty good. So much more realistic than the TV show. Not being filmed on a sound stage helped.

Thanks for this OP I watched it last night. A very nice time capsule.

[quote]In his Archive of American Television interview, Richard Thomas talks about going swimming naked with Will Geer. I guess there's actually footage of it. Geer was a rascal, it would appear.

Here-

Superficially the most I remember about Spencer's Mountain is how much I liked Danno (I was watching Hawaii 5-0 repeats fairly regularly art the time). Looks like Maureen O'Hara does not quite have the weathered Appalachian mother look down.

My Waltons memory is a little rusty (they were not on a constant after-school syndicated repeat like Little House), but if I remember correctly the show was pretty decent through the depression years, and jumped the shark not too long after Pearl Harbor. I think a big part of that is losing many of the leads, the grandparents, parents, John Boy himself, the remaining kids losing their naturalness and not being great adult actors, and the plots being more out there. You also started seeing late season Happy Days disregard for the time period with feathered hair, lip gloss, and early 80's designer jeans.

[quote]Of all the series they've rebooted why not The Waltons?

Richard Thomas played Charles in ABC's reboot of "Little House on the Prairie" ca. 2000:

I love this movie and I watch it around Christmastime each year. The bickering kids are always a hoot. The supporting cast including Cleavon Little, the old ladies, the local yokels - they're all fun. Richard Thomas and Patricia Neal are terrific, though she was too old for the part.

By the way, "Salt of the Earth" (1954) is a great film. I found it moving.

Prequels are produced after the original show or movie to give a backstory or to flesh out characters. “The Homecoming” was the precursor to “The Waltons,” while “Spencer’s Mountain” shared the same source material.

Did Patricia deserve her Oscar?

[quote]And married to serial cheater Ronald Dahl.

Wait, what? This old troll actually attracted women?