When I started on Twitter, ahem…X, back in 2011, one of the first friends I made was a guy named Carl. He was older, a grandpa, a Christian, lived in Virginia, and seemed very down-to-earth. Somehow or other, we got to talking about movies, and Carl told me his favorite movie was 1963’s Spencer’s Mountain. Like, his absolute all time favorite. He told me I had to get a copy and see it.
Did Carl steer me wrong? We’ll get to that.
The movie opens at Spencer’s Mountain, where the large and active Spencer family has lived out their lives for three generations. Clay Spencer (Henry Fonda) has nine children with his wife, Olivia (Maureen O’Hara), and their oldest son, Clayboy (James MacArthur) is about to graduate from high school. Grandma and Grandpa Spencer (Donald Crisp and Lillian Bronson) live with them as well, and the house that Clay built is full of activity all the time. Every night they all say good night to each other, and yes, the youngest kid, Patty-Cake (Kym Karath) always says, “Good night, Clayboy.”
Uh huh, it’s The Waltons, except that it’s set in Wyoming instead of Virginia and a lot of the young people, especially the girls, are quite frisky. Carl didn’t tell me about that last bit. Anywhoo…
Spencer’s Mountain doesn’t have a plot, per se, pretty much the way life doesn’t have a plot. The Spencers go about their days, things happen to them, they get in trouble, they learn from their mistakes, they dream about the future. Clayboy has his sights set on going to college, but he needs to learn Latin first, only he gets distracted by wealthy quarry owner’s daughter Claris Coleman (Mimsy Farmer), who, among other things, brings Clayboy a dictionary with dirty words underlined.
Meanwhile, Clay Sr. has his heart set on building Olivia a house on the top of the mountain, but on a sawmill worker’s salary he can’t seem to get ahead, especially since he also has to provide for the family. Olivia doesn’t care too much about the house, but she would like Clay to go to church.
As it is, Clay prefers drinking and card games and sees Christianity as the end of all his fun. He doesn’t even know who the minister is until he meets a guy while flyfishing and they share a bottle of whiskey. Come to find out, the guy is the new preacher, Clyde Goodman (Wally Cox) and he’s never had a drink in his life, so of course he gets rip-roaring drunk. It’s an honest mistake, but Clay goes to great lengths to make things right, and church may not be so out of the question for him after all.
Meanwhile, there’s still the question of Clayboy going to college. Clay and Olivia know they’re going to have to figure out something or their kids will be doomed to work in the quarry. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it also feels like a dead end, so there are some decisions to be made.
When Warner Bros. set out to make Spencer’s Mountain, the man who would be Clay Spencer wasn’t too keen on the movie, calling it “old-fashioned corn that would set movies back twenty-five years.” Fonda may have been feeling a little grumpy, though, having come off of a play that flopped on Broadway and feeling as if he was no longer the icing on the cake. His costar, Maureen O’Hara was in a similar spot, since she had just become too old to play romantic leads, but unlike Fonda, O’Hara loved the script. These two stars, were, of course, by no means finished, not by a long shot, but it may have just seemed that way at the time.
For my part, I think I fall somewhere between Fonda and O’Hara as far as my opinion of Spencer’s Mountain. It can be incredibly corny, although not nearly on the level of certain Disney live-action films such as So Dear To My Heart. Sometimes Spencer’s Mountain seems as if it tries too hard, especially in light of the fact that it precedes The Waltons and the similarities between the two are just a little too close. Not that there’s anything wrong with “Goodnight, John-boy,” or “Clayboy” or whatever, but it almost feels a little too sweet to be real.
There are times, though, when the movie seems to relax and let its characters be like normal people, and that’s when it shines. The scenery is spectacular because it’s Wyoming, and the way the people of the Spencer’s mountain town band together to help each other is really heartwarming. And they all find ways of helping each other, such as Preacher Clyde, who teaches Clayboy Latin. They’re not perfect people, but they all learn in one way or another that no one makes it on their own.
Spencer’s Mountain does have some slightly uncomfortable moments, though, such as the little boys and girls taking a bath together, or when one of the daughters gets up one morning and says, “I’ve got bosoms.” While it’s all tame, especially by today’s standards, and probably nothing unusual for big family dynamics, at least for that time, it was obvious that the envelope was getting pushed as much as possible in the almost post-Production Code sixties.
The acting in the film is note-perfect, especially Henry Fonda, who seemed to like lounging around in his hammock smoking a pipe. Maureen O’Hara is wonderful as well, although I kept seeing her more as Maureen O’Hara instead of Olivia Spencer, because she basically plays her fiery, sparkling Irish self. The film was also Donald Crisp’s last film credit, and not a shabby one at that.
Did I ever get to tell Carl what I thought of Spencer’s Mountain? Well…no. Unfortunately, Carl had cancer, and after a while his wife started tweeting for him. One day, Carl’s account disappeared and I never heard from him again.
Carl, wherever you are, thanks. For the friendship and the movie.
Another special announcement is coming up tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…
Spencer’s Mountain is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.
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