I was a huge Homecoming and Waltons fan! It was definitely required viewing in my house. The whole family once drove 4 hours to go picnic in the actual town the Hamners lived in, which was the model for Walton's Mountain. I went to college with Scott Hamner, son of Earl. I was secretly incredibly impressed by that, although I managed to be cool about it.

God, I loved "The Homecoming". Used to watch it at the holidays every year. The tv show wore on me, but The Homecoming felt so true and real.

Also, Patricia Neal rocked.

Project: Take a script of a Walton's episode. Use it as a basis for a Firefly fanfic. "Good night, Jayne."

I also watched the Waltons in its first three or four seasons. Much later in life, after I'd moved to San Francisco, I got to personally know the actress who had played Elizabeth. She was very very smart and cool, and teaching ESL. She was dating a friend of mine - a British cartoonist.

Before I was even formally introduced to her, she introduced herself to me on the train because I was wearing a Krazy Kat button.

Spencer's Mountain. It's a movie starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara and is sort of the mother of Homecoming and The Waltons. It was based on Earl Hamner's novel.

Here, wiki has a little more on it: [link]

It's just beautiful. And Henry Fonda is beautiful. Maureen O'Hara is beautiful. A very young, pretty frisky James MacArthur is just beautiful.

Mimsy Farmer. Oh goodness, I'd forgotten about Mimsy Farmer. And yes, young James MacArthur is beautiful.

I haven't watched it in ages, but Spencer's Mountain has this wonderful quality to it, I'm not sure I can explain, but it feels different from The Waltons. Maybe it's just the difference between a feature film and a serial drama. Some films and shows about country people (and really, maybe family drama in general) seem(s) to dull down the characters.

The Waltons was decent about respecting its characters' humanity, to be fair. But it seems to me that even in it, a certain sort of vitality is missing from many of them. I don't know how to put this. Maybe Beverly can help me out, because she often says things so well.

The country people I know well are differently alive, sharp, and I can feel this sort of lust-for-life thing going on, when I'm with them. A country lifestyle may be different from an urban or suburban one, but the people are no more innocent or unsuspecting, or simple, or wholesome. From what I recall of Spencer's Mountain, the characters are really rich in that way -- they really crackle on screen, you know?

I don't want to over-simplify all rural people in the other direction, and what I've already posted is probably a stereotype, in itself. Someone stop me, or help me.

I think the difference is, really? That the series--and The Homecoming--focused on the Depression era. I don't recall the Depression being mentioned at all in Spencer's Mountain. Plus, you cast a fiesty gorgeous Irish woman like Maureen O'Hara, you don't cast her for long-suffering, thrifty, stretch-a-dollar till the eagle grins sort of woman, you cast her for sex appeal and spunk.

Also, Spencer's Mountain was a theatrical release, in technicolor, and made in the early 60s, which really weren't as much "60s" as reflecting the values of the late 50s: optimism, having recently won a righteous victory in WWII, economic stability and growth for the middle class. People wanted to see movies where rugged, attractive 1950s people overcame movie adversity to Triumph at Life.

The Homecoming was made in the very early 70s, we were still mired in Vietnam, having come through the disillusion and upheaval of a war we'd never win and didn't want and were ashamed of. Hollywood no less than the rest of the country was affected by the greyness of reality. The Homecoming was made-for-tv, smaller budgeted, and a smaller vision. An interesting point to me was that even though it was filmed in color, there was a leached winter look to it, a bleakness that reflected the mood of the time the story was set in, as well as when it was filmed.

The series was planned to be long-term rather than a one-time spectacular movie, and focused on building long-term character studies and interactions, as opposed to a one-time all-family end-of-picture triumph of reaching the goal of building their house on the mountain.

And finally, I think Hamner had much more input into the series than he did into the movie, and he comes from the eastern mountains. The movie has always seemed more "western" than "country" to me. It may be totally a fabrication of my fevered mind, but eastern mountains and mountain folk are more subdued, their edges are softer, more blunted, whereas the newer western mountains are higher, sharper, more vivid, and the people who settled there tend to be a little larger than life, too.

Just my take on it.

I dimly recall Earl Hammer expressing some disappointment with how his initial story became hollywood-ized into "Spencer's Mountain." He didn't blast the movie -- he expressed gratitude for the film being made -- but the movie is not as true to his story as it could have been. I think he appreciated "The Homecoming" and then "The Waltons" for being closer to his original story.

Beverly -- I think you're right that Spencer's Mountain seemed more western than eastern.