Friendly Persuasion (1956)

Directed by William Wyler. Starring Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Anthony Perkins, Phyllis Love, Peter Mark Richman, Robert Middleton, Marjorie Main, Richard Eyer, Walter Catlett, Joel Fluellen, Theodore Newton, Richard Hale, John Smith, Edna Skinner.

Plodding period drama of a Quaker community’s resistance to becoming involved in the American Civil War, and the divisions that spring up between those who remain faithful to their non-violent creed and those who find it necessary to fight to protect their family and homestead. Cooper and McGuire are the heads of the Birdwell clan; Perkins is the elder son who reluctantly agrees to fight; Love is the daughter, smitten with a cavalry officer; Eyer is the younger son who’s, erm, picked on by a goose (it was the era of Hollywood where “cute” little sub-plots/characters like this were needed to check all the boxes); all of them struggle unsuccessfully to make all those “thee”s, “thou”s, and “thy”s sound natural in speech. In some ways, it’s the sort of role that Cooper was born to play—simple, honest, decent, and (when required) heroic—but also the sort of role Cooper should have been avoiding because it’s so square-edged and dull when filtered through his hem-and-haw style. Long yet underdeveloped along the family’s proverbial fenceline, it’s a movie that’s unabashedly sincere, instilling warm and pleasant feelings in those who just want to be, ahem, persuaded in a friendly fashion to like it, but those more interested in the underlying historical and psychological contexts will find the experience frustrating—at least we/they can enjoy the antics of Samantha the goose. No credited screenwriter appears onscreen or in promotional materials since the scribe was the blacklisted Michael Wilson; said credit was restored about forty years later. Astounding Palme d’Or winner at Cannes!

49/100