Well first of all the ending doesn’t match up to what I remember. So I’ll chalk that up to Mandela Effect. In my memory, the very very end is heartbreaking and goes something like this "Our father passed away a few years after and my mother contracted tuberculosis and is in a sanitarium now.’
This small bit is narrated over a shot of Olivia Walton, alone, knitting.
In the movie now, the narration says “We lost our father in 1969 (Thats a good long while after the events of the movie) our mother lives in the house still.”
Now, yes, I know that in the TV series Michael Learned is written out of the series as contracting tuberculosis, but I always thought that was just the show trying to match up with the pilot.
Second…how the heck did the grandparents and John Srs huge family all end up together?? Thats Grandpa Zebs house right?? So its not like they moved the grandparents into the Waltons house. And its stated that John Sr. has at least two other brothers. And THEY don’t live there. I know theres a depression going on, but what was John Sr. and Olivias life like when they just had John Boy or John Boy and Mary Ellen??
In a post I made a couple years ago in which I attributed my misremembering a thing to the Mandela Effect, someone pointed out to me it’s not the Mandela effect if it’s just me misremembering something, it’s only if a number of people have the same false memory. So I’m passing along the pendatry
I dimly remember ‘The Homecoming’, though I think I only saw it once as a kid when it was first shown on TV. I seem to remember that there was a snowstorm on Christmas Eve, and John Sr. was a truck driver who was late coming home for Christmas, and the family was very worried, thinking he’d had an accident and was dying in a snowy ditch or something. But it turned out that he had mechanical trouble, or he did get in an accident but wasn’t hurt, so all was fine in the end and Christmas was saved.
But I think I might be conflating the story with the plot of a Country song or something, because John Sr. wasn’t a truck driver in the series, although during the Depression I guess he could have taken on a number of odd jobs.
Where did you catch the pilot-- is it on streaming somewhere?
Its close. John Srs. plan was to take a bus (Its the bus that has an accident) and then hitch-hike/walk the last six miles (!) and yes in a snowstorm. He misses the bus however and has to walk/hitch-hike 30 miles.
It’s shown yearly on one of those religious cable channels that we get in our cable package, so I’ve seen it lately. The ending now is as I always remembered it, with the father dying after a long life and the mother still living at the house.
I love the Cleavon Little minister, done about the same time as he was in Blazing Saddles. In general, the movie takes some good shots at stuffy religious types, from the Baldwin sisters to the “missionary” handing out broken dolls.
The grandparents living with the rest of the family doesn’t surprise me since my own father’s mother (my grandmother) lived in our house for a long time. He was the youngest of the family and the only one who remained on the family farm. And yes, we had about a many kids as the Waltons did. That’s why lots of farm houses had weird add-ons and extensions and loft bedrooms.
I found it interesting in that there are so many kids (In The Homecoming at least) John-Boy has been tasked or taken it upon himself to help raise the kids. Especially with his father working some fifty miles away and only home on weekends. It’s completely realistic, but Mary-Ellen has got some serious issues, her mother has gotten too old*, and too harried to devote the time she needs to, and John-Boy is ill suited to be Mary Ellens therapist FFS.
IOW. Don’t have so many kids!!
*I know Michael Learned was was young but Patricia Neal was a more realistic 45 when the Homecoming was filmed.
Well…its the 70’s. And SOMEHOW John-Boy has his own room while in another room the kids are sleeping three to a bed. And the rich Baldwin sisters are spinsters somehow. Add it all up and we have a typical 70’s horror movie.
“Waltons Mountain demands sacrifice.”
Not to mention all on the same Christmas Eve we have the aforementioned Missionaries. We have Cleavon Little’s black church doing some kind of Nativity cult thing. Grandpa Walton has to go out in the snow at 11:30 PM to ring the Christmas bells at the Baptist church, he says “The Methodists and Episcapalions (sp) will be doing the same.”
“Lost our father in 1969” doesn’t sound too bad when you realize the movie was made in 1971. At the time it had to feel like it was a decently long life.
It makes sense that they moved in with the grandparents when you take into account the Pa works in the city 50 miles away and is rarely home. In the show they seemed so much older so it made sense the family was there to take care of the grandparents. Will Geer died and Ellen Corby had a debilitating stroke by the end of the run.
I do like the casting of the adults. Probably better than the show. It did feel a lot more grown up. I watched the show as a kid because that’s what my parents watched. I thought it was boring at the time.
