For many people, a familiar pastime in the weeks leading up to major winter holidays is gathering with family members and watching holiday movies, be they in a theater or on television. While vaccines are more widely available now than they were last year, some plans remain in limbo this holiday season, with folks unsure about going to movie theaters. However, this shouldn’t stop us from enjoying holiday movies with friends and family.
During the month of December, therefore, the Falls Free Press will reprise “The 12 Films of Christmas,” focusing on new holiday movies for the year 2021—a year that can still do with plenty of spirit. We will review each film, whether naughty or nice, and let you know where to watch it.
As one of the worst economic periods in industrialized America, the Great Depression showed that the most important thing to cherish during Christmastime is family. With wages low and many people traveling to the city on a daily or weekly basis for work, sometimes leaving farms to rot due to lack of helping hands, the hope of seeing loved ones was just as high as that of financial stability. As Earl Hamner, author of The Homecoming, remarks in the book’s introduction, “It is remembered in my family that on Christmas Eve of 1933 my father was late arriving home. That, along with the love he and my mother bestowed upon their eight red-headed offspring, is fact.”
In 1971, CBS aired a made-for-TV film based on Hamner’s book, which would become a backdoor pilot for the long-running series The Waltons. While the book centered around a family named Spencer, Warner Brothers owned the rights to the name after producing Spencer’s Mountain with Henry Fonda, based on Hamner’s previous book. The family and mountain would therefore be known as Walton. From Homecoming, a majority of the cast continued into the show and its nine seasons, including Richard Thomas as John-Boy, Judy Norton as Mary Ellen, and Ellen Corby as Grandma Esther Walton. Other characters would later be recast, including Olivia and Jon Walton and Grandpa Zeb. The series would recount the lives and the family and those who lived near Walton’s Mountain and how they survived through the Great Depression and World War II in Virginia, as narrated by Hamner himself.
The CW introduced the Walton family to new audiences this year with a remake of Homecoming, featuring Richard Thomas as the story’s narrator. Following Hamner’s original story, the film introduces the Walton family—Olivia (Bellamy Young) and her 6 children, John-Boy (Logan Shroyer), Mary Ellen (Marcelle LeBlanc), Jason (Christian Finlayson), Erin (Tatum Mathews), Jim-Bob (Samuel Goergen), and Elizabeth (Callaway Corrick)—as they eagerly await their father’s return from work in the city (Ben is completely missing from this film, despite one accidental remark to him that appears to have been missed in editing since he was never cast). For John (played by Ben Lawson), however, his bus home heads in the same direction as an oncoming snowstorm, only heightening his family’s worries with radio news reports of accidents on the road. At the same time, John-Boy is fighting his own future, secretly composing stories with the hope of becoming a writer instead of taking on a trade like his father—an argument he had prior to his now missing father’s departure. Ultimately, John-Boy is sent to find John and return him home.
On its own, this remake of Homecoming tells Hamner’s story well to an audience living nearly a century after the time it describes. Unlike the original film, director Lev Spiro and writer Jim Strain provide more backstory about the depression, showing not only the difficulty for children wanting expensive toys from Santa, but also trying to comprehend racism as their friends the Doolys attend a different church far from the town. Missing, however still in the story shortly to provide their vehicle to John-Boy, are Emily and Maimie Baldwin (played here by Annie Cook and Susan Savoie), who manufacture whiskey using their father’s formula, which was known to cure any ailment and known simply known as “the recipe.” Perhaps the comparison to Mary Jackson and Helen Kleeb is too harsh, their own interactions often being a stand-up performance of its own, but the introduction of the ladies simply to offer their vehicle, without commenting on their reputation as bootleggers while the sheriff is around, is weak storytelling.
Speaking of casting, several other characters leave much to be desired, in particular Rebecca Koon as Grandma Esther, who remains silent for most of her time on screen, only arguing once and losing to Charlie Sneed, a moment in which Ellen Corby would have most assuredly thrown him out of the house with just one word. In the event that future Waltons films get produced, it is hopeful that not only does Koon get replaced with a more worthy actor, but the seventh Walton child, Ben, is cast.
For fans of the original film and series, Waltons: Homecoming is an enjoyable rural country Christmas story and a wonderful way to reminisce about the series. Without some changes, however, it will probably not become a regular series of films.
Goodnight, John-Boy, and Merry Christmas.
Waltons: Homecoming is available to stream on the CW app and on DVD.
