Customer Reviews

The Missouri Traveler

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I never expected "The Missouri Traveler" to be such a great film!
It is a lesser know Lee Marvin movie, that is set in a small Missouri town in
The early 1900's. It does boast a fight scene at the end of the movie that is somewhat reminiscent of "the Quiet Man"
If you want a family friendly movie, which people from the Midwest in particular will "get" then this is the movie!

This is a decent movie but I cannot give it a better review because the transfer is terrible. The monogram, ER, of the issuing company shows throughout the whole movie. This is definitely a very low definition version of the movie. Maybe the system the company used to add their monogram made the film look like it's being watched through a gauze. There are also some places where the picture breaks up.

This is really a shame because I enjoyed the movie.

This 1910-setting family movie tells a simple story with wholesome values, and as such is quite characteristic of the era in which it was made. It reminded me of the style and demeanor of the Lassie TV series. The setting is said to be Missouri, but to me it looked more like western terrain, especially with the sharply pointed hilltop in the horse training scene.

A significant portion of the movie was filmed outdoors, which also was characteristic of the era. As such, this style of movie-making celebrates nature and its bounty (while also avoiding expensive set pieces!).

Lee Marvin was in top form, and I enjoyed his performance thoroughly. As for some of the supporting players, on occasion, they delivered their lines flatly, or sometimes lapsed into unnecessary pauses during dialog exchanges. On those occasions, I was reminded of high school theatre productions. Yet, in the early days of movie making, the stage was the model for film productions, and so perhaps what I'm noting here was an effect of the stage to film learning curve.

The boy (the "traveler") is portrayed as quiet and non-expressive, and so, initially, I wished he were more animated. As the movie progressed, however, he grew on me. I eventually concluded that a turn of the century rural lad seeking a better life on his own, could very well be flat of expression and guarded with his words. Likely, my earlier expectations had been influenced by modern child actors, who tend to be portrayed as precocious beyond their years. Happily, this movie didn't exploit the boy by making him appear to be something that he wasn't in an effort to sell more tickets.

I didn't always agree with how the director moderated the scenes. For example, to me, the race could have been much longer, thus generating more tension before the outcome. Conversely, the fight scene could have been much shorter, but at least it resolved a lot of earlier plot tensions. The length of the parade seemed pointless. (Perhaps for the audience of that era, it wasn't.) The orator gag seemed ludicrous (clearly a gag, but not a funny one), and hence, it distracted from an otherwise realistic portrayal of small town life.

As for the little bit of romance in this film, it blossomed free of a build-up to it--similar to other films of that era. For example, in Audrey Hepburn films of that era, Hepburn could easily meet Cary Grant one day, and by the next, be telling him that she loved him (which always seemed like such a leap!). I won't give away the romance in this film, except to say that the basis for it is equally unfounded.

The story line was interesting (not cliched), and it evolved well, including a satisfying ending. Audience members accustomed to impression overload may find the pace of the film to be rather slow, but that's not a discredit to the movie. (One simply needs to pace oneself to it.) All in all, the movie delivered good entertainment. I was happy to be left with the story's underlying theme: that we all need one another, and that "community" means agreeing to help and be helped.