Product Details

• Actors: Claudia McNeil, Janet MacLachlan, Robert Christian, Larry B. Scott, Roy Poole
• Directors: Jack Smight
• Writers: Arthur Heinemann, Mildred D. Taylor
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Live / Artisan
• VHS Release Date: January 12, 1999
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302622867
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,043 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How Disappointing :-(, November 28, 2003

By 

Juli Anne Harkins (Silver Spring, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry [VHS] (VHS Tape)

My fourth-grader and I read this wonderful book together and I hyped her on watching this movie, which came out when I was in the fourth grade in the seventies. How disappointing! What a rip-off! This video takes edited scenes as a montage at the beginning and then starts in the middle of the story. Entire scenes critical to character development and plot are lost--the beautiful relationship between the siblings, Stacie's relationship to TJ, how the Logans got their land and why they were so different than the other sharecropping families, the role of Mama and Big Ma in keeping the family together, etc. You'd be lost watching this movie if you hadn't read the book. My daughter and I were eagerly awaiting the scene when Cassie gets her revenge on Lillian Jean, which is shown only as a ending montage of scenes. How unfortunate--with DVDs out now, there's no reason for this movie not to be available in its entirety. I should have heeded the warnings of the other Amazon reviewers!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Roll of Thunder Review, April 1, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Our class read the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. After that we watched the movie in class. We had to write an Essay about both the movie and the book. We would not recomend this film because the plot is out of order and the characters are not portrayed well. We would reccomend reading the Newberry Award winning book instead.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Deserves a big, fat zero!, January 21, 2006

By 

Scott Phoenix (Newberg, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This movie was made by someone on a diet of white bread and packaged vegetables - bland, blander, blandest. Whereas the book is moving, if a bit over-reliant upon the narrator Cassie overhearing everything and all the children getting into the action, yet again, the movie makes you want to yell obscenities. One example will do. The book is set in the Depression-era Deep South, rural Mississippi - it didn't get any worse for blacks - and the sharecroppers are desperately poor. Yet the characters all look as though they're just shopped off the rack at the country store. There's no fire, no emotion, no tension.

I urge another attempt at a movie of this book because it could be outstanding - the plot is there for people to do something wonderful.