Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105612 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-09-15
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Customer Reviews

Read the information CAREFULLY!!!!!
This is NOT a tape about Johnny Cash!! It is a CD interview with him, along with a movie, the Pride of Jessie Hallam. I bought it thinking it was about Johnny. WRONG. I waited 6 weeks and paid 18 bucks for it, only to be disappointed! You have to read the info carefully to see that. Don't make the same mistake I did!

Johnny Cash plus a bonus!
As a Johnny Cash fan for longer than I care to remember I think this video was excellent. Johnny Cash played a difficult part convincingly and the story suited his style superbly. The accompanying CD is a must for every Johnny Cash fan. I've played it over and over.

A Trying Time for an Illiterate in the Big City.
There are 25 million functional illiterates in the United States, and this film made for television is purportedly based upon events in the life of one of them, Jesse Hallam, portrayed here in typically wooden fashion by Johnny Cash, primarily about Hallam's troubles after moving to a large city (Cincinnati). Hallam, a miner since 14 from the Coal Fields sector of Western Kentucky in Muhlenberg County, has no choice but to leave his country home when his young daughter requires spinal surgery in the Ohio metropolis, paid with cash in advance obtained from the sale of his property after his wife's death. He pits his native intelligence and work ethic against the problem of not being able to read or write, and discovers that in order to support himself and his two children, he must become literate; scenes involving the methods used in developing his new skills are the most engrossing of the production. Brenda Vaccaro plays Marion Galucci, vice-principal of the high school that Jesse's son Tully attends, doing her best with an underwritten role as Hallam's mentor, and one must appreciate the spirited performance of veteran Eli Wallach as her father Sal, employer and sponsor of the erstwhile coal miner. Adequately helmed by television director Gary Nelson, the work's stature rises from fine camerawork by Gayne Rescher, while Cash sings several appropriate songs on a sound track that features some excellent instrumental performances, including deft banjo work by Oscar Scruggs.