Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130 in VHS
• Released on: 1996-10-01
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
A true television classic, The Homecoming was the second movie (after 1963's Spencer's Mountain) based on Earl Hamner's autobiographical writings about love, pride, faith, and survival in rural America during the Great Depression. The Homecoming introduced the Walton family, a 1930s mountain clan living a hardscrabble existence that forces patriarch John Walton (Andrew Duggan) to seek work, far from home, in the city. When John fails to return home, as promised, on Christmas Eve, his iron-willed wife Olivia (Patricia Neal) keeps a lid on their children's worry. Oldest son John-Boy (Richard Thomas), who privately dreams of becoming a writer but worries about disappointing his parents, is dispatched to find his dad. Graceful yet harder-edged than the subsequent TV series The Waltons (which recast several characters and ran for nine years), The Homecoming reveals, albeit understatedly, much about the pain of poverty even as the family draws strength and closeness through endurance. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Best Christmas Story, since the first
It is all about family. Watch it every year.

Fantastic acting. Great story. Launched the iconic series.

The movie that started it all...
The holiday season during the start of the Great Depression is looking rather bleak for the Walton family -- there's no money for presents, barely enough food, and worst of all, Daddy isn't home. Although he promised to return from his work in time for the festivities, it's now Christmas Eve and there's no sign of him.

Patricia Neal plays the hard-luck, tough mama Olivia (later replaced in the tv series by gentler Michael Learned), trying to hold together a homefront of seven children and her in-laws singlehandedly. Eldest son John-Boy (Richard Thomas) privately yearns to become a writer -- a dream he guards within his soul, lest it be mocked or discouraged as impractical by his poverty-stricken, trade-embracing parents.

In one memorable scene, the entire family -- and especially little Elizabeth -- learns a valuable lesson about charity when a missionary comes to the mountain bearing holiday "gifts."

While some viewers -- myself included -- aren't as fond of this movie as we might have been otherwise because it doesn't include all of the cast we grew to love during the long-running tv series, "The Homecoming" is indeed a classic, heartwarming holiday movie.

A Classic Christmas Movie!
This was a perfect edition to my Christmas movie collection. Great for children also. It brings you back to the true meaning of Christmas without all the materialism.

The story will rewarm your heart to life and keep the true spirit of Christmas going.

Merna

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