Shenandoah

What do you do with dead soldiers? Shenandoah is directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and written by James Lee Barrett. It stars James Stewart, Patrick Wayne, Doug McClure, Glenn Corbett, Rosemary Forsyth, Phillip Alford and Katharine Ross. Music is by Frank Skinner and Technicolor photography is by William H. Clothier. As the American Civil War rages, a Virginian patriarch keeps his large farming family in the act of isolationism. But will the war leave them alone? A superbly acted and written Civil War Oater, Shenandoah is moving and poignant without over doing the anti-war message. First half…

The “Anderson” family are farmers hoping to sit out the American Civil War in Confederate Virginia by basically minding their own business. Dad “Charlie” (James Stewart) regularly has conversations with his six sons and one daughter over dinner as to what axes to grind they might have to cause them to participate. They have no slaves, nor want them; neither do they see any purpose in risking their lives or their livelihood by joining a conflict that doesn’t appear to be going very well. Then serendipity takes an hand as the youngest son (Philip Alford) is apprehended by a passing troop of…