Warner Bros. | 1982-1997 | 707 mins. | Unrated
After nine successful seasons and 221 episodes, The Walton’s left the air on June 4, 1981. Despite the cancellation, The Walton’s always remained a television favorite. As a result, six television movies were made, that featured most of the original cast. Three films, A Wedding on Walton’s Mountain, Mother’s Day on Walton’s Mountain, and A Day for Thanks on Walton’s Mountain, aired in 1982, less than a year after the series left the air. While most of the cast did return for the 1982 outings, Richard Thomas is absent—though Robert Wightman reprises his role as John-Boy in A Day for Thanks on Walton’s Mountain—and Michael Learned makes only a brief appearance in Mother’s Day on Walton’s Mountain.
A Wedding on Walton’s Mountain (Originally aired on February 22, 1982)
The year is 1947, the world is slowly recovering from the devastation of World War II and Olivia Walton (Michael Learned) is still recovering from tuberculosis, and has moved to Arizona to recuperate. On a happier note, after much heartbreak, Erin (Mary Elizabeth McDonough) has finally met the man of her dreams; engaged to Ben’s (Eric Scott) business partner in the lumber business, Paul Northridge (Morgan Stevens) the happy couple are eager to wed as soon as possible. At the same time, Ben and Paul have bid on a five thousand board-feet contract. The huge order will deplete their entire stock, but Ben and Paul agree that they can complete the job if they hire good workers, not the Hurley brothers who currently work for them.
Trouble begins when Erin’s former boyfriend Ashley (Louis Welch) returns. He tells Erin that his wife died six months ago but that she (Erin) was a shadow standing between them. Erin declares she will marry Paul. However, it’s clear that Ashley’s reappearance has shaken Walton. As the narrator John-Boy says at the beginning, “the path of true love is strewn with pitfalls, even on Walton’s Mountain”.
Mother’s Day on Walton’s Mountain (Originally aired May 9, 1982)
This movie finds Olivia (Michael Learned) sending a telegram to Mary Ellen (Judy Norton-Taylor) on the eve of her wedding to longtime boyfriend, Jonesy (Richard Gilliland). Saddened that her mother was unable to attend the wedding, Jonesy promises that they will go visit her in Arizona if she doesn’t get well soon.
During the honeymoon, Mary Ellen is involved in a serious car accident. Though she survives surgery to remove her spleen, doctors fear she will be unable to have more children. Meanwhile, the rest of the Walton clan has problems of their own, including Ben’s efforts to restore harmony between himself and his own wife Cindy (Leslie Winston) and Elizabeth’s (Kami Cotler) concerns that she’s losing her boyfriend Drew (Tony Becker), to the visiting Aimee Godsey (Deanna Robbins).
A Day for Thanks on Walton’s Mountain (Originally aired November 22, 1982)
This is probably the best of the three Walton’s movies film in the year after the series’ cancellation. Unlike the first two movies, there isn’t a crisis at the center of things. While the Walton clan is off in different directions, these are just a function of them all growing up and having their own lives. This movie takes fans of The Walton’s back to the series core themes, family, love, support and faith.
It’s November 1947 and Elizabeth is depressed. Much of the family won’t be gathering for the annual Thanksgiving feast, and she doesn’t feel it’s really Thanksgiving unless everyone is home. As it turns out the clan does reunite for Turkey Day to compare notes and make some decisions. Jim-Bob (David W. Harper) is trying to open his own car repair business; Jason (John Walmsley) plans to close The Dew Drop Inn and pursue a musical career; John-Boy (Robert Wightman) is suffering from a case of writers block and matriarch Olivia Walton (never seen in this film) is lying in the hospital, with husband John (Ralph Waite) by her side. Will John Walton make it home in time to carve the Turkey?
That was the last time we would see the Walton clan for eleven years.
A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion (Originally aired November 21, 1993)
“The symbol of family for all of us, this old house, remained the center of our lives even though we children had moved away. I was living in New York City, and Elizabeth was traveling abroad. All my other brothers and sisters made their homes within a few miles of Walton’s Mountain. For me, coming home was remembering what was real and meaningful, even when outside events turned everything upside down, the way they did in November of 1963″.
As John-Boy’s opening indicates, this Walton’s reunion isn’t a simple get together around the fireplace. President Kennedy has just been assassinated. Richard Thomas’ John-Boy has become a Washington, D.C.-based TV commentator, which is a bit surprising, since all indications were that he was going to be a novelist. Mary Ellen has achieved her dream of being a pushy doctor; Ben is still in the lumber business with Papa Walton; Jason is a professional musician who best finally sells one of his songs to Elvis Presley(!); Erin is a divorced schoolteacher; Jim-Bob is a pilot; and Elizabeth (Kami Cotler) is inspired by JFK to join the Peace Corps. Michael Learned’s Mama dispenses wisdom while cooking a massive turkey. Reunion uses Kennedy’s death as a plot twist—will John-Boy be able to write a moving TV commentary and still make it home for dinner?
Longtime fans of the series and previous movies will notice a few inconsistencies about the plot. John Walton comments that Grandpa has been dead for fifteen years. Since he died in 1940/41, that would make it 22 or 23 years. Where are John-Curtis and Jonesy?
A Walton Wedding (Originally aired February 12, 1995)
Set in 1964, the gangs back together to witness John-Boy’s wedding to magazine editor Janet Gilchrist (Kate McNeil). While the wedding preparations are going on, budding feminist Olivia enrolls in college and finds some prejudice against older students, while county commissioner John is caught in the middle of a minor scandal when he’s forced to vote on a project in which the Walton lumber mill has an interest.
On the wedding front, after rejecting the fancy wedding plans of Janet’s Aunt Flo (Holland Taylor) and her wedding planner David Drucker (Marshall Borden), the couple decides to have an old fashion Walton’s Mountain ceremony. And a country wedding it is, when Jason’s wife Toni (Lisa Harrison) starts having contracts just as Janet makes her way down the aisle. In a bit of a humorous twist, she ends up giving birth to Patsy Cline Walton just as John-Boy slips the ring on the finger of his new bride.
Though it’s nice to see all of 11 surviving Walton castmates together, the sight of Ellen Corby as Grandma was jarring. Looking extremely old and frail, she sits in a chair the entire time and never speaks.
A Walton Easter (Originally aired March 30, 1997)
The last of the Walton movies, this one is set in 1969, just shy of John and Olivia’s 40th wedding anniversary. Chronologically, it’s impossible for John and Olivia to be celebrating just their 40th anniversary in 1969; if that’s the case, how did they have a teenage son in the thirties? Herein lies the biggest issue with the last three films: the writers and producers seemed to totally abandon any concern for the timeline they watched so carefully during the series.
Once we ignore that inconsistency, what we have is a reunion of the family in West Virginia. More specifically, John-Boy, who has become a successful television reporter, arrives back at Walton’s Mountain with a very pregnant wife, and a reporter from Life Magazine; the proposed article and photographs are meant to publicize his forthcoming novel. Once John-Boy has been home a bit, he finds himself longing to return to everyday life on the Mountain despite Janet’s objections.
At the same time, Elizabeth returns from overseas travel, and has come home to “settle down.” She informs Drew (Tony Becker), that she is back to stay; however, she’s upset to learn that Drew did not wait for her, and that he has a new girlfriend. Will Elizabeth and Drew ever be together? Will John-Boy stay on the mountain?
As of now, A Walton Easter was the last movie produced. Of the six movies, I prefer the first three, because they tie up the loose ends of the series and stick to long established timelines. However, the newer ones are enjoyable because it’s always fun to see how tour favorite television characters look when they get a little older. Now that Warner Bros. has released all nine seasons of the series in the United States, fans will definitely want to pick up The Movie Collection to round things out.
The movies from the 1990s look better than the ones from the 1980s, to be sure, but these transfers are spotty. There’s a ton of dirt and grime on the transfer prints, and color quality is definitely compromised. But black levels are pretty solid, and there are no real examples of artifacts to mention. Finely grained detail is shaky at best, but without a substantial restoration, that’s bound to be the case for every show from the 1970s (and even the 1990s, for that matter). Howerver, fans of the show will likely still be fairly pleased.
The mono and stereo tracks here are both, like other Waltons sets, passable, but not great. Dialogue, music, and effects all still sound pretty canned and scratchy, but that actually enhances the down-home quality of the series. Again, not reference-quality by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s okay.
Included are English SDH and French subtitles.
There are no special features
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