Yes this was a good film mostly on the strength of its ensemble cast. You really can't do much better than Ed Begley, Jim Arness, Arthur Hunnicutt and the great Alan Hale (Sr). The leads McCrea, Drew, and Stockwell are good also.
I didn't see the script as being particularly realistic. Maybe a preacher could talk a clan mob out extreme violence? This would not have happened in a film like "To Kill a Mockingbird" which came along about ten years later, also involving a child narrating the film as an adult like "Stars in my Crown."
But I liked the film's dealing with their health crises and the conflict between medicine --such as it was in that time period-- and the idea that prayer had a factor in the healing process.
I didn't see the script as being particularly realistic. Maybe a preacher could talk a clan mob out extreme violence? This would not have happened in a film like "To Kill a Mockingbird" which came along about ten years later, also involving a child narrating the film as an adult like "Stars in my Crown."
But I liked the film's dealing with their health crises and the conflict between medicine --such as it was in that time period-- and the idea that prayer had a factor in the healing process.