User Reviews

Spindleshanked but supple veteran character actor Clem Bevans is given a rare lead in this 1949 film, not released until five years after, as Sam "Bigmouth" Smedley, a Wyoming resident who entrains to Pilgrim Hill, Massachusetts to visit his daughter Janet (Virginia Grey) whose letters have impressed him as being indicative of a need for parental help. Sam is an abrasive, jabbering curmudgeon and quickly discovers that the basis for his daughter's dissatisfaction lies with her lawyer husband Tom's primary client and neighbor, wealthy Jonathan Smith (Cecil Kellaway), an officious gentleman but also the most powerful person in the quiet seacoast town and Sam's response to Janet's discontent is to do away with Smith by "causing" a hurricane to appear while Smith is alone on an offshore island. To create the hurricane, Smedley performs a rain dance taught him by an Indian and observed by the local sheriff, after which coincidentally a hurricane does, indeed, appear and the sheriff, believing Smith to be drowned, wishes to arrest the old westerner for manslaughter, but able hands attempt to intervene in order to extricate all from their troubles. A low-budget Hal Roach, Jr., production, this little-known film provides hardly anything with which to recommend it, and Bevans actually becomes irritating rather than endearing, but treatment given the opening scene featuring two other character actors, Frank Lackteen and Oliver Blake, as train station vagrant but prosperous Indians proves to be well-written and quite funny.

This is not a great film. In fact, it's a bit cheesy. Yet, I must admit, I enjoyed watching it quite a bit. I think most of it is because it is fun and the film is without pretense--it doesn't try to be sophisticated entertainment. As I say in the summary, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure.

The film has a somewhat interesting pedigree. It's one of the later productions of the Hal Roach Studio--the same people who had made Laurel & Hardy and Our Gang familiar names. By 1940, they had switched from shorts to B-movies of about an hour in length--as well as some TV in the early years of the medium. The director was Richard L. Bare--the same guy who later would direct "Green Acres".

The reason this film works is the excellent work by Clem Bevans in the lead. While he's far from a household name, he was great at playing old coots--and here he is in his forte. It seems that back east, an old sourpuss (Cecil Kellaway) is making life hard for his niece, as Kellaway feels his family is too good to allow his son to marry this girl. So, Clem packs his bags and heads east to deliver some common-sense and homespun logic to solve the problem. From the start, Bevans tries his darnedest to annoy Kellaway. Sure, Kellaway is rich and from an old established New England family--but he is no match for the even richer and very folksy Bevans. It's all very funny--though admittedly also not particularly sophisticated fare. If you like "Green Acres" or "The Beverly Hillbillies", then you'll probably like this film. It's fun.

The true story of "The Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill"!

Richard L. Bare was a dear close friend and my boss for a while back in the early 1980's. I was with him as an assistant and film archivist until his death at 101 Years old! He was still sailing his boat and driving a car like a teenager at 100! The only reason he died was that he took a flue shot! Richard told me that after he directed "The Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill" one afternoon he was driving around down town Los Angeles and saw a movie theater marquee with the letters "The Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill" Richard couldn't believe his eyes! He thought "what the hell is this!" So when he got home he phoned Hal Roach Jr. And said "I just saw "Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill" playing in a movie theater in LA! What the hell is this Hal, I don't direct feature films for $750.00 a week!" Hal said "I don't own that film anymore I sold it!" So Richard went to the DGA (Directors Guild of America) and filed a compliant, and from that point onward, any motion picture made for television and later shown in a movie theater the producers would have to pay the directors full scale upwards. Interestingly Richard directed the first made for TV movie in the 1950's! When we bought a 16mm print of the picture the logo for the theatrical showing read: "Howco Productions Presents" Turns out this distribution company which filed it's papers out of North Carolina on August 1, 1951, was formed to release "The Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill" The President of the company was James Alex White, the other members of the corporation were Joy N. Houck (1901-1999) and J. Francis White (1901-1987) This company which released 16 different pictures from 1950 to 1974 operated out of a home in North Carolina. The company was in operation for almost 67 years! The second feature release was another Hal Roach Jr. Production, also first shown on The Magnavox Theatre "The Three Musketeers" So Hal Roach Jr. Got away with this twice! Since "The Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill's" principle photography started in 1949, the camera original may be nitrate, and who knows what happened to those elements! It wasn't until 2010 when a used 16mm reduction print turned up on eBay had Richard ever seen the film since it was made in 1949! I still have that print in my archive! Richard L. Bare was an amazing man who do anything! He was a perfectionist, he could paint, write, film, edit, build a house from his own blue prints, you name it, he could do it! I met and started to work with him when I was 23 years old! I could tell you a million cool stories told to me about his time in Hollywood!