October 26 - A Girl of the Limberlost

This movie has a scene that happens today – October 26. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST (1990)

       

In 1908 Indiana Elnora Comstock loves nature as she finds it in the Limberlost Swamp, but lives on a farm with her widowed mother, Kate. Elnora also wants to go to high school, but her mother thinks that’s a waste of time, as she wants Elnora to help her on the farm. On her three mile walk to school Elnora meets a hobo child. At school she does not fit in and cant’ afford her textbooks. Then she meets a lady Gene Stratton-Porter who takes photographs of the natural world. Billy goes to the Comstock farm telling Mrs. Comstock the Elnora sent him and is taken on as a farm hand. Elnora develops a friendship with one student named Sally Brownlee. When Sally’s music teacher learns who Elnora is, he gives her free violin lessons, for which she has natural ability. Elnora sells enough moths and butterflies to Mrs. Porter to buy her textbooks. Then the tax assessor tells Kate. Comstock that the taxes on her farm will double, due to the increasing value of the timber on her land. Mrs. Comstock does not have the money, but refuses any suggestion to sell some of the timber. She forces Elnora to leave school, so they can double the size of their corn crop. After she’s been gone for two weeks Sally comes to tell her if she doesn’t come back soon she’ll be expelled. A hob brings the coat of Billy’s dad for him, as Billy’s father has been killed in a railway accident. The corn crop is destroyed in a storm, but Elnora finds a female imperial moth and sells it to Mrs. Porter for enough to make up the shortage. Her mother is reluctant about accepting the money, but finally does. On October 26, 1908 Kate Comstock pays her taxes. She stops for the first time at the high school. When she finds Elnora playing the violin, she becomes enraged. We learn that the night Elnora was born he father had gone to town to play at a dance and drowned in a flash flood in the Limbelost on his way back home. Kate blamed Elnora since because of Elnora’s birth Kate was not there to save her husband. Elnora runs off. [1:32:49; 1:30:15 to 1:44:37] However, the next day Kate gets Billy to guide her to Elnora’s secret hut in the Limberlost. She gives Elnora her father’s violin and they are reconciled.

                       

An interesting coming of age story. Unusual in that it is about a girl. However it does have a deus ex machina ending in that Gene Stratton-Porter saves the day. 

Producers – Tony Bishop and Ann Eldridge

Director – Burt Brinckerhoff

Screenplay – Pamela Douglas

Runtime – 1 hour 45 minutes

Released – 1990

Starring –

Heather Fairfield as Elnora Comstock

Annette O’Toole as Kate Comstock

Joanna Cassidy as Gene Stratton-Porter

Chaunsey Leopardi as Billy

Devon Odessa as Sally Brownlee