Today’s movie is a period drama with a scene that happens on
October 26. Watch it tonight and enjoy.
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, Billy. At
school she does not fit in and can’t 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 hobo 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
Copyright by Ivan Walters in
2014.
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