Review Date 1/16/2018PLEASE BEWARE OF SOME REVIEWERS THAT ONLY HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. NOW I HAVE NO AGENDA! I REVIEW MOVIES & SPECIALS AS A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN! I HAVE DISCOVERED MANY GEMS IN MY QUEST TO SEE AS MANY " C H R I S T M A S " MOVIES AS I CAN. Now Someone keeps reporting my reviews. I guess they are jealous because I do tell the truth. I want to point out that I never make snide remarks about actors weight or real life sexual orientation. If there acting is terrible or limited "I talk about that". If a story is bad "I will mention that" So why am I being "picked on"? IMDB? When one of my reviews gets deleted IMDB will not even tell me what someone found offensive. Well on to this review.I have never herd of this film it was part of 4 DVD pack of what Warner Brothers Stated as "Four Holiday Classic Films".This film starts off as a pioneer story. Two Newly Weds making a home in America without a dime to their name. Before long they have 6 children. The mother names all of the children after her brothers and sisters.The last 30 minutes of this film sends this into a different direction. The 6 children are now to be separated after the death of their parents. The oldest child seeks homes before the state takes them away. If they do that he might never see any of them again!This film was very slow. The last 30 minutes is very heartbreaking! The makers of this film should have made the main about a boy seeking a home for his siblings. Instead we get an hour of a pioneers!

Because it is one of the most emotional movies I have seen in a long time. I watched it with my family on Christmas Eve and there was not a dry eye in our living room!! A Scotsman and his young wife come to America to live the life they've heard is wonderful, and for a few years, everything is well. They have beautiful children and a prosperous life. But as is with many of the early pioneer families in America, tragedy is just around the bend, and it certainly wreaks havoc with this clan.If you love movies/stories like Mrs. Mike and the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, you will certainly love this very powerfully acted and poignant family film. I don't believe it is a Disney picture, but it has that same great quality.But as I said, you'd best have tons of Kleenex in reach. It WILL make you cry, unless you have a particularly hard heart!! Especially toward the end, when young Robbie becomes "the man of the family".

Such a story goes frankly and unblushingly for the tear ducts, but for some reason this one didn't quite get mine. There was some quality in the stoic big brother--or lacking in the stoic big brother--that just did not draw me in. Or perhaps when the tragedy is as blatant as it is here, my remove and reserve are self-protective. Anyway, if you really do go for stories about families dismantled child by child for everyone's own good, you should look for an old TV movie, "Who Will Love My Children," from 1983. It too is based on a true story, only the stoic in this case is the children's mother, dying from cancer, who decides to give her many children away while she's still living so that she can make sure they'll be in good homes. So she packs them off, one by one, to separate families, while her alcoholic and ineffective husband fumes impotently in the background. If you like tearjerkers, you'll love this one.

The acting was good. I thought Cameron Mitchell and Glynis Johns worked well together. I got caught up in the delightful nuances of a family doing the best they could during this time in Wisconsin. The setting was simple, but the theme was heart-rending. It reminds me that we on this planet can be one family. In dire straits, we should help and learn from each other. I was riveted to the set as I watched the drama unfold. We take for granted our present state of medicine. Long ago, there were no cures for these diseases. Times are tough now, but they were tougher then. I recommend this movie as one that demonstrates the bonds between siblings.