Having worked his way up from second features and through television to the 1963 John Wayne brawler 'McLintock!', this was plainly Andrew V. McLaglen's attempt to make a enduring classic western for grown-ups. Beautifully produced and acted, James Stewart is obviously having a great time in the showy lead role.James Lee Barrett's script is lovingly crafted, but the care he has put into it is rather too obvious and his contrivances too contrived (like the 'surprise' ending unlikely to have surprised anyone who's been paying attention), while the film's vaguely liberal anti-war position is one of many potentially provocative themes - such as Stewart's disdain for religion - that don't really lead anywhere (too bad Barrett's later hawkish screenplay for 'The Green Berets' couldn't have been as ambiguous).Many of the film's attitudes inevitably reflect the early 1960s rather than the early 1860s, while Jennie (Rosemary Forsyth) just happening to prove a crack shot is one of many elements that are a bit too good to be true. Ironically it's usually the women that look too modern in such films, but it's Stewart's boys that here look far too much like square-jawed, floppy-haired sixties hunks.

Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, and written by James Lee Barrett, this Civil War film stars James Stewart as the father of six sons and one daughter he'd raised solo for the past 16 years since his wife died giving birth to their youngest son.The war is raging and though Stewart's family lives in Shenandoah, Virginia, he wishes not to get involved. Though not really a pacifist, Stewart's character thinks that his family has worked hard, by themselves without any slaves, to earn what they've got, so why should they fight someone else's battle. As the war gets closer to their farm, they are drawn unavoidable into the conflict when his youngest son is mistaken for a "Johnny Reb" (Southern) soldier and taken prisoner by the Union Army.Though the movie succeeds on some levels, it fails to make the emotional impact it was striving for such that leaves one with a sense of what it could have been, instead of what it is. It was nominated for a Best Sound Oscar and marks the film debut of Katharine Ross.Charlie Anderson (Stewart) has six sons including Jacob (Glenn Corbett), James (Patrick Wayne), who is married to Ann (Ross), and one daughter Jennie (Rosemary Forsyth), his eldest who is as good a shot, rider, and just as tough as his sons. His youngest son, whom he calls Boy (Phillip Alford), is sixteen, which marks the number of years since his wife died giving birth to him. Though the Civil War, and particularly the Southern Army, beckons, the self made farmer refuses to get involved. Denver Pyle plays the community pastor. A lieutenant in the army, Sam (Doug McClure), courts and eventually marries Jennie. James & Ann have a daughter, they name Martha after Charlie's long deceased wife. Paul Fix plays the doctor.The Andersons successfully defend their horses from being acquired by the Southerners, but Boy gets mistaken for a soldier in the South's army by an ambushed Union patrol, which then takes him hostage. Anderson then leads the rest of his family on a quest to find his son, leaving James and Ann at home to care for his granddaughter. Tragically, the Andersons suffer casualties much like the rest of the families during the "war between the states".George Kennedy plays a Union colonel he meets on the journey; Strother Martin plays a Union train engineer; James Best plays a rebel soldier who befriends Boy; Harry Carey Jr. plays another rebel soldier; Kevin Hagen plays a rebel deserter.

Jimmy Stewart plays a dumb rancher who tries to find his lost son (named 'Boy').After his half-wit load puts on a confederate cap, wanders around in the soldier-filled woods, and expectedly gets conscripted, Stewart must search for the little numbskull, though the better deal would be to let the Yankees have him.It soon becomes evident that 'Boy' got his stupidity from Stewart. Jimbo takes four of his sons with him and leaves only one to watch the considerably large homestead along with his wife and infant.Other goofy elements include Stewart preparing a 'honeymoon suite' for his daughter and her idiot husband while her father and four brothers sit quietly in the next room.Ultimately silly Civil War film; Kevin Hagan ('Doc Baker' on "Little House on the Prairie") is terrifying as a murdering thief.

There are many historical inaccuracies in this movie, I am aware of them. There are issues that some would mock that make the movie seem moronic concerning plot problem (i.e. the boy wearing the confederate hat and none of the family addressing that issue. But when you look at the many war movies of the 20th and 21st century you see so many horrid inconsistencies and outright instances of pure propaganda that glorify war and demonize various groups of people such as the southern citizens and Native Americans, I have no problem overlooking the errors of this movie when i see the underlying message speaks volumes to those who understand the the war in Vietnam and all the ensuing wars our nation has taken up in the name of "freedom" that has only furthered the military industrial complex and expanded the power of our tyrannical government. In light of these facts, I find that this movie is a refreshing change from so many movies that Hollywood churned out as propaganda that helped form an opinion that America was right to become an Imperialistic power to involve itself in so many countries and sacrifice our sons and daughters to further the immoral cause to spread "democracy" to other countries rather than fighting to keep our own country free of tyrants who call themselves "leaders" who answer to corporations and special interest groups.I feel that Jimmy Stewart's speeches throughout the movie, particularly to Johnson and at the end of the movie when he speaks to his dead wife at the grave encapsulate what most libertarians feel about the role of government in our lives. Leave us alone to raise our families and let us decide what is right for us. If you interfere with that you should expect us to withdraw our consent to be governed by you. After all, it was what our forefathers chose to do with the government of England and it led to the revolution. The War of Northern Aggression against the Southern States wasn't about Slavery, it was about the state's right to govern themselves. If they had been allowed to secede from the union slavery would have ended peacefully without the killing of so many men. 2 separate countries, one free and one slave holding could not have existed very long when slaves were able to flee to a free country without any threat of return. Brazil went through the same process during this time and eventually outlawed slavery without the bloodshed. War is never right, it is the worst possible solution, this movie clearly points this out when a man and his family is forced to engage in this war. the outcome is never positive.