I noticed that one reviewer read the books of the author who came up with this story and they were very disappointed in the film. That is often the case--films usually do compare poorly to the movie versions. However, since I've never read anything by Zenna Henderson, the film was just fine to me...and I assume that if you haven't read the books you'll enjoy this unusual film.When the film begins, a young and eager new school teacher (Kim Darby) is excited to be going to a very isolated town out west to teach. However, it soon becomes apparent that this is no ordinary town...they are all a bunch of weirdos. It isn't that they are bad...but the way they react to her and things in general is very odd. They appear humorless and almost emotionless and it's not easy teaching kids who grow up in this strange cult-like environment. But, being an installment of "The ABC Movie of the Week", you KNOW it's got to have a weird secret...but I don't want to ruin the suspense so I'll say not more about the plot.The bottom line is that if you like fantasy or sci-fi, you'll likely enjoy this picture. I appreciated how the secret did NOT turn out to necessarily be a bad or malevolent thing and the film was very satisfying. Plus, it was nice to see Darby and William Shatner in this one as they both had previously acted together in the "Star Trek" episode, "Miri"...where Darby played a teenager infatuated with the dashing Captain.

ABC's "Movie of the Week" truly captured my attention with this film, which had Kim Darby and William Shatner. The star-power was secondary to the story here, and I fell in love with the concepts of The People. Imagine my surprise when just a couple of years later my literature textbook in grade school contained one of the Zenna Henderson stories on which this movie was based. I looked up her printed work, which in even a university library was confined to one or two hardback volumes, and enjoyed learning more about this very down-to-earth outer space idea that she developed with so many connected tales. I loved the warm heart that pulsed underneath the sci-fi framework. Jeremy Francher is a character I will remember forever. I'm glad an old country doctor, played by Shatner(!), could save him ... with a little help!

Despite the fact it is often set in some remote setting, temporal or spatial, science fiction reflects the sensibilities of its own timeframe more than any other genre. This science fiction TV movie evokes a strong memory from my youth that is as much semi-personal cultural artifact as it is broadcast entertainment.In the early 1970's, there were a number of us, adults and children, who lived "apart" from the everyday society: rural, rustic, spiritual seekers, community-minded, experimental and questioning. We looked to the past to create the future. Many of us ended up in Marin County, in the northern section of the San Francisco Bay Area.It is never really possible to perfectly signal the everyday mood of a cultural zeitgeist, though all movies attempt to, in varying degrees of success and intentionality. "The People," while to some a modest and moderately successful literary adaptation, is, to me, a stunning capture of the "mood" of Bolinas, California, 1971. The social remove of the "people" acted as an allegory for our cultural dissatisfaction. Step backwards. While a lot of people in this time/place avoided television (though not my family), the broadcast of this movie generated a great deal of excitement for at least three main reasons.At the top of reasons were the crew involved. The director, John Korty, was local to the area (though I forget exactly from where...) Also, of great interest was in the scene in which the schoolchildrens' story was told. Arthur Okamura was a Bolinas artist who did the illustrative paintings. (He also happened to be my father's best friend at the time.) Of course, for Northern California grounding, there is the ubiquitous Coppola involvement. Another reason for the interest were the filming locations in Northern California. This was before every other movie was made in an over-speculated and glamorized-to-death San Francisco. The final reason is the message of the film, most importantly the final scene in which the group is able to act as a single healing force. This manages to fairly sum up the collective dream of our little alternative society.Is it a good movie? I actually can't say.Then what can be said about this movie? Mostly is quite amazing that such a pristine cultural document exists in the form of a network movie of the week from its own era. Thousands of portrayals of "hippies" exist from the time, this is one of the few that is the real deal. It feels like an subversive art film that managed to get commercial sponsors.That's pretty, uh, cool...

I saw this when it first came out (I was at an SF Con at the time) and then later in a re-run. Considering the budget constraints of 1970s TV Sci-Fi movies, they did an impressive amount of story telling, mixing two of the first 'People' stories to re-cast the tale for non-fans. The cast gives good performances (Shatner is not the ham he usually is), the 'special effects' are limited to wires and a series of crayon drawn pictures which tell the background very effectively. This is actually the second 'People' filming -- Science Fiction Theater ripped off the same story for one of its episodes. Zenna Henderson's People stories were collected by NESFA Press and can be found at Amazon.com and elsewhere.