Film fans best know the work of Marjorie Kiniston Rawlings through the adaption of her best known work The Yearling and the later filming of an original story for the screen in The Sun Comes Up. Cross Creek is our opportunity to look inside the mind and character of the woman who was the creator of these classics.

As played beautifully by Mary Steenburgen, we meet Rawlings during the Twenties as a woman with a passion to go to the land and a burning desire to write. She's been submitting potboiler romance novels to publishers who keep telling her to reach for her soul in her writings.

Steenburgen divorces her husband and moves to some Florida swamp land which she by dint of her own hard work and the help of neighbors, she turns into a decent patch for an orange grove. One of them, storekeeper Peter Coyote, evinces more than a neighborly interest.

It's her letters from her town of Cross Creek that excite Steenburgen's potential publisher, Malcolm McDowell, the simple lives and dignity of her neighbors with all their flaws. Especially neighbor Rip Torn and his family, they become the models for the characters in The Yearling.

Cross Creek earned Academy Award nominations for Rip Torn as Best Supporting Actor and Alfre Woodard playing a black woman who Steenburgen takes in and works for her. Cross Creek also got nominations for Best Music Score and Costume Design. Why Mary Steenburgen wasn't nominated for Best Actress is a mystery.

One really ought to see Cross Creek back to back with The Sun Comes Up which was Rawlings original work for the screen and was Jeanette MacDonald's last film. Seeing Cross Creek puts a lot of The Sun Comes Up in context with MacDonald's character and with how Rawlings is interpreted by Steenburgen. Both films will take on a new dimension if anyone has not seen the other.

Cross Creek is one excellent piece of film making about the genesis of a great American writer.

MARY STEENBURGEN gives a nice, subdued performance as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of "The Yearling"),who relocates to the Florida swamplands when she wants isolation so she can concentrate on her writing. After difficulties in getting her Gothic work published, she decides to take her publisher's advice and write from experience about the characters she comes into contact with in her new locale.

There's a lot of regional flavor here and the color photography captures the mood and life style of the determined novelist as she sets about turning a hut into a habitable environment so she can pursue her work. As a story of a strong minded woman overcoming hardships, the film succeeds on its own terms.

This will probably have its strongest appeal for anyone familiar with the Rawlings work. One can see how certain incidents (the girl who loved her little fawn, for example),became part of "The Yearling".

Martin Ritt's direction brings the Florida backwoods scenes to life with some realistic performances from PETER COYOTE, RIP TORN and MALCOM McDOWELL (Steenburgen's real-life husband) as Miss Rawlings' publisher.

Summing up: A story of limited appeal, a bit slow moving with some interesting vignettes.

I was inspired to revisit this classic after seeing Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time with Malcolm McDowell. McDowell had a small part in this film also as Rawlings' publisher.

Eighty years ago, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings gave up everything to move to Florida and write. She went as far away from everything as you could go. In the land of orange groves, cypress trees, and wildlife abundant, she found the inspiration she needed. This is her story.

It is peppered with colorful characters that lived in the backwoods of Florida, a place that hardly exists anymore with all the development. It featured outstanding performances by Rip Torn as her neighbor, Peter Coyote as the one who was trying to win her heart, Dana Hill as the young girl that inspired "The Yearling," and Alfre Woodard in one of her first roles.

Torn and Woodard got Oscar nominations for their performances.

One of the most impressive features of the film, other than showing the beauty of Florida that is long gone, is the respect shown for the land by Rawlings. Any Native American would be proud of her respect for the land.

It is an inspirational family film that is worth revisiting over and over.