This is an overlooked John Wayne movie ,as well as an overlooked Hathaway's -who in his long career produced more great or good movies than wretched ones :"Peter Ibbetson" is one of the most beautiful romantic movies I know,"lives of a Bengal lancer is adventures movie quintessence and "Niagara" remains one of Marilyn Monroe's best films ,to name but three.

John Wayne is cast against type in "the shepherd" ;he is not really the he-man but a frail human being ,born under a bad sign , with a curse hanging over him .The characters and the atmosphere are not unlike those of "the trail of the lonesome pine" which Hathaway made five years earlier ,with the same wonderful color.

Some scenes are admirable:when Wayne 's old man enters the room of the old home,he feels a presence in the room : the furniture, the things ,everything reminds him of the woman he's never stopped loving (he is as romantic as Peter Ibbetson!).Another memorable scene shows the old man and his son fishing in the river :watch closely and you'll hear a ravaged tale ;the gentler side of the movie hides real fury (and Hathaway does not indulge himself a flashback of the stormy fateful night).

Actually,John Wayne 's character is not so much bitter as wistful and it's one of the actors' best performances;but it's all the cast that should be praised .Add it to your Hathaway list.

This is John Wayne's first color film and he receives top billing, though clearly the star of this hillbilly movie is Harry Carey. Unfortunately, there were quite a few films about the Ozarks made during a 10 year stretch in the 30s and 40s and they were all pretty bad (such as SWING YOUR LADY, THE MILLERSON CASE and SPITFIRE). And while this movie isn't exactly bad, it sure isn't good--due to weird script writing and some over the top performances (particularly Beulah Bondi who plays a character like a mean version of Granny from "The Beverly Hillbillies").

Harry Carey is a stranger to the mountains and wants to buy land and move there. Considering that there is no logical reason for a stranger to move there, it's amazing how long it takes the residents to realize who he really is. At the same time, John Wayne (who seems rather out of place in this hillbilly heaven) broods about how he hates the father who abandoned him--yet he and so many others don't bother putting it all together to realize his father is Carey. Now I know that this technically is a spoiler (so it is noted),but every member of the audience guessed this LONG before the folks did in the movie. Sadly, I think the idea that mountain folk are superstitious idiots is how you are supposed to rationalize how none of them figured this out for the longest time! I'm sure most Arkansans groan when such stereotypes appear on film.

Despite beautiful color cinematography, there isn't much to recommend this dull little film due to dumb (and occasionally cartoon-like) characters, a silly plot and a rather listless pace. While it's far from horrible, it's nothing like you'd expect from John Wayne and it's only passable entertainment.

Herbert J. Yates of Republic Pictures must have gotten a tidy sum from Paramount for the use of his number one star for his first technicolor feature film.

Shepherd of the Hills was the first film in which John Wayne worked with director Henry Hathaway. They didn't work together again for another 19 years and then in the Sixties did four films culminating with Wayne's Oscar winning performance in True Grit.

In fact Hathaway had directed the first outdoor technicolor film in the same Ozark area for Paramount five years earlier in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.

You think of this area of the country and you either think of the comic characters of The Beverly Hillbillies or the inbred freaks of Deliverance. In both films Hathaway avoids those stereotypes and he creates characters of dignity and strength.

John Wayne is Matt Matthews whose father left his mother before she was born and she died leaving him to be raised by his aunt Beulah Bondi. Bondi's a bitter old woman who fills the Duke's head with evil thoughts about his father.

A stranger comes to their valley and has a lot of money, buys a piece of property from the Matthews clan and settles there. Harry Carey wins over most of the people there with several acts of kindness and charity. He especially makes a big fan of Betty Field who's a hankerin' after the Duke.

Carey's got a past secret and I think if you read the review you can figure out what it is without me being explicit. But all is revealed in the end and it's worth the wait.

Wayne and Carey have a great chemistry between them because next to John Ford, Harry Carey was probably the single biggest influence in creating a star named John Wayne from a USC football player named Marion Michael Morrison who earned some extra money working as a prop man on silent movie sets. The same rapport between them is also carried over to The Angel and the Badman which Wayne produced himself.

Shepherd of the Hills is a good film about some simple people with some great performances by the entire cast.