Those Calloways (Disney) (1964)

| The Story | In the small New England town of Swiftwater lives a man, Cam Calloway (BRIAN KEITH), whose fondest hope is to one day establish a sanctuary for the great flocks of wild geese which each year fly over the town, sometimes stopping off at a nearby lake on the long, arduous migration south. Cam is a trapper and rugged woodsman who seems to have stemmed from the very roots of the forest. Because of his dream, and his desire to move deeper and deeper into the woods with his loving wife Liddy (VERA MILES) and strapping, 19year-old son Bucky (BRANDON DE WILDE), Cam and his family are called ‘“‘those Crazy Calloways’’ by townsfolk who don’t hold with their advanced ideas and woodsy ways. The story opens with Bucky, in town to pick up his Ma’s mail from pretty Bridie Mellot (LINDA EVANS), watching Whit Turner (TOM SKERRITT) raising his gun against a flight of geese. Bucky flies into a rage and sails into the older, burlier youth. The fight ends badly for Bucky. On Christmas Eve, the Calloways host their friends from town including Bridie and her parents (JOHN LARKIN and RENEE GODFREY), the town crier, Alf Simes (WALTER BRENNAN), Cam’s Indian companion, Nigosh (FRANK DEKOVA), the town character, Ed Parker (ED WYNN) and the local humorist, Nat Perkins (PAUL HARTMAN). The Calloways’ high hopes for the sanctuary are shattered when the fur market drops out from under them. Loan shark Doane Shattuck (PARLEY BAER) forecloses the mortgage on the Calloway home, and the family must move to the lake. While father and son are building a foundation for a new cabin, Dell Fraser (PHILLIP ABBOTT), a traveling salesman who is scheming to convert Swiftwater into a resort for shooting wild geese and needs Cam’s know how to bring the geese down every year, visits the lake posing as a bird fancier. He tells Cam that his boss, Mr. Fletcher of Burlington (ROY ROBERTS), would be happy to give Cam $200 for a sanctuary if he can bring the geese down every year. The woodsman reveals that by planting sweet corn in the marshes, he could guarantee geese annually. Cam innocently accepts the money, buys the corn, and plants it. Several weeks later, when young Calloway is in town to pick up supplies, Whit Turner maliciously reveals that Dell Fraser tricked Cam into planting corn to bring the geese down so that he and his boss could make the town into a shooting resort. Bucky calls him a liar and they fight. Hours of practice with the punching bag have paid off. Bucky knocks him to the ground with a hard right to the jaw. Bridie drives Bucky home in a buckboard and tells him that Dell Fraser has convinced the greedy town folk that they will get rich by selling their marshland to his boss and making a profit on the tourist trade. The next morning Cam awakes to the sound of guns firing. He races to the blind, grabs at the protruding barrels, and is accidentally shot. Cam is carried to the Calloway cabin. Bucky goes for the doctor while Ma stops the blood from flowing. Cam’s life hangs by a thread ali during the night while his family and the doctor sit in vigil. In the town, where there is a great deal of alarm over the shooting, town crier Alf Simes calls a general meeting. He tells the villagers that Dell Fraser has made a fool of them; that the town would be turned into a carnival if its people sold their land to a crook like Fraser. He gets them to sign a petition authorizing the United States government to buy the marshland for a wild goose sanctuary. With daybreak comes more good news. The crisis has past. Cam will live, so that he will know that his dream is bound to become a reality. ee. ae Mat CAL-2F OLD TIMERS Walter Brennan and Ed Wynn enjoy a bit of humor in Walt Disney’s Technicolor feature, “Those Calloways.’’ The unusual film drama stars Brian Keith, Vera Miles, Brandon de Wilde and Linda Evans. THOSE CALLOWA YS’ STARS BOAST 160 YEARS ON STAGE AND SCREEN If experience has anything to do with acting ability, and most authorities agree it is essential, the cast of Walt Disney’s outdoor drama, “Those Calloways,’’ has to be one of the best ever assembled. Altogether, Brian Keith, Vera Miles, Brandon de Wilde, Walter Brennan and Ed Wynn represent 160 years of experience in show business. Listing them by seniority, Wynn, who is 78 now and still going strong, has been gagging it up for 62 years. The old Fire Chief started out in the early days of vaudeville, and says he is going to keep it up ‘‘until they can’t stand me any more.” He plays a hard-of-hearing heckler who has a knack for saying the wrong thing at the right time in “Those Calloways.”’ Walter Brennan, who recently celebrated his seventieth birthday, started out as a movie stunt rider 46 years ago, and has played in scores of features and hundreds of television shows since. The three-time Academy Award winner plays a convincing town crier who takes up the Calloway cause in his first role for Disney. He is also the star of the TV series, “Tycoon.” Brian Keith has twenty years of SNE OOS Mat CAL-1H EXCITING NEWCOMER Linda Evans plays a romantic role opposite Brandon de Wilde in Walt Disney’s Technicolor feature, “Those Calloways.” Brian Keith and Vera Miles also star. acting behind him, ten of them on the New York stage. As Cam Calloway, a man of the woods with a dream as big as all outdoors, Keith has his most demanding role to date, and his eighth starring assignment for Disney. Vera Miles, as beautiful and svelte as she was when she came to Hollywood as second runner-up in the Miss America contest seventeen years ago, plays Liddy Calloway, a backwoods wife with an edge to her tongue and a heart full of love, in this her second feature assignment for Walt. Brandon de Wilde was the towheaded youngster who charmed millions in “Member of the Wedding’ and ‘Shane’? on Broadway and in motion pictures a dozen years ago. Twenty-three now, and a handsome lad, Brandon fulfills all of the promise of his youth as Bucky Calloway in the picture. In color by Technicolor, “Those Calloways’”’ was directed by Norman Tokar. Winston Hibler coproduced with Walt Disney. The screenplay by Louis Pelletier is based on Paul Annixter’s novel, “Swiftwater.” Bear Versus Baer WALT DISNEY STAR VERA MILES HAS THE WORLD AT HER FEET Vera Miles is a perfect example of the heights that a beautiful woman with determination and talent can reach in Hollywood. At the moment, the auburn-haired, blue-eyed actress has the world at her feet; she is a movie star, the happy mother of four handsome, intelligent children, and the loving and well-loved wife of a successful man. But life wasn’t always so sweet for the former beauty queen. She has made her own way since she was fourteen, earning room and board at the YWCA in Wichita, Kansas by serving meals and working at the Western Union Telegraph office after school. Vera had a tough time making ends meet from the time she was born until she won third place in a Miss America contest, and the Hollywood contract that went with it. In ‘Those Calloways,” her second feature motion picture for Walt Disney, she plays the backwoods wife of a man who gives her “‘none of the things a woman wants and the one thing she really needs.” Liddy Calloway is a strong-willed woman with an edge to her tongue and a heart full of love. It’s a difficult and demanding role. It covers the entire tapestry of human emotions. That’s the kind that suits Miss Miles just fine, because no matter how tough things are for the woman in the story, Vera has had it tougher at one time or another. Not that she has any regrets. She doesn’t. She feels that having to become independent early in life taught her human values and made her more appreciPee of the simple things in ife. Vera was born near Boise City, Oklahoma to Thomas and Bernice Ralston who promptly moved to Provides Comic Highlight of ‘Those Calloways’ One of the comic highlights of Walt Disney’s outdoor drama, “Those Calloways,” is provided by an oversized black bear named Carroll, and an overweight actor named Parley Baer. In the picture, Carroll, a 500 pound he-bear named after showman Eddie Carroll, plays the pet of the Calloway family, and Parley portrays a_ penny-pinching Paul Hartman a Hoofer Again in ‘Galloways’ Paul Hartman, dancerturned-actor who is hoofing again for Walt Disney in “Those Calloways,” likes to recall how he made the big time twenty years ago. During the early 1940’s, Paul and his wife, Grace, were touring small-town theatres and nightclubs as classical ballroom dancers. One night in Portland, Oregon, Hartman accidentally threw his wife over his shoulder and through the flimsy background scenery. Only her feelings were hurt. The audience thought it was intentional, and burst out laughing. They thought the team was especially funny when Hartman couldn’t find his partner. The couple changed their billing to “‘The Hart mans, Satiric Dancers,’’ and became headliners almost overnight. In this, his first Disney picture, Paul plays a small town character and the sidekick of funny man, Ed Wynn. He also leads a group of country folk in a hoe-down which, he says, ‘“‘might be a come-down for a ballroom dancer, but a darn sight easier for a man my age.” Vermonter. The two meet unexpectedly when Parley comes to the Calloway cabin to foreclose the mortgage on the place. Since visitors are few and far between, the big black bear is very excited about the new arrival; so much so that he is all for giving him an affectionate hug. But Mr. Baer doesn‘t realize that brother bear is the friendly, domesticated type, and faints dead away. Ma Calloway, who previously had tossed Carroll out on his can when he got too friendly with the family larder, finally comes to the rescue. She sends Carroll on his merry way with a swat on his rear end, and brings her visitor back to consciousness with a bucket of water. In color by Technicolor, “Those Calloways”’ stars Brian Keith, Vera Miles, Brandon de Wilde, Walter Brennan, Ed Wynn and Linda Evans. ‘alt Disney Productions Mat CAL-2E H 964 Walt Disney Productio Settee uUUU nnn “Mat CAL-1B VERA MILES Pratt, Kansas. She has no recollection of her father, a lay minister who divorced her mother and went his own way when she was three. About the only thing she remembers about her childhood is picking mulberries during the long, hot summers. 4) One of the rewards for being elected prom queen in her senior year at Wichita High School was a free course in modeling. She parlayed her newly learned poise and perfect face and figure into first place in the Miss Wichita contest, did the same in the Miss Kansas contest, and finally took third place in the Miss America pageant at Atlantic City. Basically shy, Vera was motivated by her desire to become a school teacher. Each finalist was given a $500 scholarship to the college of her choice. Neither an RKO contract, nor a later one with 20th Century-Fox, produced a moment before the cameras because, “I didn’t care about acting and it showed up in the screen tests,’ she says. ‘All I wanted to be was a school teacher.’ She began working toward this goal at Glendale Junior College near Los Angeles. During a summer vacation, Vera played her first professional role in “For Men Only,” for producerdirector Paul Henreid. Next she appeared in “The Rose Bowl Story” and “The Charge at Feather River,” and, suddenly, she realized that she wanted to become an actress after all. “All of a sudden I realized that acting was a wonderful form of art that could mean a great deal if done properly.” Her opportunity came with live television, in its early, creative days of “Studio One,” ‘General Electric Theatre” and “Lux.” Vera played in all of them, and made her mark as a dramatic actress. When Alfred Hitchcock signed her to an exclusive contract and starred her in several of his television shows, she was on her way. Vera went on to fame in some of Hollywood’s biggest hits, including “Psycho,” ‘‘The Searchers,” ‘“Autumn Leaves,” “23 Paces to Baker Street,”’ “The F.B.I. Story,” ‘Beyond This Place,’ “A Touch of Larceny” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” CRISIS — Brian Keith is unconscious from a gunshot wound. Watching anxiously are Vera Miles, Frank de Kova and the doctor. The scene is from Walt Disney's powerful new Technicolor feature, “Those Calloways.”