Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Excellent adaptation.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I'd like to know why the motion picture academy felt that Rupert Crosse deserved an Oscar nomination in the supporting category for this 1968 film? There was nothing to him as a black member of a Mississippi family in 1905. If anything, acting honors should have gone to Mitch Vogel, as the young boy caught up in the mayhem that pursues when Steve McQueen and Crosse persuade the young man to take to them to Memphis to a house of ill repute.The film, which is the typical coming of age movie, even for the period, tells the adventures that they encounter on their way and at Memphis.There is plenty of racism. Ruth White as the head of the brothel? Come on. She, who was so good, as Rod Steiger's first victim in "No Way to Treat a Lady," is as sexy as an old prune.Will Geer shines as an understanding grandfather,and Burgess Meredith recounts the story as the man the Vogel character was as a young boy. Vogel gave a very sensitive, restrained performance.

Having read the novel itself, I can confidently say that this film is as faithful an adaptation as one could expect. Given the nature of Faulkner's prose and the average length of a feature film, I really don't know how one could hold out for anything better. The basic storyline is fully represented, and the amount of license taken is quite trivial. This is probably Faulkner's only attempt at a real comedy, and that is what this film reproduces. Purists may disagree, but I have no sympathy for them. They are the architects of their own frustrations. I would caution families, however, that the PG-13 rating is fully warranted, and I would not deem it appropriate for my own children when they were below that age. Car stealing, lying to family, whore mongering, and gambling on horses are not good examples of conduct, and although the story teaches a valid lesson about growing up, I do not think that most children under 13 need to be exposed to much of it. Better that they, like the 11-year-old Lucius, retain their innocence unless they are precocious enough to understand the consequences of such behavior, which many adult-age children today still are not.

This was a great film written by the famous writer William Faulkner dealing with an old man going back to his youth sixty years ago. Steve McQueen, (Boon Hogganbeck) along with a few of his friends decided to take a trip from Mississippi to Memphis in an old time car which was relatively new during this period of time and taking along a very young boy named Lucius, (Mitch Vogel). Boon takes Lucius into a brothel where he stays over night in Memphis and learns a great deal about the birds and the bees and especially from a sweet kind lady named Carrie, (Sharon Farrell) who is a gal very much in love with Boon. There is a horse race and lots of laughs and drama to go along with the rest of the picture. There was a great deal of problems between the director of this film Mark Rydell and Steve McQueen, but the film was finally completed but the producer would never direct another picture with McQueen.

I recall first seeing this movie on TV in July of 1978 & just by chance as I was sitting on my family room couch I was immediately taken away by both the scenery & narration @ once.By The way the narration is by The Late Burgess Meredith as The Grown up Lucius. Next after that came an interesting aspect of American history when people of any age could drive just by being taught on the spot as that boy Lucius was right after the beautiful scenery of which the film began with.It's very inspirational from start to finish & beyond the film's ending in addition to how as one good when I didn't even ever know of the film's name for 21 years in part because the story & scenery took me away so that I didn't need to know the name in order to be impressed as well as to be taken away through time & imagery & so that in conclusion when I saw the ad for this years later & there was just no mistaking that scenery for another scenery & I then watched it after the ad of which told it was coming up next & to no surprise I was right got to watching it again & now even have it on tape & feel that everyone should as well because it's very awe inspiring & as well as a very educational aspect of our American History & in addition to that knowing another work of William Faulkner's outside "As I Lay Dying." of which I read in American Literature back in 1984.Watch in The Reivers for Will Geer as That grandpa called Boss and before he was made famous as Grandpa Walton.However If you get the copy of this movie like on the wide screen DVD with both the top and bottom black borders you may like me find it both distracting as well as unnecessary. Truthfully, Stephen "Steve" G. Baer a.k.a. "Ste" of Framingham,Ma.USA