Like other reviewers, I was going to avoid this movie within the first few minutes because of its austere quality. Black and white, gritty, bare-boned filming and direction looking at awkward people in a strangely quiet way. A scraping by man that is one step away from Adam in implements scratching out a living suddenly comes by an ailing pregnant woman who he befriends and keeps alive by stretching the tight shoestring he's already living on, taut to its limit.But then, as the story unfolds, you realize it HAD to be shot in black and white; it had to have that raw, gritty quality. That's the nature of the story. That's the power of it.I agree, too, with other reviewers that if (as some of us have been theorizing) the woman and her child were written to be Black, that would bring several new levels of poignancy to every aspect of the film. And you can read that in as you watch and appreciate those nuances for yourself though they're not spelled out in the film. I also had the strange thought while watching of how great it would have been to have Johnny and June Carter Cash playing the leads, since this film was made in their heyday. But that's just me.Yet even as it is, this is a rare piece of coal that under the pressure of tough times shows itself to be a diamond. Not to be missed.

This is a very down to earth film story written by William Faulkner concerning a cotton farmer named Jackson Fentry, (Robert Duvall) who lives in the South and he is a poor person but also works as a watchman over a saw mill during the Winter. One day Jackson goes outside and hears the sound of a person in distress and discovers a woman, Sarah Eubanks, (Olga Belin) who is pregnant and he decides to help her and he takes good care of her. As the picture moves on the story becomes quite interesting and you will never be able to figure out just how this great film ends. The pace of this film is very slow and the actor Robert Duvall creates a great Southern accent and speaks his lines with a real Southern drawl along with a great actress, Olga Belin. Enjoy.

A lonely sawmill operator in the Mississippi Delta, Jackson Fentry, assumes the responsibility of caring for a fleeing pregnant woman. He falls in love with her and pleads with her several times to marry him. She finally relents after the baby is born. He then cares for the baby as his own child and they become very attached. When the child is three or four years old, his unsavory uncles and mother's family come and virtually kidnap him. Fentry is devastated but goes on with his life. Years later he refuses to vote guilty while a member of the jury in murder trial, and this story explains why.Faulkner is so tied to place that most attempts at filming his works fall short of conveying his intent. Tomorrow, however, really does look right, and only The Reivers has conveyed as much sense of place. Duvall's sensitive performance is played off perfectly by Olga Ballin's Sarah. She is whimsical without being fey and tragic without being lugubrious. Duvall's accent is a little trying at first, but once you listen for a few minutes, it resonates as the only possible way his character could express himself. The grinding poverty of the rural South from 1865 until after World War II comes across vividly. The tableaux depict the stark dignity of these sharecropper's lives as eloquently as Let us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans. Duvall has a right to be proud of this performance.

This movie predates some of Duvall's more critically acclaimed and popularly received turns, but in truth, this may be the finest acting job of his career. Duvall is this film, and he has made this kind of intense, honest character study his own (Tender Mercies, The Apostle, The Great Santini). The black and white cinematography is perfectly suited to the story and the acting. It works as a far more honest story-telling device than Spielberg's "Schindler's List." This is a must-see for Duvall fans and for fans of small, independent films as well.