the town of Jackson and features the nearby Chapel of the Transfiguration. Although the original novel was set in the Appalachians of Virginia, Hamner said in 1963 that Daves wanted more imposing mountains to emphasize the characters' isolation and struggles with their environment. The novel and the film became the basis for the long-running television series The Waltons, which premiered in 1972. The series switched the setting from the film's Wyoming back to the novel's Virginia, and placed the action in 1933 during the Great Depression. The series also differed from both the film and novel by playing down many of the adult themes, including alcoholism and infidelity, to suit the standards of early-70s family television. Spencer's Mountain was the second of three films co-starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara. Twenty years earlier they starred in the war drama Immortal Sergeant (1943) and, ten years after Spencer's Mountain, played the leads in the made-for-television film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel The Red Pony (1973), directed and co-written by Spencer's Mountain second unit director Robert Totten. Reception In May 1963, The New York Times' critic Bosley Crowther contrasted the “slicked up...synthetic and essentially insincere” film with the novel, “(which) tells a very real and very moving story of a dirt-poor family that lives in the hard-scrabble, unglamorous mountains of southwest Virginia.” Film critic Judith Crist, writing in the New York Herald Tribune, criticized the adult aspects of the movie's plot, saying it showed "sheer prurience and perverted morality," and adding that "it makes the nudie shows at the Rialto look like Walt Disney productions." References External links Cactus Pryor Interviews Henry Fonda about Spencer's Mountain (1963) Celebrities Attend Dedication of Spencer's Mountain (1963) 1963 films 1963 drama films American drama films 1960s English-language films Films about families Films based on American novels Films directed by Delmer Daves Films scored by Max Steiner Films set in the 1960s Films set in Wyoming Films shot in Wyoming The Waltons Warner Bros. films 1960s American films