User Reviews

"The People" is based entirely on one of Zenna Henderson's short stories, "Pottage", which appeared in the brilliant book "Pilgrimage: The Book of the People" back in the '60s. "Pottage" is the darkest of the stories, centering on a group of people living in fear and isolation in the tiny town of Bendo, and the teacher, Melodye, who learns the truth of their origins and the secrets they keep.

In the book you've already read about The People in two other stories so you have a good idea what's coming. In the movie this should have been a major bit of suspense... but it wasn't. The written story is far more compelling than what appears on screen. Kim Darby plays Melodye with warmth, but the frustration, determination, and courage in the story is somehow muted in her performance. William Shatner plays Dr. Curtis, who has a somewhat expanded role in the movie version. Dan O'Herlihy's performance as the stern Sol Deimus is the best translation of the character to the screen.

"The People" is entertaining if woodenly acted at times. If you find a copy and have an evening to kill it is probably worth your time, but by all means read the book.

Eager young schoolteacher, anxious for some peace and quiet in her life, accepts a teaching position in a mountain community with shuffling children who aren't allowed to sing, play music or have any fun; she seeks solace from the local doctor, who is the only resident with any personality. From Zenna Henderson's compilation of stories, this TV-movie, executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola, has an interesting main character (played well by Kim Darby) and scenario, but its explanation of the mystery is a little ritzy and complicated. Director John Korty sets a deliberately slow pace, with individual sequences edited to make a big impact. This works for awhile--aided by Darby's performance--until the plot loses momentum in the second-half. A tasty suggestion of what might have been, had Coppola aimed for a theatrical release with a bigger budget and a brighter script.

Well, darn... another movie that got completely ruined for me simply because I unsuspectingly read a plot synopsis somewhere. "The People" is about a young teacher who moves to a remote and secluded community (more remote or more secluded than this really isn't possible), but rapidly discovers there's something peculiar about this community. They have strange but very strict rules, and even stranger powers.

See, that is where any plot description for the film should stop, but the one I read - and almost every description/review since - also blatantly reveals the explanation of why the people in this little town are so strange. And you are not supposed to know that! It's called a plot twist!! When will websites learn?

Anyways, even with the climax ruined, "The People" remains an enjoyable made-for-television drama/thriller from the glorious early 70s. It isn't nearly as good or memorable as several other TV-thrillers from that era, but it features the same uncanny atmosphere, gritty setting, and enigmatic performances (notably from Dan Herlihy). William Shatner seems a bit disorientated as the hunky and charismatic doctor in a town where nobody cares about appearances, and lead actress Kim Darby has trouble carrying the film.

This movie is nothing if not sincere. It takes you on a bit of an emotional journey. First you want the heroine to get out of there and give these goof balls up. Then as she understands them a little better-you do too. A totally unexpected response. One can see the slow transformation of these kids and you begin to like them and root for the teacher. I watched this movie for the first time yesterday and I liked this movie, though I had never even heard of it before. Miss Darby has that simple charm and shy beauty that is rare for any one in Hollywood.

This TV movie opens with quiet menace as a teacher is dropped off at an isolated spot expecting to have somebody waiting for her. A woman appears from nowhere and tells the teacher that the strange acoustics of the area are deadened somehow by the mountains which accounts for her silent approach. Miss Amerson (Kim Darby) is running away from a relationship and taking on a teaching job far away even though she has been warned the community she is running to is weirdly isolationist. She tries to get the local children to express themselves freely but the children are quelled by the daughter of the head of the community. Even though the tight-lipped residents of the commune may seem to be under Puritanical law Miss Amerson learns that this not carried out on religious grounds. The lovely little white church of Nicasio California is the setting of the school of the film's fictional place-name of Bendo. William Shatner appears as Dr Curtis who is flummoxed by how immune to disease the Bendo people are. This mystery turns to sci-fi when Miss Amerson learns why the strange community needs to isolate themselves. She feels more of an outsider than she has ever done but she gain's the community's trust when a child needs help. This movie only has a running time of 74 minutes so the story is told rather deftly without much room for character examination which is OK with me. In fact little is seen of William Shatner's character so it's mainly up to Kim Darby's Miss Amerson and two other female characters to keep the story rolling along.

If you ignore the connection to the Zenna Henderson stories, than this movie is an interesting example of a late 60's/early 70's atmospheric mood movie. It's all lingering shots of pretty young women moving through forest glades. People standing around in stilted poses, stiff dialogue, angst driven over/under acting. It's so slow and lethargic that there is none of the tension of the original story. The screen play is more interested in atmosphere and local color than a plot driven story. (Thank you Lucas and Spielberg for bringing back pacing and plot.) It's a shame they mangled the story the way they did, it wasn't necessary. Borrowing freely from other stories in the People series, they needlessly confused the clarity that Henderson created in her books. Kim Darby is miscast as the teacher, who should be a burned out but a spunky pragmatist who knew what she was dealing with, a Karen Allen type. Darby's overly sensitive interpretation is too hippy dippy to be true to Henderson's clear eyed approach to social alienation. Isn't it time for someone to take another crack at Henderson's People series. A nice Sci-Fi series maybe. After all, her stories are still pretty timeless.

Saw The People as a youngster on a Saturday evening back when and it left my family gobsmacked - we'd never seen anything like it on television - no car chases, no explosions, no soap opera. I remembered its intriguing premise, and *many* years later, happily discovered Zenna Henderson's novels and stories that were its basis. Certainly the books were more detailed and satisfying; but this mood piece produced by Francis Ford Coppola was a creditable effort that I still remember fondly.

This was a "Movie of The Week" from season 3 which aired on KABC (channel 7) in 1972. It aired on Saturday January 22, 1972 and was geared toward a younger demographic. I was 12 years old at the time, and I remember being completely intrigued by this movie.

As a child I felt I could relate to Kim Darby's character, and to the children in the movie. It spurred me to read the books.

Watching it now, (in 2019), the production value seems low; the sound and incidental music is unsophisticated. Although the nat. sounds are nice. But, I thought Kim Darby's acting was good. And I remember it was nice to see William Shatner after Star Trek.

This movie of the week was 90 minutes, so the story had to be hurried along which is never good.

All in all, this is still a nice movie for kids.

I saw "The People" on TV when it first came out, 1) to see if it really was based on my favorite Zenna Henderson stories, and 2) because William Shatner played Dr. Curtis. As another reviewer has said, Shatner wasn't his usual hammy self, and did well by the character. Kim Darby would not have been my choice for Melodye, but wasn't bad. I was pleasantly surprised here to see that Francis Ford Coppola was in charge of the project, which is most likely why it turned out well.

I don't think that any TV movie could really cover the depth and reach of Ms. Henderson's "People" stories due to time limits. And the reason a lot of viewers think the movie was silly is because they haven't read the stories and don't have the background those of us who have read them do. Still, Mr. Coppola did a good job, and the cast portrayed Ms. Henderson's "People" fairly well. I think I will have to get a copy of "The People" and relive a bit of my youth.

Despite the fact it is often set in some remote setting, temporal or spatial, science fiction reflects the sensibilities of its own timeframe more than any other genre. This science fiction TV movie evokes a strong memory from my youth that is as much semi-personal cultural artifact as it is broadcast entertainment.

In the early 1970's, there were a number of us, adults and children, who lived "apart" from the everyday society: rural, rustic, spiritual seekers, community-minded, experimental and questioning. We looked to the past to create the future. Many of us ended up in Marin County, in the northern section of the San Francisco Bay Area.

It is never really possible to perfectly signal the everyday mood of a cultural zeitgeist, though all movies attempt to, in varying degrees of success and intentionality. "The People," while to some a modest and moderately successful literary adaptation, is, to me, a stunning capture of the "mood" of Bolinas, California, 1971. The social remove of the "people" acted as an allegory for our cultural dissatisfaction.

Step backwards. While a lot of people in this time/place avoided television (though not my family), the broadcast of this movie generated a great deal of excitement for at least three main reasons.

At the top of reasons were the crew involved. The director, John Korty, was local to the area (though I forget exactly from where...) Also, of great interest was in the scene in which the schoolchildrens' story was told. Arthur Okamura was a Bolinas artist who did the illustrative paintings. (He also happened to be my father's best friend at the time.) Of course, for Northern California grounding, there is the ubiquitous Coppola involvement.

Another reason for the interest were the filming locations in Northern California. This was before every other movie was made in an over-speculated and glamorized-to-death San Francisco.

The final reason is the message of the film, most importantly the final scene in which the group is able to act as a single healing force. This manages to fairly sum up the collective dream of our little alternative society.

Is it a good movie? I actually can't say.

Then what can be said about this movie? Mostly is quite amazing that such a pristine cultural document exists in the form of a network movie of the week from its own era. Thousands of portrayals of "hippies" exist from the time, this is one of the few that is the real deal. It feels like an subversive art film that managed to get commercial sponsors.

That's pretty, uh, cool...

If you've gotten as far as checking reviews, you've probably already read the description on IMDb at least, but if you haven't, DON'T and you'll enjoy the movie a lot more! This movie would have been MUCH more enjoyable if I hadn't gone in knowing exactly what the "twist" was, thanks to the descriptions on both IMDb and Amazon Prime Video. I can see that if the mystery hadn't have been spoiled for me, the question of what was happening in this strange, isolated town would have been very interesting, but as it was, there was no suspense at all.

The acting was about what one would expect from a 1970s TV movie, though I found it funny that William Shatner got such high billing, given that he only had about 15-20 minutes of screen time. But I do understand that he was a big name at the time.

I saw this when it first came out (I was at an SF Con at the time) and then later in a re-run. Considering the budget constraints of 1970s TV Sci-Fi movies, they did an impressive amount of story telling, mixing two of the first 'People' stories to re-cast the tale for non-fans. The cast gives good performances (Shatner is not the ham he usually is), the 'special effects' are limited to wires and a series of crayon drawn pictures which tell the background very effectively. This is actually the second 'People' filming -- Science Fiction Theater ripped off the same story for one of its episodes. Zenna Henderson's People stories were collected by NESFA Press and can be found at Amazon.com and elsewhere.

Snail's pace. Too mellow and drab - really needed some spice mixed in. The lead actress is monotoned though out most of it which turns into a snooze fest quickly. I like the idea behind the film but it's just to dull for me.

1/10

Yes, this movie was produced by Coppola's American Zoetrope Studios back in 1971, but why? In just one year, Coppola would become one of the most important figures in cinema of the latter 20th century with "The Godfather" movies and "The Conversation." His Zoetrope Studios was originally set up in Marin County, CA as a kind of utopian ideal for film production, giving wide creative freedom to both the crew and actors/actresses. Unfortunately, he seems to have given the filmmakers too much freedom here - to mess things up, that is.

I guess he could have seen the possibility of a movie like this as representing a breakthrough in some kind of counter-cultural film-making, as it has a very obvious early '70s New Age/ communal vibe to it. But in 2005, this vibe seems laughably ridiculous, and MST3K could make a fine episode out of this. The movie is a mess. Though supposed to be set in an isolated Amish-like farming community, the film was obviously shot in Northern California (and we all know how many Amish live there!!). Kim Darby plays what could be the most annoying character I have ever seen in a movie. She stammers and pouts to get her way with this community - no wonder the townspeople don't trust her. If the fact that the people in this old-fashioned community are aliens from another planet is supposed to be the grand twist of the film, then it fails miserably. First of all, anyone watching this - even if they haven't read Zenna Henderson's original source stories - can spot it a mile away. What's worse, this twist is supposed to be what carries the whole movie, as if nothing else is really important.

At only 75 minutes, this movie is awfully short, and yet the material had potential. Henderson wrote several stories about this fictional community of people, but the movie just cuts off midway without any explanation of what happens to them once this bratty schoolteacher finds out their "secrets." There really is almost no plot.

This is an example of TV-movie film-making at its worst. It inevitably carries some curiosity value because the names Coppola and William Shatner are attached to it, but trust me, Shatner has hardly any screen time, and this is one of Coppola's several failed experiments in innovative film production. This belongs in the trash heap with all the other pseudo-artistic experimental nonsense of the late-'60s and early '70s.

This movie a Frances Ford Coppola Production is a story based on the novel by Zenna Henderson, written by James M. Miller. It was produced in Nicasio, near San Francisco California.

The basic story is of A wondering school teacher (Kim Darby) who is looking for a place to settle and to find herself in the process. She gets that opportunity in a remote valley. She finds the people at a tad odd acting and the kids are a bit skittish about everything. She soon finds out why and what this can mean in her life.

Oh yes, the doctor from over the hill is played by William Shatner.

This movie can make a good afternoon special.

I stumbled upon this movie years ago, shortly after having read the book upon which it is based. Being a young kid then, with a crush on Kim Darby, I was just enchanted to see this movie. Of course seeing it again as an adult reveals it for what it is, a nice try that fell a bit short.

I noticed that one reviewer read the books of the author who came up with this story and they were very disappointed in the film. That is often the case--films usually do compare poorly to the movie versions. However, since I've never read anything by Zenna Henderson, the film was just fine to me...and I assume that if you haven't read the books you'll enjoy this unusual film.

When the film begins, a young and eager new school teacher (Kim Darby) is excited to be going to a very isolated town out west to teach. However, it soon becomes apparent that this is no ordinary town...they are all a bunch of weirdos. It isn't that they are bad...but the way they react to her and things in general is very odd. They appear humorless and almost emotionless and it's not easy teaching kids who grow up in this strange cult-like environment. But, being an installment of "The ABC Movie of the Week", you KNOW it's got to have a weird secret...but I don't want to ruin the suspense so I'll say not more about the plot.

The bottom line is that if you like fantasy or sci-fi, you'll likely enjoy this picture. I appreciated how the secret did NOT turn out to necessarily be a bad or malevolent thing and the film was very satisfying. Plus, it was nice to see Darby and William Shatner in this one as they both had previously acted together in the "Star Trek" episode, "Miri"...where Darby played a teenager infatuated with the dashing Captain.

Okay, I admit, this is a pretty lame movie, and yet I still remember it and even bought the video several years ago for about $5. I made my boyfriend watch it with me and he laughed through the whole thing. I was offended! (Not really) The thing that always got me about this movie was the haunting quality of the people and their community. The music when the kids are floating in the glen, the pictures they draw of their home world. It just worked for me, but then I'm a sci-fi and fantasy nut, while my b/f is a business and computer guy!

I never heard of Zenna Henderson until I saw this film. I never would have been aware of her until I saw this movie. Though the stories differ from the movie, my love of the movie led me to a love of the stories. I have had this happen several times, so I am willing to give leeway to the film industry and their, shall we call it re-tooling?, If I discove such gems as The People