Stars in My Crown: The Most Relevant Film for 2020?

The time for Stars in My Crown is now. To think that a film released in 1950 would be most relevant in 2020 may seem impossible, but when that film deals with the conflict between science and religion, a church being shut down by a plague, violent vs. non-violent resistance, systematic racism, and persecution of a black man by a gang of white supremacists, the assertion becomes far less unlikely. Even if Stars in My Crown didn't focus on these issues, it would still be a great film (it's been one of my favorites long before 2020), one that effectively deals with universal emotions and experiences. It just also happens to be shockingly topical.

Stars in My Crown is based on a book by Joe David Brown, who also wrote the adaption. Brown, who was also a journalist, had two other novels adapted to the big screen: the World War II film Kings Go Forth and, most famously, Peter Bogdanovich's 1973 masterpiece Paper Moon. Writing the screenplay was Margaret Fitts, only her second official credit. The episodic nature of Stars in My Crown suits its memory book nature and oddly reminds one of Meet Me in St. Louis, a similarly nostalgic film that weaves together separate stories into one cohesive whole. Fitts' screenplay is impressive in its ability shift from episode to episode while retaining a consistent through-line that all wraps up effectively at the end.

The point-of-view of children

This free-flowing, scrapbook-type approach fits into the film's structure: the recollections of a man looking back on his childhood. Many of the most beautiful passages, lyrically composed by director Jacques Tourneur, have nothing to do with the plot, but everything to do with the atmosphere of the film: John (Dean Stockwell) and his friend riding on the hay wagon, fishing with Uncle Famous (Juano Hernandez), young people singing on their stoops, and the visit of the traveling medicine show. The cinematography of Charles Schoenbaum gives the film a nostalgic glow through many parts of the film but other scenes, notably those involving the persecution of Famous, abandon this look and more closely resemble a horror movie (see videos below to see the contrast). In this case, the cinematography matches the film: unlike many films that traffic in nostalgia, Stars in My Crown recalls the past fondly but doesn't paint over the dark parts of the past either, there is no attempt at making Walesburg some sort of lost Eden or better world with forgotten values, just a town with many of the same problems as they had in 1950 and, coincidentally, also 2020.

From Brown's story and Fitts' screenplay, Tourneur takes the film in directions familiar to those who have seen his work. In previous films, Tourneur embraced a strong anti-racist stance, from the compassionate look at the immigrant experience in Cat People and nuanced approach to the history of slavery in the Caribbean island of I Walked with a Zombie to the understanding view of Native Americans in Canyon Passage. Stars in My Crown would be his definitive and most personal take on the subject of racism. Similarly, in previous films Tourneur would present a degree of obliqueness in his films, withholding full explanations for the audience. This is most clear with his horror films, such as in I Walked with a Zombie, where the film never states one way or another whether the voodoo magic was real or if there was a rational explanation to what happens in the film. However, Tourneur took also a similar approach in more grounded genres, most famously in the ambiguous nature of Robert Mitchum's final decisions in Out of the Past. In those films and others, there is an argument for one interpretation of another, likewise, a skeptic can look at the spiritual aspects in Stars in My Crown and dismiss them, while a believer will find just as much evidence to support their position. Whatever the case, the important thing is that both science and healthy faith are treated with equal respect in the film, as they should be in society. As with most such debates, there is a satisfying middle-ground for those willing to see it. In the film, it takes both the faith of Parson Gray (Joel McCrea) and the medicine of Dr. Harris (James Mitchell) to treat the people of Walesburg, one to treat the body and the other the soul. 

The Parson and the Doctor

There is a fundamental conflict in America today, with faith and science clashing, each denying the importance or validity of the other. However, as the film demonstrates in the beautiful scene when both men are treating the same patient in their own way, it is only by working hand-in-hand that real healing takes place. The person of faith must recognize science and medicine for what it is, a divine gift, while even the most hardcore atheistic scientist would admit that you can't just treat the physical ailments of all sick people, there needs to be something more. What that extra treatment is might differ from person to person, but it is hard to deny the need. Both men come to this realization as the film progresses.

When Gray decides to close down the church and shut himself off from the people, it isn't the church itself that the people are missing, but the spiritual support of the man. Even though his concerns about spreading fever are unfounded, he still does the correct thing in shutting down the church and quarantining himself, where he errs is shutting himself off from the people fully. In 2020, with churches closing and Evangelicals up in arms on the matter, the film serves as an important reminder that a church or other meeting place is just a building, it is the relationships between people that matter. Parson Gray still could have remained active in the lives of the people of Walesburg, even from a safe distance, and he didn't even have telephones or FaceTime! By making such a fetish out of buildings and meeting places, people today only make clear that they don't understand what is important about communities. Hint: it's the people, not the places.

Regarding the split of science and faith, Stars in My Crown also presents an even more nuanced view of the subject, with each man crossing over into the others territory. When confronting with grieving families, Dr. Harris' does his best to fill Gray's role while the Parson has shut himself off, while in one of the film's most moving, Ordet-like scenes, Parson Gray apparently heals the appropriately named Faith Samuels (Amanda Blake) through prayer after the doctor fails with medicine. Again, your understanding of this scene will be colored by your beliefs, as Tourneur doesn't rigidly underline any interpretation, even if the characters believe it to be a miracle.

The doctor comforts and the parson heals

After the climax of this storyline, Stars in My Crown moves on to an even more powerful sequence, the resolution of the conflict between Uncle Famous and the miners headed by Lon Backett (Ed Begley). That Parson Gray, an ex-soldier, approaches this conflict without his guns (for fear he "might forget myself and use 'em") and uses the power of his words to save Famous is all the more powerful in a day-and-age when Evangelicals have inextricably linked themselves with Conservative politics, and by extension veneration of the 2nd Amendment. Though this stance is seemingly contradictory with the teachings of Jesus, it has been widely embraced by Evangelicals and thus you still have Pastors protected by armed bodyguards and Jerry Fallwell Jr. saying in 2015 "If more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in." The events of the last four years – and especially 2020's protests and shootings – have only strengthened the relationship between many Evangelicals and conservative, pro-gun beliefs. Contrary to that view, Stars in My Crown establishes the supremacy of faith, empathy, and human relationships over guns and violence; had Gray taken up the offer of the Isbells, he likely could have achieved the same basic result – saving Uncle Famous – but by refusing violence, he not only saves Famous, but he also speaks to the prejudice and hatred in hearts of the would-be lynchers, leaving open a path to redemption, as well as impressing his old friend Jed (Alan Hale, Sr.) enough to get him to attend church for the first time.

A major part of the success of the film and this final climatic scene, comes from the casting of Joel McCrea as Parson Gray. McCrea, despite starting in Hollywood as a stuntman and living the life of a cowboy off-screen, wasn't exclusively a cowboy star. In fact, over the first couple decades of his career, McCrea appeared in far more straight romances, adventures, and comedies than westerns. Never really a "star" in the traditional sense, McCrea was a versatile actor who worked with top directors during the thirties and early forties, appearing in films directed as diverse of artists as King Vidor (Bird of Paradise), Howard Hawks (Barbary Coast, Come and Get It), Gregory La Cava (Bed of Roses, Private Worlds, Primrose Path), William Wyler (These Three, Dead End), Cecil B. DeMille (Union Pacific), and most notably in three films by Preston Sturges, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, and The Great Moment, serving as the director's alter ego in the former film. As he aged out of young man roles, McCrea increasingly shifted towards westerns in the second half of the forties and into the fifties, eventually appearing in nothing else: beginning in 1946, McCrea appeared in 26 films, all but one of which was a western. However, despite becoming one of the iconic cowboy stars, McCrea never lost the skill he learned earlier in his career, indeed McCrea's ability to skillfully ride a horse, handle a gun, or rope a cow are of far less importance in Stars in My Crown than his gifts in comedy and drama. Though tough, more than the other cowboy stars – Cooper, Scott, Wayne, etc. – McCrea displayed a softer, gentler side, a characteristic that is crucial to Stars in My Crown, in which he must embody the film's dichotomy of violence and peace, credibly portraying both an ex-soldier and preacher committed to non-violence. McCrea isn't some weakling compensating with big guns – we see him defuse a situation earlier in the film with a whip – and there is no doubt that he could put down the lynching with violence if he wanted to. What is important is that he has the choice, one way or another, and chooses the way of non-violence.

Joel McCrea

Even after ending the lynching, Gray's work has only started and the moral sickness of Walesburg is only just beginning to be healed. Lest it be forgotten, Backett and his fellow Night Riders (a version of the KKK) are members of the local church, not even bothering to hide in plain sight. This mixture of themes is exemplified in the film's transcendent but bittersweet finale. At the end of Stars in My Crown, the citizens of Walesburg have put away their Klan hoods, been chastised for their actions by Gray, and gathered in the church for a spiritual celebration of community and togetherness. However, this joyous get-together belies the deeper issues that remain in the town: the church remains segregated and Uncle Famous is excluded, with Tourneur ironically framing the boisterously singing Backett and excluded famous (see image below). Though they have given up their regalia of white supremacism (for now) it is still, as in the past, within easy reach, locked away in the storeroom in the same way that their prejudice, though now buried deeper, still remains within.

In America today, the process is similar: the obvious, external manifestations of racism and prejudice are exposed and dealt with, but the internal corrosion remains. For Gray, averting the lynching is certainly a victory – as is every time prejudice is defeated – but it is a small one, leaving an immense amount of work still to be done. The racism in the hearts of Walesburg's citizens remains, one act of contrition doesn't expunge it any more than wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt or kneeling during the National Anthem makes one not a racist in and of itself. The problem with racism is that it is, as Stars in My Crown shows, it is systematic as well as personal: Walesburg remains segregated, despite the widespread affection for Famous. Perhaps more difficult, prejudice, at its core, is internal. No matter what outward actions are taken the contrary, as long as it remains inside of people, racism will never be defeated. Many Americans have put away their metaphorical clan hoods but have failed to deal with the systematic and internal prejudices that continue to haunt our society.

All this, without even mentioning the myriad ways in which Stars in My Crown demonstrates the potential for both good and evil within a community! Nor do I have time to discuss the mature, realistic marriage between Parson Gray and his wife Harriet (Ellen Drew), or the moving scenes defining the relationship between Harriet and her adopted son, John. Perhaps then, you should take that as a sign that you, dear reader, should seek out this film and watch it, for it is one of the greatest and least appreciated in movie history.

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