bkoganbing
I've always thought of Joanna Pettet as one of the most beautiful and glamorous women of the big screen and small in the latter half of the last century. So it's a pleasant surprise that in Pioneer Woman Pettet ditches the glamor and becomes a hard working Pioneer Woman who salvages her husband's dream of going west.She faces some real problems as she and husband William Shatner sell all they have in Indiana move west on land Shatner bought from the railroad. Shatner does this unilaterally without consulting Pettet, in those days that is how it was done.First Shatner gets uprooted from his land by some brothers who've been working it for seven years now. Then he's killed homesteading new land in Wyoming territory. Pettet makes some critical choices for herself and kids Helen Hunt and Russell Baer. Hard work, a little luck and an understanding an hunky neighbor in rancher David Janssen make her believe that staying might be the best idea.Pioneer Woman is a sober assessment of what pioneer life was like on the American frontier. Even without Indian wars it was still a rugged existence especially for a woman.Pettet shows she has the right stuff. In fact this G rated film is actually quite the feminist manifesto. A great film for family and feminist audiences if you can believe that.
IcySpoon
This was an entertaining made for TV movie-something to catch in the middle of the night when insomnia hits. I won't provide a synopsis as there are several written but I would like to suggest that anyone with an interest in movies about Pioneer Women seek out "Heartland" with Rip Torn and Conchata Farrell. Ms Farrell's portrays a widowed mother in 1910 who sets across the country in answer to an Ad to become a housekeeper with the eventual dream of owning her own homestead. The movie is much more realistic than "Pioneer Woman" and is based on the letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart collected in Letters of a Woman Homesteader. The movie truly shows the harsh reality these women faced and Ms. Farrell, with her larger stature is better suited to this role than the delicate, pretty Ms Pettet.
Uriah43
This film was much better than I originally expected. Set in the post-Civil War era, it depicts the plight of a small family in Indiana setting out west to start a farm. "John Sergeant" (played by William Shatner) gambles everything on some land in Nebraska in the hope for a brand new life. His wife, "Maggie Sergeant" (Joanna Pettet) is reluctant to leave but does the best she can to support her husband. Along the way out west, they encounter hardship and disappointment which this film displays in a very realistic manner. And while William Shatner gives a decent performance, it is Joanna Pettet who is the real star of this picture as her acting was first-rate. David Janssen (as "Robert Douglas") is also quite good playing the part of a free-range cowboy in a supporting role. The weaknesses in this movie are few, but if I had to list one it would probably be that the ending could have been drawn out a bit more. All things considered though, there are plenty of westerns which have a great deal more violence and action than this particular film. But if you're looking for a movie that is fresh and genuine then this is a fine candidate, especially for family viewing.
paulbehrer22173
I saw this film on Encore Westerns at 7:10 a.m. yesterday morning, and its plot was: Maggie Sergeant (Joanna Pettet) is chronicling in her diary the hardships that she, her husband John (William Shatner) and their 2 children (Helen Hunt and Russell Baer) faced, starting with their move to Nebraska in March of 1867 (March 10, in fact) to settle on land that John had bought there, only to find on arriving there in late April that the area had been settled 7 years ago. In the argument between John and the people already settled there, Maggie suffers a miscarriage, which forces John to relinquish the property rights and ask Maggie if she wants to go to Wyoming and settle there instead. They arrive at a parcel of land next to a ranch owned by Robert Douglas (David Janssen), just outside the town of Big Pines, and settle there, planting wheat and vegetables. One day, John is returned to Maggie and the children by Mr. Douglas, who found him dead after he drowned in a flash flood while returning home from filing their settlement claim. Maggie takes on caring for her family, even banding together with her neighbors to save all that everyone owned from a prairie fire. While in town the following day, Maggie runs into Mr. Douglas, who asks her if she's heading back east with her kids. She says no, that that they're staying, and the story ends with her August 21, 1867 diary entry in which she says that she's sending for a teacher to establish a school for the children of the Pines Ridge community, and a minister to attend to the religious needs of all the families there, adding that she doesn't feel like an outsider anymore. I found this to be one of Ms. Pettet's best roles in her acting career since she was portraying a character determined to overcome the challenges presented to her. I even wept several times over the film's course. I'd really like to find this film on DVD, so I can view it again and again. Spoiler Alert: This wasn't Ms. Pettet's only appearance alongside David Janssen. She appeared in an episode of The Fugitive 7 years prior to this film, and in 3 episodes of Harry-O after this film aired on CBS.
AD
