Andromeda709
I enjoyed this miniseries so much when I was a teen. It was great, seeing Elizabeth Montgomery's real talent, so much more evident than in "Bewitched." I read Conrad Richter's trilogy and it was good to imagine the characters in the stories.Later, when the Internet was available, I found a company in California that had "The Awakening Land" for sale, converted from VHS tape to DVD. They did advise me that the picture would not be very sharp (not HD) but they had it without the commercials.I gladly paid the price they asked, and I watch it occasionally when there isn't anything worth watching on TV. A wonderful story of pioneer life, how they struggled and made good.
eileenknows
This was a great movie but the characters all had interesting view points. Mistress Bartram was the school teacher who was educated. She is thrown into an affair with the married (highly educated)man to Elizabeth Montgomery's character, who was uneducated. The mistress became pregnant. This was the real awakening for me. Because her lover was married she set out one night to the local tavern to pick up whoever she could so she could get married and have her baby. There were no educated men that were available so she married someone beneath her intelligence and that was the most horrible punishment anyone could pay. No way out. Elizabeth's character rose above and met the higher standards of her husband and worked to become educated. Dorrie Kavanaugh who was also a beautiful woman sadly died a few years after making this film. I will always remember her as having a style that no one has ever duplicated. She was graceful with culture and intelligence, a very beautiful woman.
spike66
Here is a wild one for you. I saw The Awakening Land almost accidentally when I was getting ready to go to college in 1978. It has been rattling around in my brain all these time, almost 30 years, as a singular example of excellent television. The story and the characters stuck in my mind as a paragon of excellent writing, the best I have seen in a TV script. It wasn't until this night that I learned that it was a three part miniseries. I never knew that. I only saw the one episode (I think the first) where Saird meets and marries the Solitary. Now I am going nuts trying to find where I can get the other two episodes on DVD. Looks like I can't. Guess I will get the books. spike
Cansada
This mini series was based upon a series of books, The Trees, The Fields and The Town, by Conrad Richter, who also wrote A Light in the Forest. I am in the process of re-reading them, and I 'see' many of the scenes I remember from the show.This mini series was also one of my favorites, I keep wishing that it would be released on Video/DVD.Elizabeth Montgomery did a good job of playing "Saird", the woodsy who was responsible for building a town. Hal Holbrook was believable as the Solitary. What surprised me was reading that William Macy played Will Beagle, the Bound Boy.
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