00:09Good evening. I'm Ben Mankiewicz. Thanks for watching TCM and more of tonight's lineup
00:13featuring June star of the month, Gary Cooper, perhaps Hollywood's definitive strong-willed
00:18but nearly silent type. His next film fits squarely into that template from Allied artist
00:24in 1956, Friendly Persuasion. Set in 1862 during the Civil War, Cooper is a devout and devoted
00:32patriarch of a Quaker family in Indiana. His wife, played by Dorothy McGuire, is even more committed
00:38to her faith than her husband. Quakers are pacifists who reject violence as a means to
00:43settle a conflict. However, the simmering hostility between North and South is on the verge of becoming
00:49more than a war of words, and moreover, it's knocking at the Birdwell family doorstep. The
00:55family must decide how far they'll go to defend their way of life amid significant outside pressures.
01:02It creates a split between Jess, Cooper's character, and his oldest son, played by Anthony Perkins.
01:07It's a role that set Perkins on a pretty rapid path to stardom. Friendly Persuasion is not a typical
01:14story of good versus evil. It's replete with gentle humor and touching moments between Cooper and
01:19Maguire. They navigate family life and societal changes by turning to their faith for guidance.
01:26Film had heavy hitters behind the camera, including director William Wyler and producer Walter Mearish,
01:32who stepped into the big leagues with this film, the first major production for Allied artists.
01:37A year after the film, Mearish, who'd been Allied's head of production, started his own company with his
01:43brothers, the Mearish Company, which became an incredibly influential independent production
01:48house, making The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, In the Heat of the Night, and Fiddler on the Roof,
01:53among many other quality films. This film is an adaptation of Jessamyn West's novel called
01:59The Friendly Persuasion, published 11 years before in 1945. West grew up in a Quaker family in Indiana,
02:07and the stories are based on her mother's childhood memories.
02:10The director, William Wyler, hired West to work on the story for the film. One day, she escorted Gary
02:18Cooper to observe a Quaker meeting. That's the Quaker equivalent of a church service. After the meeting,
02:25West asked another attendee if he had recognized Cooper at the meeting. Of course I did, the man told
02:31her, and so did almost everyone else, but we tried to give him a gift of privacy. It's pretty cool.
02:38From 1956, also with Marjorie Mayne and Robert Middleton, Friendly Persuasion.
