welcome back to another segment of
behind the scenes of the waltons
today i'm going to be talking about the
episode the two-part episode
from season three the conflict the
conflict covers the story of
martha corrin's family her her son boom
wade and vera who live up in the back
woods
they are being evicted basically the
government is coming through
and taking over the land to create some
sort of a national park
or something like that so they have been
given notice that they need to
move from their land down to the
flatlands where the government has built
new houses for them martha corrin has
been up
on that mountain in that
home that she and her husband built ever
since she was married in her teens
she has no interest in moving nor does
her family they
like their way of life it's simple but
it suits them
so she is prepared to fight including
with violence if need be to stay on her
land
the entire walton family is brought into
the situation when boone comes down to
basically say that martha corrin
has asked the walton men to come up and
help defend
the walton land this creates
conflict within the family because
everyone does go
up to help support martha corrin and her
family
but zeb is the only one who really
is willing to do whatever it takes john
is much more of a moderate man and
doesn't feel that
picking up a gun is the answer and john
boyce certainly doesn't
the younger children are excluded from
all of what's going on
but olivia and esther grandma
also hear what's happening and have
reason
for concern so this
does create tension between our
relatives boone and wade and martha
corrin
and the um the rest of the walton family
but they want to support the family and
find a way to help resolve this
peacefully there were a number of things
i noticed when watching this episode
early on we are all riding in the back
of the truck
and we are eating watermelon we are
singing songs
and then as we head further up the
mountain and we're hearing
noises and sounds and excavation going
on
uh many of us stand up and there's whole
sections where we are
standing up in the back of this truck as
it's moving
i don't think it was going very fast but
still i kept thinking
wow no seat belts no safety precautions
at all and
you know none of us seemed the least bit
concerned and i don't think i was the
least bit concerned at the time
but yes definitely something that would
not happen
in real life these days not in the city
anyway
when all the walton family does go up to
martha corrin's cabin
uh the boys go off to search for
indian arrowheads the girls are sent to
pick blackberries
to make ice cream and then
there's a sort of a pow-wow amongst
the grown-ups and a jug of moonshine is
passed along because boone
makes bootleg moonshine
and zeb is right in there
happy to sample john has some
jawboy takes the jug and samples it
and olivia is not at all pleased
about that and you can definitely see
that on her face john boy isn't so sure
that he liked it either
but he probably felt that peer pressure
that we likely all have experienced in
one way or another
in our lives there's a very cute segment
when the girls are out
picking blackberries and they are
uh chased by these feisty pigs and
and they seem really aggressive and the
girls find themselves
climbing up a tree and and and getting
out of reach of these pigs and
and they're not quite sure how long
they're gonna have to hang around
up in this tree so mary ellen decides
that she'll be brave and she'll go down
and she'll
shoo these pigs off but the pigs seem to
be on the attack and she finds herself
squealing and back up in the tree and
the next thing you know we are all
screaming help
help and uh the boys hear this
and are very alarmed and concerned for
us and come
running into the rescue only to stop
short as they see that the problem is
that
there's a bunch of pigs there so they
think that that's hysterical and get a
really good laugh out of that and tease
us
mercilessly and then calmly sort of shoe
the pigs away and make fun of us because
they don't consider the pigs were all
that dangerous but marielle and quips
you know while you didn't see them they
were you know they seemed really mean
they were they were they look you
weren't here
so i think she's feeling a little
defensive at that point but i thought it
was a really cute sequence
because we have picked all these
blackberries and because we do
say that martha corn's blackberries make
the best ice cream there is a whole
sequence when you actually
see them making this ice cream i had no
idea i've never made homemade ice cream
and it's all quite a process some of you
may know that but
i was amazed and it seemed like an awful
lot of work um
but we did get to sample ice cream
afterwards so there's a whole scene
afterwards when the ice cream has been
made and we are eating that ice cream
and i did enjoy that john olivia
and esther do convince martha corrin to
go down and at least take a look at the
house that the government is offering
her
grandma is on quite a sales pitch in the
house
and points out the running water and the
the
electricity and there's a sweet moment
with martha curran sort of
testing this light bulb on and off and
on and off the switch and i think she's
a little bit fascinated by that
and then esther is very happy to go show
her the kitchen
and the new green linoleum i got a kind
of a chuckle out of that because the
idea of being excited
over new green linoleum just
pointed out the era you know i don't
know how many people these days would be
excited about
green linoleum i always felt for someone
who was
raised in the city as richard thomas was
he was raised in new york
his parents were dancers he was raised
around the ballet world
and yet i thought he always made a very
convincing country boy
you know with chopping wood you know
cutting down trees
handling an axe uh milking cows and
goats and
all of that i don't know for those of
you who really
grew up in the country and did these
things from the time you were little if
he's as convincing to you
as he is to me but for someone else who
was raised in the city i was pretty
impressed
grandpa keeps challenging john boy
because john boy is pretty
darn set in his not wanting to
pick up a gun and actually shoot
at the people coming to evict
martha corinne's family uh zeb feels
that
you know you're a walton and you defend
your kin you defend the land
and you know this is what you need to do
so there is a quite an intense scene
here where
john boy and grandpa face off
and ultimately john boy feels the
pressure
and when the time comes he does pick up
a gun
john has taken martha corrin to go see
if they can appeal to
uh appeal to congressman senators you
know hire up the
the chain in the government to try and
see if they can overturn this
this notice that they have to leave
their land
so he goes with her and they make an
appeal
and there is a point where ralph makes a
very
eloquent speech to these politicians and
it
reminded me of in real life that
ralph had very strong convictions and
did run for public office
uh and i felt that it was a shame that
he never
had the opportunity to actually serve
because
he had a real a real call to help people
and to defend people
and and be a voice for change
so this was a little bit of that
foreshadowing for me of seeing
how appealing he was
there was a point in time where i don't
know where it started but someone
it was going around that you know if
john walton ran for president he'd win
and the way that ralph portrayed john
walton
i i think i would have voted for him i
loved when martha curran sat down and
wrote to president roosevelt
making an appeal just explaining her
position in her life and
what all this meant to her and what a
wonderful contrast between this very
simple
country woman who really never went
anywhere
appealing to the most powerful man in
the country a little spoiler here
john boy gets shot i had totally
forgotten about that
i'm watching the episode and all of a
sudden boom he's down i'm like
my brother got shot why did i not
remember this
probably because he was okay so that's
the other part of the spoiler is
he's fine but uh it was uh quite an
intense
moment and culminated in
reason uh coming coming to be
you know grandpa realizes the potential
consequences of this escalating
violence and shuts everything down
and realizes that you know he certainly
never
intended for john boy to be injured and
potentially
killed so it is a turning point
and ultimately uh martha corrin
is convinced that the best thing to do
is to concede
that she's not going to win this and she
is going to be moved and she
she concedes and moves off the mountain
as this was a
two-part episode i'm going to do this
um behind the scenes in two parts
i will be back next time with some
direct
comments from our director ralph
sinenski i asked him a number of
questions
about the episode and for his
recollections so i'm going to share
those with you
in the second half of behind the scenes
of the waltons about the conflict
so join me next time for that thanks for
watching