Long Road Home is a 1991 American drama television film directed by John Korty, based on the 1988 novel of the same name by Ronald B. Taylor. The film stars Mark Harmon, Lee Purcell, Morgan Weisser, Leon Russom, and Timothy Owen Waldrip. It revolves around a migrant farm worker who struggles to keep his family alive during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The film received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the performances of Purcell and Russom.
Contents
Cast
Mark Harmon as Ertie Robertson
Lee Purcell as Bessie Robertson
Morgan Weisser as Jake Robertson
Leon Russom as Titus Wardlow
Timothy Owen Waldrip as James Earl
Vinessa Shaw as Clara Tarpin
Bianca Rose as Susie Robertson
Kathryn Morris as Billy Jo Robertson
Sarah Lundy as Mary Ellen Robertson
Ronnie Dee Blaire as Elijah Parsons
Sydney Walker as Kleindecker
Edward Ivory as Barkham
Morgan Upton as Bull
Jim Zubiena as Cletus Sharp
Donald A. Mercier as Windy
Rider Strong as Benjy Robertson
Paul Henri as Will Henry
Don West as Alf Young
Ron Kaell as Checker
Cab Covay as Hammer
Reception
Entertainment Weekly's television critic Ken Tucker wrote that "director John Korty has made a limp, self-pitying little TV movie here, and the script by Jane-Howard Hammerstein is so full of vague grandiloquence that even some of the characters don't understand what's being said." Wilborn Hampton of The New York Times described the film as "a fairy-tale view not only of the Great Depression, but of the labor movement it spawned and the way its victims survived." Ray Loynd of the Los Angeles Times called it the "Best Production Based on a Novel" among 1991 drama television films which he saw.