Paul Lucey's deceptively simple, down-home story "All the Comforts of Home" provides quite a change of pace from the tightly-wound dramatic premier of this anthology series, and starts to show the range of the players in Richard Boone's troupe.
He stars as Luke, a Tennessee banjo player who left home many years for New Ylrk and a career, but returns to his sister Jeanette Nolan's home something of a defeated man. He was unsuccessful in his musical career, feeling humiliated by the necessity of playing down to audiences not in sync with his traditional music. Penniless, he does get a job offer via the good graces of family friend Warren Stevens, but his new employer Harry Morgan wears him down even further with a condescending attitude, wanting him to play rhythm for a rock band.
Sister Nolan is welcoming, but the superstitious, insular attitude of rural America is brought home by the man she married in her brother's absence, Ford Rainey, thoroughly believable as a backward fellow afraid of his own shadow.
More immediately, he's afraid of the Snake Woman, forcefully played by Bethel Leslie, who is bringing up a blind daughter, and making ends meet as a seamstress. Boone, underplaying with great subtlety, is a man broken by the world, but he instantly falls for Leslie, and the colorful and direct dialogue concisely conveys their offbeat romance.
Mixing pathos, poignancy and just a bit of sentimentality, this is the type of story dating back to Silent Cinema, but played with plenty of heart by Boone, Leslie & company.
He stars as Luke, a Tennessee banjo player who left home many years for New Ylrk and a career, but returns to his sister Jeanette Nolan's home something of a defeated man. He was unsuccessful in his musical career, feeling humiliated by the necessity of playing down to audiences not in sync with his traditional music. Penniless, he does get a job offer via the good graces of family friend Warren Stevens, but his new employer Harry Morgan wears him down even further with a condescending attitude, wanting him to play rhythm for a rock band.
Sister Nolan is welcoming, but the superstitious, insular attitude of rural America is brought home by the man she married in her brother's absence, Ford Rainey, thoroughly believable as a backward fellow afraid of his own shadow.
More immediately, he's afraid of the Snake Woman, forcefully played by Bethel Leslie, who is bringing up a blind daughter, and making ends meet as a seamstress. Boone, underplaying with great subtlety, is a man broken by the world, but he instantly falls for Leslie, and the colorful and direct dialogue concisely conveys their offbeat romance.
Mixing pathos, poignancy and just a bit of sentimentality, this is the type of story dating back to Silent Cinema, but played with plenty of heart by Boone, Leslie & company.