Der Aufseher von Angel City

I'm one of those people that enjoys Ralph Waite in everything. I am sure it has to do with the fact of watching him for so long on the Waltons. I also prefer older films to anything new, so I tend to really scour titles looking for things to watch that I have never seen. In comes this title, I read the description, saw the actors and said - sure let me give it a try.

Wow. You can kind of say it is a 70's version of Grapes of Wrath (somewhat). The story line is as old as time and if you know about migrant workers you have a little background on what can happen. The acting is believable....it truly is, and at a couple points in the film you actually are on the edge of your seat - and will really get you thinking.

Hard to write something really descriptive because I don't want to give anything away - since EVERY scene in the movie grabs you and is important.

Grab the popcorn, a blanket and tell everyone to leave you alone one evening and watch it!

Ralph Waite is best known for his role as the father on The Waltons tv series. He plays a similar character here, a good decent man with simple values of love and family (watch the scene where his family and him pray over their dogs grave). He is a good decent salt of the earth type who unwittingly stumbles into hell! Mitchell Ryan plays the plantation owner who is a real wolf in sheep clothing. He offers him a job and then he and his family are held prisoner in a virtual concentration camp. Paul Winfield gives a fine performance as a fellow inmate and this was one of Jennifer Jason Leigh's first roles as well. I remember the scene where they were picking cotton in the fields and started singing a spiritual, it reminded me a lot of Gone With The Wind. Waite and his family are such wonderful people that you feel so angry and sad at their terrible prediciment. The ending of the film is what I enjoyed the most where they revolted against Ryan. I loved the scene where Waite beat the *$#@ out of him with that pistol and was going to shoot him! It was as if this good man was pushed to the brink and finally backed down. I hated Ryan's character so much that I wanted him to shoot the son of a bitch, after all he had raped his daughter and kidnapped his baby! He sort of reminded me of Jim Jones. Maybe this is a parable about the importance of family love and staying together against all odds, and about the importance of freedom and what would happen if it were suddenly taken from us. Angel City is a first class tv film and it has got a great and satisfying ending that leaves you feeling wonderful. When it comes down to it, what more could you ask of a film!

Does about as good of a job explaining the problem of migrant worker exploitation as a 1980 TV movie could do. My issue with this movie is with the casting. Mexicans were heavily exploited in camps like this but of course a white family is picked to tell the story. I could live with this if they had done a better job casting the parts. I mean I can buy Ralph Waite as the weary, down on his luck homesteader who leaves behind his home in the hills to look for work. His weather beaten face and persona as Mr Walton fits the role well but his family looks more like they belong on a 70's sitcom. Jennifer Warren is a capable actress who isn't given much to do here other than support her family and be really, really pregnant but she looks like a suburban soccer mom, not a woman who's been scratching out a hard scrabble existence in the hills of West Virginia in addition to the fact that she looks way too young to be Ralph Waite's wife. And the kids? Are you kidding. They look like 2 suburban teenagers who've never done a hard days work in their lives. This aside this movie is saved by the chemistry between Ralph Waite and Paul Winfield as you really sympathize with their plight. Reliable character actor Mitchell Ryan plays the sleazy camp owner Silas Creedy (That just sounds like the name of an evil plantation owner) who we can sense is a lowlife from the time he's introduced but we don't realize just how sleazy and depraved he really is until the movie's final act. Character actor and sometime stuntman Bob Minor and Elvis bodyguard Red West play his 2 camp thugs Jabo and Sud.

Dirt poor southern family Go West!" , find work, get abused and revolt. Ralph Waite is good as the paterfamilias and his change from solid hard-working farmer to (mini) revolutionary leader is believable.

Solid performances all round. It was a fruit/vegetable farm they were working on btw, not cotton - they spent their time pickin' the cuze' (cucumbers).

Nice decry of immigrant exploitation in the food industry. The traps used by the landowner (high rent, booking fee etc), and the hopelessness of the poverty trap get a good exposure Hope that eyes were opened etc.......................

The plot can get questionable on this one, true, but it's worth seeking out just to see the early work of Jennifer Jason Leigh! Done before "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (my favorite) this tv flick has young Jennifer as the daughter of Jennifer Warren, another face you may recognize. Their family goes off in search of work, and Ralph Waite from the Waltons is in it too. Fun to see, everybody is sooooo young!