Shooting the Moonshine War

Shooting the Moonshine War (1970)

** (out of 4)

Fair promotional piece from MGM meant to shine the spotlight on their upcoming film THE MOONSHINE WAR, which as the title suggests is about prohibition and the mountain men who were making illegal alcohol. This promotional short runs just 7-minutes and features a "redneck" talking about the day Hollywood came to his small town. He narrates the film as we see them shooting a couple sequences for the film. One such scene has a car going down a hill and landing in a creek. Another scene features Richard Widmark about to get into a gun battle. We see the director of the film setting up a couple shots and finally there's another action scene. Overall this short is decent enough but I think it fails in its main goal, which was of course to try and build up interest in the film. By watching this short it certainly didn't make me want to seek out the film and the way this here was presented wasn't nearly as cute or as charming as I'm sure they were hoping.

The unidentified rural location in this movie is in Calaveras County, California and specifically just outside of the small community of Jenny Lind (named after the nineteenth century actress). The watercourse shown in the movie is the Calaveras River. The movie set was on a flat terrace below the Jenny Lind to Milton Road Bridge. The film moderately is interesting because of the starring actors. This presented Patrick McGoohan with a definite off beat roll and this was an early roll for Alan Alda. Although I think McGoohan was miscast because his accent sounds somewhat out of place the movie is entertaining.

Roger ~ I'd like to add my two cents worth; and an additional filming location. I was a teen-ager in Calaveras County, and was sitting on a bus on Sheepranch/Mountain Ranch Road, about 5 miles North of San Andreas and watched them filming a scene where a Model A, or similar vehicle, was pushed or driven over the edge of the road.

It held up traffic for 20 minutes or so, but was fun to watch. I kept watching for any of the named stars, but did not see any up close and personal, but it was confirmed to us on the bus that this was the movie.

Add'l Calaveras County Movies: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Honky Tonk Man.