Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Saying this movie is more true than the TV series is like saying a tiger is a better pet than a lion. Neither of them make good pets, regardless.

I enjoyed the fact that some of the details were not overlooked. Pa (well played by Richard Thomas) had a beard and played the violin. However, I was disappointed in the script overall.

One of my favorite parts of the Little House series is the confrontation between Laura and her future sister-in-law, Eliza Jane Wilder. I also disliked the way Laura was forced into teaching by her father. This is how Laura told the story in any of her books. Another irritating point, Almanzo Wilder had a matched pair of Morgans. Skip and Barnum came later. Laura did not nearly break her engagement because she wanted to travel.

Like many movies these days, The Powers That Be were determined to re-write history and place feminists in roles. I recall nothing in the book that has Caroline Ingalls going off on Charles about wanting to move further west. I recall nothing about Laura Ingalls wanting to consumate her marriage in an abandoned homesite out in the open. This film couldn't even keep Laura in a sun bonnet, placing her instead in a beat up man's hat that looked like something Indiana Jones threw out.

I wouldn't have this big of a problem with the movie if it did not claim to be the "true" story. I had no problem with the flights of fancy the TV show took because it only claimed to be based on the life and works of Laura Ingalls. But if you claim it is the "true" story, then make it the true story. Or don't do it.

As an avid Laura Ingalls Wilder fan for many years, I really looked forward to this "true story". Within minutes I was deflated. While some of the performances were good, I could not believe how the writers took license with the real facts; it makes one wonder if they ever read any of Laura's books.

Setting the tone for the distortion was the incident depicting Pa and Laura coming across a house under construction where Laura finds an envelope marked "Almanzo" in the pocket of a man's coat and proceeds to dreamily repeat his name. This incident was not only schmaltzy, but totally fictional. In "The Long Winter," Laura describes her first encounter with Almanzo, but does not mention him by name. She was 14 (he was 10 years her senior) when she and Carrie became lost in the Big Slough and accidentally stumbled into his hayfield. Later in the same book Laura describes the horrid blizzard season and tells of Almanzo's and Cap Garland's brave quest for the wheat; however, the depiction of the exchange of romantic looks between them upon his return is again inaccurate. Almanzo did not seriously show an interest in her for another couple of years, which she describes in "Little Town on the Prairie" and "These Happy Golden Years."

I also had a problem with Laura being presented as a blonde. Throughout her books she mentions her envy of her sister Mary's beautiful golden hair while disparaging her own plain brown locks. Yet the producers chose to make Mary a redhead in addition to changing Laura's hair. While on the subject of hair, I doubt that Laura went around most of the time with her hair hanging loose and unkempt. While she was inwardly in many ways a free spirit, she still adhered to the way young ladies were expected to appear in that era; in fact, she describes in her books the painstaking efforts to use the curling iron and cutting bangs to make her appear more stylish.

It was also disappointing that the makers of this film did not focus on the uniqueness of the relationships among the entire Ingalls family, which again Laura described so lovingly. Instead they chose to depict a sharp altercation between Ma and Pa about moving West again. The writers should have placed more emphasis on the closeness between Laura and Mary, especially after Mary became blind, and also on how well Mary did after attending a college for the blind; she, too, was a special person.

If the producers of this film had enough respect for Laura to want to tell her story, then they should have respected what she wrote. Their choosing not to do so smacks of commercialism. Perhaps they could not believe that such good (though not "goody goodies") people actually existed and that the viewers would not care to watch. Then why bother?

The Little House on the Prairie series is much more entertaining and well-done! Merideth Monroe, who played Laura, was too modern and independent. That guyish hat she wore was annoying! The most obvious and disappointing thing, though, was that the family seemed distant to each other most of the time, more like mismatched cardboard stage props pretending to go together. The actor who played Pa did pretty well in the situation, but he still seemed too gruff, and Ma seemed way too cold! I'd rather see the Little House on the Prairie series any day!

I was spoon-fed generous portions of Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was a child. It was good to see "The Long Winter" finally make it onto film. But the romantic stuff shown after Laura and Almanzo got married? Gee, I don't remember that from "These Happy Golden Years" or "The First Four Years"! I thought the hailstorm was realistic. When the house burned down, it was a hot summer day as I recall. This movie says the fire was caused by a hay tie in the winter time. I see on IMDb that other people found other stuff wrong. I don't really have a problem with the casting, but I never thought about it. I agree that the TV series took great liberties with Laura Ingalls Wilder's material. The way I see it, the discrepancies could have been so easily avoided that the makers were stupid not to just make this movie right.

Yes, there was quite a bit of sensational melodrama here that probably wasn't the least bit true-to-life. (I've never actually read the Little House books, though I have read several biographies of Laura, but I don't need their biggest fan to tell me Laura never described her first "experience" with Almanzo probably at all, much less like this.) Merideth Monroe was pretty good as Laura, height and hair color aside, but often shallow, flat and annoyingly modern. But there was more stuff here, and most of it was good. Very nice photography of the Dakota prarie, good performances from Richard Thomas and Lindsay Crouse as Pa and Ma, and a real sense, thanks to the script, visuals and direction, of how hard prarie life was in the 1880s. Both like and unlike the usual Sunday-night TV-movie fare, and not really that bad. But you probably should read a good biography of the real Laura and the books themselves, just in case.