‘Leave it to Beaver,’ ‘The Yearling’ stars at MidSouth Nostalgia Fest
When movie actor Claude Jarman Jr. arrived in Oxford, Mississippi, in the spring of 1949 to shoot “Intruder in the Dust,” an adaptation of a William Faulkner novel, the 14-year-old towhead had an honorary Oscar for “The Yearling” on his résumé and a wicked Hollywood gadget at the ready — or so said the impressionable young women in Oxford who were Jarman’s biggest fans.
“The rumor went around town that Claude Jarman had special glasses, and with those glasses he could see right through girls’ clothes,” remembered lifelong Oxford resident Kaye Bryant in “When We Were Extras,” a documentary about the making of “Intruder in the Dust.”
“Well, that just excited every girl in town,” Bryant said. “So while we were following him around town, any time he would look our way we’d try and get behind a post or get behind someone else so he couldn’t see through our clothes.”
Jarman returns to Mississippi this week, but the glasses he’ll bring with him are for reading, not spying. Now 87, the retired actor and longtime San Francisco arts activist is one of about a dozen celebrity guests from the worlds of movies and television scheduled to appear at the annual MidSouth Nostalgia Festival, set for June 9-11 at the Whispering Woods Hotel & Conference Center in Olive Branch.
Founded in 1972, the festival would be touting its 50th anniversary if not for a few interruptions over the past half-century (most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 events).
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Originally a celebration of the Western genre, the festival over the years expanded its reach to movies and TV in general, but the core emphasis remains the “Golden Age” of the screen cowboy. If the mission is old, the name is new: Previously known as the Memphis Film Festival, the event is now called the MidSouth Nostalgia Festival, to distinguish it from the Indie Memphis Film Festival and other local cinema events.
The festival will reunite Jarman with Karolyn Grimes (Jimmy Stewart’s daughter “Zuzu” in “It’s a Wonderful Life”), his co-star alongside John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in John Ford’s “Rio Grande” (1950).
Some other stars set to appear include “Leave It to Beaver” star Jerry Mathers; Robert Fuller, TV he-man hero on “Wagon Train” and “Emergency!”; busy Bo Svenson, who was Buford Pusser in two “Walking Tall” sequels; Darby Hinton, who was young Israel Boone alongside Fess Parker on TV’s “Daniel Boone”; stuntwoman Jeannie Epper, who doubled for Lynda Carter on “Wonder Woman,” Lindsay Wagner on “The Bionic Woman” and Tanya Roberts on “Charlie’s Angels”; and a triumvirate of sons-of-legends who became actors themselves: Patrick Wayne, Chris Mitchum and Robert Carradine.
The stars sign autographs and appear on panels, discussing their careers. Sometimes they stop by one of the screening rooms where their films and TV episodes play almost nonstop during the festival. Jarman will attend a 7 p.m. June 10 screening of “When We Were Extras,” which debuted in 2009 during a 50th anniversary celebration of “Intruder in the Dust” in Oxford; joining Jarman to reminisce onstage will be eyeglasses-wary Oxford resident Bryant and T.C. Smith Jr., who was Jarman’s double, stand-in and between-takes checkers opponent.
‘The Yearling’ to football games
Now a resident of Northern California, Jarman was a 5th-grader at Eakin Elementary School in Nashville when he was “discovered” by MGM director Clarence Brown, who was traveling through the South to find the young lead for his adaptation “The Yearling,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn. A Technicolor production with Gregory Peck as Jarman’s father, the movie was MGM’s top money-maker of 1946, and Jarman was given a special Academy Award for his performance.
Jarman said he was a veteran of school plays with an interest in acting, so Brown — a stalwart of the glory days of MGM, celebrated for his work with Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford — became a mentor and father figure. Brown’s movie before “The Yearling” had been another animal story with a young lead, “National Velvet” with Elizabeth Taylor; Jarman said he and Taylor were classmates in the one-room schoolhouse on the MGM studio lot, along with such other youthful actors as Jane Powell and Margaret O’Brien.
When not making movies, Jarman returned to Nashville and attended school at Montgomery Bell Academy, where he was quarterback on the school’s highly successful football team. His celebrity status made him a special target for away games, and not only on the field.
When the undefeated Montgomery Bell team came to Memphis to play Central on Oct. 12, 1951, the headline in The Commercial Appeal the next day reported: “Memphians Stomp Claude Jarman and I Formation.” Describing Central’s 34-6 victory, the story referred to Jarman as “the young cinema hero who won no football Oscars last night.” When the “movie star quarterback” fumbled, the story said, the error was “in violation of any movie director’s instructions.”
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Jarman was used to scrutiny. Unlike many child actors, he almost always had big parts alongside big stars. In addition to “Rio Grande,” he was in “Roughshod” (1949), with Gloria Grahame; “Hangman’s Knot” (1952), with Randolph Scott; “Fair Wind to Java” (1953), with Fred MacMurray; and “The Sun Comes Up” (1949), with Lassie.
‘Intruder in the Dust’
“Intruder in the Dust” was something of a passion project for Clarence Brown. Shot on location in “Faulkner country,” in and around Oxford, the black-and-white film tackled racism and racial injustice at a time when such topics were rarely addressed onscreen. Juano Hernandez stars as Lucas Beauchamp, a strong-willed Black man who is wrongly accused of killing a white man; Jarman is Chick Mallison, a teenager from a well-to-do family who befriends the man, even as other townspeople gather to lynch him.
Despite the incendiary subject matter, enthusiastic reports about Hollywood’s residency in Mississippi filled local newspapers during the seven weeks of production. Eventually, more than 500 locals appeared in the film, sometimes looking as “self-conscious,” according to The Commercial Appeal, as “a bunch of high school girls walking past a fraternity house.” But because segregation was in effect, Hernandez was not allowed to stay in the same hotels as the other actors and crew members; instead, he lodged in the home of a local Black undertaker.
“Faulkner was around a lot, and he and Clarence Brown kind of bonded,” Jarman said. Meanwhile, Faulkner’s daughter, Jill, “was my age, and she used to have parties at the house (Faulkner’s 1840s home, Rowan Oak) on weekends, so we used to go to those. Dancing and that sort of thing.”
“Intruder in the Dust” had its world premiere on Oct. 11 1949, at the Lyric Theatre in Oxford, with entertainment provided by Memphis performers “Esmerldy, the radio hillbilly songstress” and “Freddie Burns and the Ranch Boy’s, WHBQ’s hillbilly harmonizers.” Jarman wasn’t there because he already was working on another movie, but Brown and the great character actors Elizabeth Patterson and Porter Hall were present.
The next night, Brown, Patterson and Hall came to Memphis for the movie’s Bluff City debut at the Lowe’s Palace cinema Downtown. Notorious local censor Lloyd T. Binford approved the movie for Memphis audiences, but cautioned: “It doesn’t live up to Southern ideals.”
The film was championed by some critics but mostly ignored by audiences. “People didn’t know about it,” Jarman said. “MGM did not promote it. They were not really excited about showing that film.” But now, “anywhere that it’s shown, people are very, very moved by it.”
‘I’m still a Tennessee boy’
Jarman ended his acting career at about the same time the traditional studio system was nearing its end.
“I had good parts in these movies, it wasn’t just a passing fancy,” he said, citing friendships he made with such older actors as Maureen O’Hara and Lee Marvin.
However, “with the studios no longer running Hollywood, it was a different environment. At MGM, they really took care of everything, but everything changed. I gave it my best for 10 years, but I never wanted to go out and hustle to be in movies, so as I got older I thought, ‘I don’t really want to do this.'”
But he remained active in the arts and connected to cinema: He ran the San Francisco International Film Festival from 1965 to 1980.
Jarman said he’s looking forward to the MidSouth Nostalgia Festival. “I’m excited about coming down there,” he said. “I’ve lived in California most of my life, but when people say, ‘Where are you from?,’ I always say, ‘Tennessee.’ I’m still a Tennessee boy and always will be.”
MidSouth Nostalgia Festival
June 9-11, Whispering Woods Hotel & Conference Center, 7300 Hacks Cross Road, Olive Branch
Admission: $80 (three-day registration); $30 (Thursday or Friday); $20 (Saturday); free (children 12 and under).
For more information, call (501) 499-0444 or visit midsouthnostalgiafestival.com.
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