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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
George Edwards (screenplay)
George Edwards (story)
more
Tagline:
The song was scandalous. The movie is hilarious!
Plot:
Stella Johnson is a single mother living in the town of Harper Valley. Now most of people, particularly... more | add synopsis
User Comments:
Theoretically funny more (10 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Barbara Eden | ... | Stella Johnson | |
| Ronny Cox | ... | Willis Newton | |
| Nanette Fabray | ... | Alice Finely | |
| Louis Nye | ... | Kirby Baker | |
| Audrey Christie | ... | Flora Simpson Reilly | |
| Ron Masak | ... | Herbie Maddox | |
| John Fiedler | ... | Bobby Taylor | |
| Susan Swift | ... | Dee Johnson | |
| Pat Paulsen | ... | Mr. Harper | |
| Bob Hastings | ... | Skeeter | |
| Fay DeWitt | ... | Willa Mae Jones | |
| J.J. Barry | ... | Tex | |
| Royce D. Applegate | ... | Dutch | |
| Irene Yah-Ling Sun | ... | Myrna Wong | |
| Louise Foley | ... | Mavis |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
93 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
All but the last 2 weeks of filming were directed by Ralph Senensky. He left after expressing concern that the elephants would be spooked on Halloween night, when a scene was scheduled to be shot. As it turned out he was right and Nanette Fabray was injured. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: The helicopter's shadow can be seen during an aerial scene. more
Quotes:
Herbie Maddox: Did you hear the one about the two newborn babies in the nursery? The girl baby says to the boy baby 'are you a boy baby or a girl baby?', he says 'I'm a boy baby'. The girl baby says 'how do you know you're a boy baby?' At that the boy baby whips back the blankets and says 'see that? Blue booties!' more
Movie Connections:
References Peyton Place (1957) more
Soundtrack:
HARPER VALLEY P.T.A. more
FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (10 total)
Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
|---|---|
| Ever coming to DVD? | chaosrainz |
| the song | Beatle_Head |
| I live work in Lebanon, Ohio where the movie was filmed | Sugarbehr1967 |
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| News articles | IMDb Comedy section | IMDb USA section |
| Add this title to MyMovies |

Midwest suburban Americana is forever captured on in a supposed send up inspired by a country song that made the charts.
I remember the build up and hype generated on both radio and TV for this purported knee-slapper of a movie, and when I saw it with the family we couldn't wait to turn the channel. It had a kind of wanton charm to it, but fell far short of a full blown send up of the emerging cultured country folk.
One of the things one should remember about making a movie inspired by a song is to know what the song is about before committing words to paper. The song itself tells of a woman with so-called loose or progressive morals bringing up her daughter in a provincial, but not entirely rural, portion of America. The kind of people who, though surrounded by the trappings of suburban life, are just too caught up in the petty inbred politics to fully appreciate what life has to offer. But the plot contrived by the screenwriters is hackneyed at best. It was not developed to its full potential, and the quality of cinematics shows in this made for TV movie which, if memory serves, saw theatrical release.
The plot jumps from one episode to the next without any real impetus on the part of the characters, and the results of the scenarios are as faked and contrived as the plot itself. Combine this with the usual canned music from the network "orcehstra" and you got yourself one hell of a bomb waiting to be dropped.
Myself, the lovely Barbara Eden was right for the role (being a very competent actress), but the situations in which her character was placed, and the direction she was given in terms of scene setup was several cards shy of a full deck. The acting in the film, for what it is, is actually okay. No Oscars will be won here, but I believed the actors were the characters they were portraying. There was nothing wrong there. It's just the material they were given to work with was very lackluster.
The actors playing the youths/kids were probably the one exception to the previous paragraph. Casting a male in his early to mid twenties to play a teenage love interest for a 13 year old girl, to me, seems ham fisted at best. I never bought into it, and found said male to be lacking in the emoting department.
There was real potential here to create something great, but the film, being a made for TV movie, falls a little flat here and there, and really never rises above the level of mediocrity. It has its positives, primarily the premise of both movie and song upon which it was placed, but, like I said earlier, really doesn't go the distance.
In short the film was just another mercenary effort to capitalize a trendy popular song and ethos of mid 70s Midwest. If you've never seen it, then it's worth a single viewing just to say you watched it, otherwise I'd avoid this thing.