Bitter Harvest (TV 1981)

A dairy farmer's family is affected when his cows are poisoned by PBBs.

Director:

Roger Young

Writers:

Frederic Halbert (book), Sandra Halbert (book),

Stars:

Ron Howard, Art Carney, Tarah Nutter

Nominated for 4 Primetime Emmys. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ron Howard	...	Ned De Vries
Art Carney	...	Walter Peary
Tarah Nutter	...	Kate De Vries
David Knell	...	Brandon
Barry Corbin	...	Dr. Agajanian
Richard Dysart	...	Dr. Morton Freeman
Michael Bond	...	DeJong
Jim Haynie	...	Doc
Robert Hirschfeld	...	Harold
G.W. Bailey	...	Lazlo
Robert Behling	...	Art
Ken Hixon	...	Williams
Dwight Schultz	...	Schlatter
Joe Miksak	...	Al
J.E. Freeman	...	Farmer #2

Storyline

A dairy farmer's family is affected when his cows are poisoned by PBBs.

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Plot Keywords:

dairy farm | usa | environmental | agriculture | rural setting | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 May 1981 (USA)

Also Known As:

Dødelig gift

Filming Locations:

Healdsburg, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Charles Fries Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

User Reviews

Fantastic

This movie aired on National Television on May 4th 1981 where it was based on a true story that occurred in Michigan back in the late sixties. This movie starred Ron Howard as Ned De Vries, Art Carney as Walter Peary and Tarah Nutter as Kate De Vries. This movie about a young man named Ned who went to college to study business. He married his child hood sweet heart Katie and they have a newborn baby boy. Ned had just found out that his father died so when Ned and Katie heard that they might sale his dads farm Ned and Katie moved back home to the farm to help run it. After being there for a while Ned discovers his love for farming and that he didn't want to be any where else. It's about one year later and everything is going fine. It's early in the morning and Ned goes to barn to Harold his handy man to milk cows and clean stalls. Katie takes there son and goes to another building where she feeds the little calves. Later in the day in a pouring rain storm Katie's favorite cow named Test is ready to give birth. She does and she gave birth to very healthy baby bull. Things start to go wrong so along comes Walter Peary. Walter has a dairy farm of his own across the street from the De Vries place. They kids ask Walter to come over because the baby bull won't nurse of his mother or out of a bottle. As time goes on Ned starts to notice that his milking production is down and his cows are slowly getting sick. However, what really was noticeable was the rash on Ned's baby boy. So he talks to Walter and Walter suggests to Ned that he calls in the state. Along comes a state Agriculture figure and a state appointed doctor. They examined Ned's cows, check his barn and his feed. The state tells Ned that his cows are suffering from mild nutrition and bad management. One day while digging around Ned finds a dead rat, so after pounding a hole in the wall Ned finds another dozen dead rats. What is going on here? Will the state's agricultural officials do something about Howard's plight, or will red tape and bureaucracy ruled the day. What happens to Ned's herd? Will his milk production go down to no production at all? Most of all what happens to Ned's fathers farm. Here are some thoughts of my own about this movie. I thought this was and excellent movie. I was raise in the country and there nothing that smells better then a dairy farm. The longer I watch this the more home sick I became. I remember the days of cleaning hog stalls, separating pigs, baling hay, picking rocks, and not eating until 7 or 8pm at night. However, the one good thing about eating that late is that you were hungry and you ate a lot. This movie was based on a book written by Frederick and Sandra Halbert. A lot of people were affected by this poison that showed in milk and tainted foods. Some people even died and some people developed horrible cancer growths. The government really tried it's hardest to cover this story up and farmers that lived through this still won't talk about what happen in the state of Michigan. This movie was filmed in southern California and was nominated for 4 Emmy awards. I give this movie 10 weasel stars alone based on the true story and the beautiful farm sites.