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Storyline
Jesse Hallam, an illiterate coal miner from Kentucky, moves to Cincinnati so that his daughter may receive spinal surgery. Determined to support his family in the city, he decides he must learn how to read and write as an adult, and resolves to graduate from high school. Written by
Anonymous
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Quotes
[
last lines]
Jesse Hallam:
You want to do what I've been doin' all my life - runnin' away from words? Well, that's up to you, but you got to know... it's a poverty trade. And right here and now you could be diggin' youself a hole in the bottom of a mountain that you're never goin' to climb back up out of. Well, not me - and not my boy. We're goin' to high school and we're goin' to graduate and nobody or nothin's goin' to stop us. We're going to learn to read.
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Soundtracks
"Sweet Kentucky"
Sung by
Johnny Cash
Written by
Alan Shapiro See more »
I was 22 when this movie came out. I really enjoyed it. This was the first movie that I really ever saw Johnny Cash act in. He was truly as gifted as an actor as he was a singer. He did a good job portraying people from the area he is supposed to be from. I'm from Kentucky and on a side note, contrary to popular belief, not everybody from Kentucky is illiterate. Also, while there are plenty of coal mines in western Kentucky, there are way more in the Eastern part of the state and probably a lot more illiteracy problems too. Not sure why the writers of the movie chose for Jesse Hallam to be western Kentucky instead of eastern.