It is seventy-five years after the War Between the States, and the people of the rural South are struggling to keep food on the table and their honor intact. In what is known as "the second invasion," wealthy Northerners like Norman Williams (Sterling Hayden) are coming to the South in droves in order to buy up historic plantations from impoverished Southerners who can no longer afford to pay the taxes on their land. New York showgirl, Charlotte Dunterry (Madeleine Carroll), arrives in the backwoods Virginia town of Fairville to sell Dunterry Plantation, which she has just inherited but has not seen since she was a small child. However, her plans change when she meets -- and falls in love with -- a local resident named Stonewall Jackson Elliott (Fred MacMurray). With Stonewall as her teacher, Charlotte soon learns that there is much more to living than pursuit of the Yankee dollar. This touching film also stars Paul Hurts and Louise Beavers as the two Black caretakers who have waited for Charlotte to come home, and Leigh Whipper as the elderly ex-slave who has returned to Dunterry to be laid to rest beside his former master in the family burial plot.

Related Titles: Colonel Effingham's Raid (1939) black and white; 71 minutes

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Starring Actors: Louise Beavers Madeleine Carroll Fred MacMurray