Breaking Home Ties was inspired by a famous Norman Rockwell illustration from the Saturday Evening Post during the Fifties. Simpler times when Mr. Rockwell's vision of America was unchallenged.
Mainly not to add any pressure on him I think though it's never quite explained. Eva Marie Saint chooses to keep the fact that she's dying from leukemia from son Doug McKeon. And to make doubly sure the secret is safe she also doesn't tell her husband Jason Robards, Jr.
Secrets abound in Breaking Home Ties. School teacher Claire Trevor's been keeping a pip of one for many years. But if we're to believe The Last Picture Show of which this seems to be a PG version of, secrets like that don't keep well in a small Texas town. This incidentally was Claire Trevor's farewell film.
Rounding out the main players in Breaking Home Ties is Erin Gray, sister of one of Doug McKeon's basketball teammates and a war widow who takes a shine to young McKeon. Doug McKeon is rather short and for the life of me I couldn't believe anyone would give him a basketball scholarship no matter how good he was. They should have had him playing baseball. Or even rodeo, given that this is set in Texas.
Breaking Home Ties never quite makes the grade, it falls short of good family entertainment. It is nicely photographed on location in Texas, but The Last Picture Show it ain't.
