Daily Dialogue — September 29, 2019

“My friends and cousins. Do you remember when we were not rich, but when our poverty was different, not a thing to be ashamed of. There was a time when our children stayed home and raised their children in Malaga. Think about that we could become a town of old men and old women. We are family and I love you very much, but I must tell you sometimes when I wake up, I wanna cry.”

— The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), screenplay by John Nichols and David S. Ward, novel by John Nichols

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Farm.

Trivia: The Milagro Beanfield Director Robert Redford had previously co-starred about fifteen years earlier in The Sting (1973) which had been written by David S. Ward who co-wrote the screenplay for The Milagro Beanfield War.

Dialogue On Dialogue: I remember liking this movie when it came out, but we’ve so many greedy land developer plots, I wonder how the film would play with a modern audience?

IMDb plot summary: In the tiny town of Milagro, New Mexico, where the local water is a premium resource, shady developer Ladd Devine has conceived a glitzy resort that will ultimately siphon off all the water from the neighboring crop-fields. When handyman and farmer Joe Mondragon accidentally breaks a water valve reserved for major companies, he inadvertently sets off a small-scale water-rights war between the farmers and the developers.