The Missouri Traveler

The Missouri Traveler is a 1958 American comingofage period piece comedydrama film directed by Jerry Hopper starring Brandon deWilde and Lee Marvin. It is based on the novel of the same name by John Burress. The cinematography was by Technicolor developer Winton C. Hoch with harmonica and banjo score by Jack Marshall of The Munsters fame. The film was distributed by Disneys Buena Vista Corporation.

Brandon deWilde leads a cast lengthy in character actors playing subdued Biarn Turner, a 15yearold runaway from the Eatondale Orphan Asylum bound for Florida in the postWorld War I time period of 1926. He receives a ride into the rural Missouri town of Delphi with rich landowner Tobias Brown Lee Marvin. There, after an episode in the town square involving most of the populace, he meets crusty newspaper man Doyle Magee Gary Merrill.Both of these men share an interest in the polite and mature youth one showing kindness, the other almost outright cruelty. Eventually, both of their reasonings become clear to the lad. At the same time, the whole town of Delphi comes to not only accept Biarn, but to embrace him as one of the towns own and his dream of becoming a farmer. ........

Source: Wikipedia