Stark Love is a feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

 directed by Karl Brown

Karl Brown (cinematographer)

Karl Brown was a pioneer American cinematographer who had a close association with director D. W. Griffith. Brown also became a noteworthy director and screenwriter. The most successful film he worked on as cinematographer was The Covered Wagon...

 and released by Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

. The film is a maverick production in both design and concept, is a beautifully photographed mix of lyrical anthropology and action melodrama from director Karl Brown. “Man is absolute ruler. Woman is working slave.” Such are the rigid attitudes framing this tale of a country boy’s beliefs about chivalry

Chivalry

Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...

 that lead him to try to escape a brutal father with the girl he loves. Stark Love, was cast almost exclusively with amateur actors and filmed entirely in the Great Smoky Mountains

Great Smoky Mountains

The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province. The range is sometimes called the Smoky Mountains or the...

, near Robbinsville, North Carolina.

In 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry

National Film Registry

The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

 by the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant and will be preserved for all time.

An extensive account of the movie's making, and its aftermath, can be found in the book Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains and What the Mountains Did to the Movies by J. W. Williamson.

Forrest James is the father of Fob James

Fob James

Forrest Hood James, Jr., known as Fob James , is an American politician, a civil engineer, and an all-American half-back...

, 48th governor of Alabama.

Cast

• Helen Mundy - Barbara Allen
• Forrest James - Rob Warwick
• Reb Grogan - 'Quill' Allen
• Silas Miracle - Jason Warwick