I Heard the Bells is the first line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem Christmas Bells. This film, set in the 1860s, focuses on the poet and his family.

This is the first film made by an American religious company, Sight and Sound, which has operated two theatres with an emphasis on telling biblical stories. As a first venture into filmmaking, this one is quite accomplished and should please audiences.

Perhaps Longfellow is still well known and admired in the US, but is not so well-known beyond. In the past, when students at school learned poetry and recited poems, his Hiawatha was popular. He also wrote a poem about the war of independence, Paul Revere’s Ride. In fact, by the time of this film, he was America’s best loved poet, a poet who was able to use ordinary language and voice rhythms to communicate his feelings and his message. (He was also a well-travelled academic, lecturer, translator, including Dante’s The Divine Comedy.)

As the film opens, we are in Cambridge Massachusetts, around 1860 with cosy scenes of family life, very much sweetness and light. (Which may be initially off-putting for those who want to get into some action – but that comes.)

An interesting comparison might be the March family from Little Women, living at the same time, in nearby Concord, Massachusetts.

However, it is also the period of the move towards abolitionism and there is a sequence at a family dinner where a guest is an African-American gentleman who is invited to read to the guests one of Longfellow’s poems. Longfellow’s stance was staunchly abolitionist.

Longfellow is played by Atherholt in his first film role, but a long-time member and trainer in the Sight and Sound Company. For older audiences, they may be reminded of Gregory Peck in the presence and performance.

There is a sad episode which changes the mood of the film, and Longfellow’s own mood. After the tragic accidental death of his wife Longfellow becomes depressed and gives up writing poetry.

There are reconstructions of war sequences in this film – a dramatic moving from family sweetness and light to the harsh realities of battle, deaths and battlefields. Charley is protected from frontline action because of his father’s intervening with a Senator for officials to keep him out of danger, but, nevertheless, Charley is wounded when carrying out surveillance.

The war, the changes in the family and Charley’s return home for convalescence, stir something in Longfellow. There have been images of bells throughout the film, bells collapsing from churches destroyed in the war, the ringing out of church bells – and this becomes inspiration for Longfellow’s poem. We share his experience of family, religion, slavery and abolition, the harsh realities of war, and his writing hopeful poetry again – hearing the bells ringing.