Doug Kershaw

In 1916, Chicago steelworker Bill (Richard Gere, stepping in for John Travolta) flees to Texas with his little sister Linda (Linda Manz) and girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) after fatally erupting at his boss. Along with other itinerant laborers, they work the harvest at a wealthy, ailing farmer's ranch, but the farmer (playwright Sam Shepard) falls in love with Abby, and, believing her to be Bill's sister, asks the three to stay on at his elysian spread. Seeing it as his one real chance to escape perpetual poverty, Bill urges Abby to marry the sick man. Marriage, however, has more restorative powers, and the farmer has more magnetism, than Bill had planned. "Nobody's perfect," Linda impassively observes in one of her many voice-overs, after their brief paradise is erased by plagues of locusts, fire, and lethal jealousy. An extraordinary cinematic achievement of sight and sound by writer/director Terrence Malick.

One of the most critically-acclaimed films of all time, Days of Heaven is a moving story about two men who love the same woman. Richard Gere, a fugitive from the slums of Chicago, finds himself pitted against a shy, rich Texan (Sam Shepard) for the love of Abby (Brooke Adams). An extraordinary cinematic achievement of sight and sound by writer/director Terrence Malick.

A hot-tempered farm laborer convinces the woman he loves to marry their rich but dying boss so that they can have a claim to his fortune.