Editing Friendly Persuasion (1956 film) (section)

==Reception==
According to [[Bosley Crowther]], "[[Thou#Religious uses|thee]] should be pleasured by this film", noting it is "loaded with sweetness and warmth and as much cracker-barrel [[Americana (culture)|Americana]] as has been spread on the screen in some time."  Crowther called Cooper and McGuire "wonderfully spirited and compassionate in their finely complementary roles" and said a "great deal of admiration must go to Anthony Perkins" for making "the older son of the Birdwells a handsome, intense, and chivalrous lad."<ref>{{cite news| title= Friendly Persuasion | url= https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1738E265BC4A53DFB767838D649EDE | date= November 2, 1956 | first= Bosley |last=Crowther | author-link=Bosley Crowther | newspaper= The New York Times | access-date= October 6, 2011}}</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' magazine called it "the simple story of a Quaker family in Indiana back in the 1860s" with "just about everything in the way of comedy and drama, suspense and action"; they also said "figuring importantly in the way the picture plays is [[Dimitri Tiomkin]]'s conducting of his own [[film score|score]]."<ref name="variety"/>

The film earned $4 million at the North American box office in 1956.<ref>'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1956', ''Variety Weekly'', January 2, 1957</ref> However it struggled to make a profit because of its high cost.<ref>{{cite magazine|title='Friendly' virile b.o.|magazine=Variety|url=https://archive.org/details/variety205-1957-02/page/n74/mode/1up?|access-date=August 9, 2024|date=February 13, 1957|page=13}}</ref>

MGM distributed outside the US and Canada. According to their records the film made $732,000, earning the studio a profit of $582,000.<ref name="Mannix">{{Citation | title = The Eddie Mannix Ledger | publisher = Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study | place = Los Angeles}}.</ref>

The film also received mild criticism for certain inaccurate portrayals of Quaker views, such as a misunderstanding that although Quakers disliked programmed music they did value individual original expressions of it; and in meetings, Bible passages are not read verbatim but speakers recite scripture from memory and express its meaning in their own words.<ref>{{cite web|last=Miller|first=Richard B.|title=Quakers/Friendly Persuasion|url=http://en.allexperts.com/q/Quakers-1550/Friendly-Persuasion.htm|work=AllExperts|access-date=February 9, 2013|date=August 22, 2005|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100427163457/http://en.allexperts.com/q/Quakers-1550/Friendly-Persuasion.htm|archive-date=April 27, 2010}}</ref>