The cast included Sophia Loren as Abbie (known as Anna in the film), Anthony Perkins as Eben, Burl Ives as Ephraim, Frank Overton as Simeon, and Pernell Roberts as Peter.

[2] Widower Ephraim Cabot, a greedy New England farmer who has overworked two wives to their graves, works his three sons from the two women as slaves.

Eben buys out his half-brothers' shares of the farm with money stolen from his father, and Peter and Simeon head off to California to seek their fortune.

Later, Ephraim returns with a new wife, Anna, a beautiful and headstrong woman from Italy, who enters into an adulterous affair with Eben.

Before the sheriff arrives Eben returns to the farm and admits to Anna the depths of his love for her and confesses his own role in the infanticide.

He looks more like Foxy Grandpa with a pious black hat on his head than like a gaunt and tireless old toiler with limbs resembling those of an ageless elm.