Academy Award winners Loretta Young and William Holden star with Robert Mitchum in the story of a widower frontiersman, the indentured woman he takes as wife and mother for his young son and of the growing feelings between husband and wife in Rachel and the Stranger. Widower David Harvey (Holden) wants to rear his young son, Davey (Gary Gray), to become an educated, Christian man. To help keep his home and serve as mother, Harvey takes in--and marries--an indentured young woman, Rachel (Young). But it takes the arrival of another man, Jim Fairways (Mitchum), who's attracted to Rachel, to force the married couple to become aware of the bond of love and affection that has grown between them.
