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Strangers on a Train(film)
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Strangers on a Train
Strangers on a Train (film).jpg
poster by Bill Gold

Directed by
Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by
Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by
Raymond Chandler
Whitfield Cook
Czenzi Ormonde
Based on
Novel:
Patricia Highsmith
Starring
Farley Granger
Ruth Roman
Robert Walker
Music by
Dimitri Tiomkin
Cinematography
Robert Burks
Editing by
William H. Ziegler
Distributed by
Warner Bros.
Release dates
June 30, 1951

Running time
101 minutes
Language
English
Budget
$1.2 million
Box office
$7,000,000[1]
Strangers on a Trainis an American psychologicalcrimethrillerfilm produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel of the same nameby Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in the autumn of 1950 and released by Warner Bros.on June 30, 1951. The film stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker, and features Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, and Laura Elliott. The film is number 32 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills.
The story concerns two strangers who meet on a train, a young tennis player and a charming psychopath. The psychopath suggests that because they each want to "get rid" of someone, they should "exchange" murders, and that way neither will get caught. The first murder is committed; then the psychopath tries to force the tennis player to complete the bargain.


Contents [hide]
1Plot
2Cast
3Production3.1Pre-production
3.2Production
3.3Music
3.4Promotion and release
4Themes and motifs4.1Doubles
4.2Darkness–Light continuum
4.3Light and dark onscreen
4.4Political subtext
4.5Differences from the novel
5Critical reaction5.1Accolades
6Alternative versions
7Legacy
8References
9Further reading
10External links

Plot[edit]
Amateurtennisstar Guy Haines (Farley Granger) wants to divorcehis vulgar and promiscuous wife Miriam (Laura Elliott), so he can marry the elegant Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), the daughter of a senator, and hopefully have a career in politics. On a train Haines accidentally meets Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who recognizes Guy. Bruno tells Guy about his idea for the perfect murders: Bruno will kill Miriam, and in exchange Guy will kill Bruno's father. They have no identifiable motive for the crimes, and therefore they will not be suspects. Guy hurriedly leaves, but Bruno feels he has agreed. Bruno pockets Guy's monogrammed cigarette lighter.
Guy meets up with Miriam, who is pregnant by someone else and now does not want a divorce. He calls Anne and tells her he wants to "strangle" Miriam. At Bruno's home, his doting mother and unpleasant father live in luxury. Bruno and Guy talk on the phone; Guy explains that his wife refused the divorce and hangs up. Bruno follows Miriam and her two beaux to an amusement park, stalks her through various rides, and strangles her to death on the "Magic Isle".
Bruno waits for Guy and gives him Miriam's glasses, also reminding him that he is now obliged to kill Bruno's father. Bruno sends Guy his houskey, a map to his father's room, and, later, a pistol.
Senator Morton (Leo G. Carroll) informs Guy that his wife has been murdered. The police question Guy; his alibi fails when the drunken college professor he met on a train does not remember him. Guy is given a police escort who follows him. Bruno also continues to follow Guy, around the Jefferson Memorial, at the National Gallery of Art, and at his tennis match at Forest HIlls.
Bruno introduces himself to Anne, and sees Barbara (Anne's younger sister Patricia Hitchcock) who reminds him of Miriam. Soon afterwards, Bruno appears at a party at Senator Morton's house, hobnobbing with the guests, much to Guy's apprehension and Anne's increasing suspicion. Using another guest, Bruno demonstrates how to strangle someone. He again sees Barbara; her resemblance to Miriam triggers a flashback, and he begins to really strangle the woman. He blacks out and Barbara tells her sister, "His hands were on herthroat, but he was strangling me." Anne confronts Guy, who explains the truth about the crime.
According to Bruno's original plan, Guy creeps into Bruno's home at night. He reaches Bruno's father's room hoping to warn him, but Bruno is waiting for him. Because Guy will not complete his end of the bargain, Bruno says Guy must instead take responsibility for the murder which "belongs" to him; Bruno will see to that.
Anne visits Bruno's house explaining to his befuddled mother (Marion Lorne) that her son is responsible for a murder, but the woman does not believe her. Bruno overhears the conversation. He lets Anne know that he has Guy's lighter and will plant it at the scene of Miriam's murder. Anne and Guy devise a plan to finish his tennis match, evade his police escort, and reach the amusement park before Bruno plants the lighter.
Guy eventually wins the long match at Forest Hills. Bruno is also delayed when he drops Guy's lighter down a storm drain and has to recover it. Guy arrives at the amusement park. Bruno is waiting for sunset and tries to stay out of sight until he can plant the lighter, but one of the workers recognizes him from the night of the murder and informs the police.
Guy and Bruno struggle on the carousel. A shot fired by the police hits the carousel operator. The ride spins wildly out of control and crashes. Bruno is mortally wounded. The worker tells the police chief that Bruno is the one from the night of the crime, not Guy. Guy explains that Bruno is at the amusement park to "plant" Guy's lighter there. With his last breath Bruno lies to the police, but after death Bruno's fingers open to reveal Guy's lighter.
In the American version of the movie, the last scene shows Guy reunited with Anne on a train home. Guy is asked by a friendly clergymanseated near them if he is Guy Haines. Guy, remembering that this is the way Bruno started their fatal conversation, quickly leaves the club car with Anne, perplexing the clergyman.
Cast[edit]




Perhaps his best known cameo, where Hitchcock boards the train Haines gets off at the beginning of the film.Farley Grangeras Guy Haines
Ruth Romanas Anne Morton
Robert Walkeras Bruno Anthony
Leo G. Carrollas Senator Morton
Patricia Hitchcockas Barbara Morton
Laura Elliottas Miriam Joyce Haines
Marion Lorneas Mrs. Anthony
Jonathan Haleas Mr. Anthony
Norma Vardenas Mrs. Cunningham
John Brownas Professor Collins
Robert Gistas Detective Hennessey
Georges Renaventas Monsieur Darville (uncredited)
Odette Myrtilas Madame Darville (uncredited)
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearancein this movie occurs 11 minutes into the film. He is seen carrying a double bassas he climbs onto the train.
Hitchcock said that correct casting saved him "a reel of storytelling time", since audiences would sense qualities in the actors that didn't have to be spelled out.[2]In his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitchcock told Truffaut that he originally wanted William Holdenfor the Guy Haines role,[3][4]but Holden declined. "Holden would have been all wrong—too sturdy, too put off by Bruno", writes critic Roger Ebert.[5]"Granger is softer and more elusive, more convincing as he tries to slip out of Bruno's conversational web instead of flatly rejecting him."[5]
Warner Bros. wanted their own stars, already under contract, cast wherever possible. In the casting of Anne Morton, Jack Warnergot what he wanted when he assigned Ruth Roman to the project, over Hitchcock's objections.[6]The director found her "bristling" and "lacking in sex appeal" and said that she had been "foisted upon him."[7]Perhaps it was the circumstances of her forced casting, but Roman became the target of Hitchcock's scorn throughout the production.[8]Granger diplomatically describes it as Hitchcock's "disinterest" in the actress, and said he saw Hitchcock treat Edith Evanson the same way on the set of Rope(1948). "He had to have one person in each film he could harass", Granger said.[8]
Kasey Rogers(Miriam, credited as Laura Elliott) noted that she had perfect vision at the time the movie was made, but Hitchcock insisted she wear the character's thick eyeglasses, even in long shots when regular glass lenses would have been undetectable. Rogers was effectively blind with the glasses on, and needed to be guided by the other actors.[9]In one scene, she can be seen dragging her hand along a table as she walks; this was in order for her to keep track of where she was.
Production[edit]
Pre-production[edit]
Hitchcock secured the rights to the Patricia Highsmith novel for just $7,500 since it was her first novel. Hitchcock kept his name out of the negotiations to keep the purchase price low.[10][11]Highsmith was quite annoyed when she later discovered to whom she had sold the rights for such a small amount.[10]
Securing the rights to the novel was the least of the hurdles Hitchcock would have to vault to get the property from printed page to screen. He got a treatmentthat pleased him on the second attempt, from writer Whitfield Cook, who wove a homoeroticsubtext (only hinted at in the novel) into the story and softened Bruno from a coarse alcoholic into a dapper, charming mama's boy — a much more Hitchcockian villain.[12]With treatment in hand, Hitchcock shopped for a screenwriter; he wanted a "name" writer to lend some prestige to the screenplay, but was turned down by eight writers, including John Steinbeckand Thornton Wilder, all of whom thought the story too tawdry and were put off by Highsmith's first-timer status.[13]Talks with Dashiell Hammettgot further,[14]but here too communications ultimately broke down, and Hammett never took the assignment.[14]
Hitchcock then tried Raymond Chandler, who had earned an Oscar nomination for his first screenplay, Double Indemnity, in collaboration with Billy Wilder.[14][15]Chandler took the job despite his opinion that it was "a silly little story."[13]But Chandler was a notoriously difficult collaborator and the two men couldn't have had more different meeting styles: Hitchcock enjoyed long, rambling off-topic meetings where often the film wouldn't even be mentioned for hours, while Chandler was strictly business and wanted to get out and get writing. He called the meetings "god-awful jabber sessions which seem to be an inevitable although painful part of the picture business."[14]Interpersonal relations deteriorated rapidly until finally Chandler became openly combative; at one point, upon viewing Hitchcock struggling to exit his limousine, Chandler remarked within earshot "Look at the fat bastard trying to get out of his car!"[11][14]This would be their last collaboration. Chandler completed that first draft, then wrote a second, without hearing a single word back from Hitchcock; when finally he did get a communication from the director in late September, it was his dismissal from the project.[16]
Next, Hitchcock tried to hire Ben Hecht, but learned he was unavailable. Hecht suggested his assistant, Czenzi Ormonde, to write the screenplay.[11][16]Although Ormonde was without a formal screen credit, she did have two things in her favor: her recently published collection of short stories, Laughter From Downstairs, was attracting good notices from critics, and she was "a fair-haired beauty with long shimmering hair"[17]—always a plus with Hitch. With his new writer, he wanted to start from square one:

At their first conference, Hitchcock made a show of pinching his nose, then holding up Chandler's draft with his thumb and forefinger and dropping it into a wastebasket. He told the obscure writer that the famous one hadn't written a solitary line he intended to use, and they would have to start all over on page one, using Cook's treatment as a guide. The director told Ormonde to forget all about the book, then told her the story of the film himself, from beginning to end.[17]
There wasn't much time though — less than three weeks until location shooting was scheduled to start in the east. Ormonde hunkered down with Hitchcock's associate producer Barbara Keon—disparagingly called "Hitchcock's factotum" by Chandler[18]—and Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife. Together the three women, working under the boss's guidance and late into most nights,[16]finished enough of the script in time to send the company east. The rest was complete by early November.[18]Three notable additions the trio had made were the runaway merry-go-round, the cigarette lighter, and the thick eyeglasses.[19]
There was one point of agreement between Chandler and Hitchcock, although it would come only much later, near the release of the film: they both acknowledged that since virtually none of Chandler's work remained in the final script, his name should be removed from the credits.[18]Hitchcock preferred the writing credit of Whitfield Cook and Czenzi Ormonde, but Warner Bros. wanted the cachet of the Chandler name and insisted it stay on.[18]
Even while the tortuous writing stage was plodding its course, the director's excitement about the project was boundless. "Hitchcock raced ahead of everyone: the script, the cast, the studio... pieces of the film were dancing like electrical charges in his brain."[20]The more the film resolved in his mind's eye, the more he knew his director of photography would play a critical role in the scenes' execution. He found exactly what he needed right on the Warners lot in the person of staff cameraman Robert Burks, who would continue to work with Hitchcock, shooting every Hitchcock picture through to Marnie(1964), with the exception of Psycho.[21]"Low-keyed, mild mannered", Burks was "a versatile risk-taker with a penchant for moody atmosphere. Burks was an exceptionally apt choice for what would prove to be Hitchcock's most Germanic film in years: the compositions dense, the lighting almost surreal, the optical effects demanding."[22]None was more demanding than Bruno's strangulation of Miriam, shown reflected in her eyeglass lens: "It was the kind of shot Hitchcock had been tinkering with for twenty years—and Robert Burks captured it magnificently."[23]
Burks considered his fourteen years with Hitch the best of his career: "You never have any trouble with him as long as you know your job and do it. Hitchcock insists on perfection. He has no patience with mediocrity on the set or at a dinner table. There can be no compromise in his work, his food or his wines."[21]Robert Burks received Strangers on a Train'ssole Academy Awardnomination for its black and white photography.[23]
Production[edit]
With cast nailed down, a script in hand, and a sympatico director of photography on board, the company was ready to commence filming. Hitchcock had a crew shoot background footage of the 1950 Davis Cupfinals held 25–27 August 1950 at the West Side Tennis Clubin Forest Hills, New York. While there, the crew had done some other location scouting.[24]Exteriors would be shot on both coasts, and interiors on soundstages at Warners.
Hitchcock and his cast and crew decamped for the East Coast on October 17, 1950.[25]For six days they shot at Penn Stationin New York City, at the railroad station at Danbury, Connecticut—which became Guy's hometown Metcalf—and in spots around Washington, D.C.[25]
By month's end, they were back in California. Hitchcock had written exacting specifications for an amusement park, which was constructed on the ranch of director Rowland Leein Chatsworth, California.[8]The amusement park exteriors were shot there and at an actual Tunnel of Loveat a fairground in Canoga Park, California.[8]Hitchcock had already shot the long shots for the tennis match at Forest Hills and would add closer shots with Granger and Jack Cushingham, Granger's tennis coach off-screen and Guy's tennis opponent Fred Reynolds on-screen at a tennis club in South Gate, California.[21]The rest of the shooting would take place on Warner soundstages, including many seemingly exterior and on-location shots that were actually done inside in front of rear-projection screens.
Strangers on a Trainmarked something of a renaissance for Hitchcock after several years of low enthusiasm for his late-1940s output,[26]and he threw himself into the micromanagement of some of its production. Hitchcock himself designed Bruno's lobster necktie, revealed in a close-up to have strangling lobster claws,[27]and "he personally selected an orange peel, a chewing-gum wrapper, wet leaves, and a bit of crumpled paper that were used for sewer debris"[21]in the scene where Bruno inadvertently drops Guy's lighter down the storm drain.
He also showed intense interest in a seldom-considered detail of character delineation: Food.

"Preferences in food characterize people..." Hitchcock said. "I have always given it careful consideration, so that my characters never eat out of character. Bruno orders with gusto and with an interest in what he is going to eat — lamb chops, French fries, and chocolate ice cream. A very good choice for train food. And the chocolate ice cream is probably what he thought about first. Bruno is rather a child. He is also something of a hedonist. Guy, on the other hand, shows little interest in eating the lunch, apparently having given it no advance thought, in contrast to Bruno, and he merely orders what seems his routine choice, a hamburger and coffee."[28]
One of the most memorable single shots in the Hitchcock canon — it "is studied by film classes", says Laura Elliott, who played Miriam[29]—is her character's strangulation by Bruno on the Isle of Love. "[I]n one of the most unexpected, most aesthetically justified moments in film,"[30]the slow, almost graceful, murder is shown as a reflection in the victim's eyeglasses, which have been jarred loose from her head and dropped to the ground. The unusual angle was a more complex proposition than it seems. First Hitchcock got the exterior shots in Canoga Park, using both actors, then later he had Elliott alone report to a soundstage where there was a large concave reflector set on the floor. The camera was on one side of the reflector, Elliott was on the other, and Hitchcock directed Elliott to turn her back to the reflector and "float backwards, all the way to the floor... like you were doing the limbo."[31]The first six takes went badly—Elliott thudded to the floor with several feet yet to go[23]—but on the seventh take, she floated smoothly all the way. Hitchcock's even-strained response: "Cut. Next shot."[31]Hitchcock then had the two elements "ingenious[ly]" double printed,[23]yielding a shot of "oddly appealing originality [with] a stark fusion of the grotesque and the beautiful.... The astheticizing of the horror somehow enables the audience to contemplate more fully its reality."[30]
Hitchcock was, above all, the master of great visual setpieces,[32]and "[p]erhaps the most memorable sequence in Strangers on a Trainis the climactic fight on a berserk carousel."[21]While Guy and Bruno fight, the ride runs out of control until it tears itself to pieces, flinging wooden horses into the crowd of screaming mothers and squealing children. "The climactic carousel explosion was a marvel of miniatures and background projection, acting close-ups and other inserts, all of it seamlessly matched and blended under [film editor William] Ziegler's eye."[22]

Hitchcock took a toy carousel and photographed it blown up by a small charge of explosives. This piece of film he then enlarged and projected onto a vast screen, positioning actors around and in front of it so that the effect is one of a mob of bystanders into which plaster horses and passengers are hurled in deadly chaos. It is one of the moments in Hitchcock's work that continues to bring gasps from every audience and applause from cinema students.[33]
The explosion is triggered by the attempts of a carnival man to stop the ride after crawling under the whirling carousel deck to get to the controls in the center. Although Hitchcock admitted to undercrankingthe shot (artificially accelerating the action),[34]it was not a trick shot: the man actually had to crawl under the spinning ride, just inches from possible injury. "Hitchcock told me that this scene was the most personally frightening moment for him in any of his films", writes biographer Charlotte Chandler. "The man who crawled under the out-of-control carousel was not an actor or a stuntman, but a carousel operator who volunteered for the job. 'If the man had raised his head even slightly", Hitchcock said, "it would have gone from being a suspense film into a horror film."[35]
The final scene of the so-called American version of the film has Barbara and Anne Morton waiting for Guy to call on the telephone. Hitchcock wanted the phone in the foreground to dominate the shot, emphasizing the importance of the call, but the limited depth-of-field of contemporary motion picture lenses made it difficult to get both phone and women in focus. So Hitchcock had an oversized phone constructed and placed in the foreground.[29]Anne reaches for the big phone, but actually answers a regular one: "I did that on one take", Hitchcock explained, "by moving in on Anne so that the big phone went out of the frame as she reached for it. Then a grip put a normal-sized phone on the table, where she picked it up."[29]
Principal photography wrapped just before Christmas and Hitchcock and Alma left for a vacation in Santa Cruz,[27]then in late March 1951, on to St. Moritz for a 25th anniversary European excursion.[36]
Music[edit]
Composer Dimitri Tiomkinwas Jack Warner's choice to score Strangers on a Train. While he had previous Hitchcock experience on 1943's Shadow of a Doubtand would go on to score two more consecutive Hitch films, director and composer "simply never developed much of a kinship"[22]and "the Hitchcock films are not Tiomkin's best."[22]
Nevertheless, the score does pick up on the ubiquitous theme of doubles— often contrastingdoubles — right from the opening title sequence: "The first shot — two sets of male shoes, loud versus conservative, moving toward a train — carries a gruff bass motif set against Gershwin-like riffs, a two-part medley called "Strangers" and "Walking" that is never heard again."[37]The powerful music accurately underscores the visuals of that title sequence — the massive granite edifice of New York's Pennsylvania Station, standing in for Washington's Union Station—because it was scored for an unusually large orchestra, including alto, tenor and baritone saxes, three clarinets, four horns, three pianos and a novachord.[38]




Hitchcock and Burks collaborated on ingenious double printing technique to create this iconic shot still studied in film schools today.
Tiomkin's contrasting musical themes continue throughout the film, delineating two characters with substantial differences: "For 'Guy's Theme', Tiomkin created a hesitant, passive idea, made-to-order music for Farley Granger's performance."[39]Bruno, who tells Guy on the train that he admires people "who do things", gets a more vigorous musical treatment from Tiomkin: "Harmonic complexity defines the motifs associated with Bruno: rumbling bass, shocking clusters, and glassy string harmonics. These disturbing sounds, heard to superb effect in cues such as 'The Meeting,' 'Senator's Office,' and 'Jefferson Memorial,' are not just about Bruno, but about how he is perceived by those whose lives he crosses—first Guy, then everyone in Guy's entourage."[39]
But perhaps the most memorable music in Strangersis the calliope music[22]heard first at the fairground and again, later, when Bruno is strangling Mrs. Cunningham at Senator Morton's soirée and experiences his unfortunate flashback and subsequent fainting spell. It was Hitchcock, not Tiomkin, whose idea brought the four evocative numbers[22]— "The Band Played On", "Carolina in the Morning", "Oh, You Beautiful Doll", and "Baby Face" — to the soundtrack:

In one of Hitchcock's most explicit operatic gestures, the characters at the fateful carnival sing the score, giving it full dimension as part of the drama. In a conventional movie, the tune would play in the background as a clever ironic backdrop. But Hitchcock takes music to another level. Miriam and the two boyfriends in her odd ménage à trois bring "The Band Played On" to life by singing it on the merry-go-round, lustily and loudly... Grinning balefully on the horse behind them, Bruno then sings it himself, making it his motto. The band plays on through Bruno's stalking of his victim and during the murder itself, blaring from the front of the screen, then receding into the darkness as an eerie obbligato when the doomed Miriam enters the Tunnel of Love.[40]
"The Band Played On" makes its final reprise during Guy's and Bruno's fight on the merry-go-round, even itself shifting to a faster tempo and higher pitch when the policeman's bullet hits the ride operator and sends the carousel into its frenzied hyper-drive.
Critic Jack Sullivanhas kinder words for Tiomkin's score for Strangersthan does biographer Spoto: "[S]o seamlessly and inevitably does it fit the picture's design that it seems like an element of Hitchcock's storyboards", he writes[41]It is a score that "goes largely uncelebrated."[41]
Promotion and release[edit]
With a release scheduled for early summer, the studio press agents swung into high gear early in 1951. Hitchcock, photographed many times over the years strangling various actresses and other women — some one-handed, others two — found himself in front of a camera with his fingers around the neck of a bust of daughter Patricia;[27]the photo found its way into newspapers nationwide.[42]He also had himself photographed adding the letter L to Strangerson the official studio poster for the film.[27]
One studio press release gave rise to a myth that still lingers on today.[43]Hitchcock and Patricia both were afraid of heights, and father offered daughter a hundred dollars to ride the Ferris wheel— only to order the power cut, leaving her in the dark at the very top of the ride. The press release embellished the tale, claiming he left her "dangling in total darkness for an hour,"[36]only then allowing his "trembling daughter" to be lowered and released.[36]Although that account continues to be published in books to this day, "it just wasn't true", avers Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell.[44]First of all, she wasn't up there alone: flanking her were the actors playing Miriam's two boyfriends — "and I have a picture of us waving."[44]"This was good stuff for press agents paid to stir up thrills and it has been repeated in other books to bolster the idea of Hitchcock's sadism,"[36]but "we were [only] up there two or three minutes at the outside.... My father wasn't ever sadistic. The only sadistic part was I never got the hundred dollars."[44]
Strangers on a Trainpreviewed on March 5, 1951 at the Huntington ParkTheatre, with Alma, Jack Warner, Whitfield Cook and Barbara Keon in the Hitchcock party[27]and it won a prize from the Screen Directors Guild.[45]It premiered in New York on July 3, marking the reopening of the extensively remodeled Strand Theatreas the Warner Theatre, and in a dozen cities around the country.[45]Hitchcock made personal appearances in most of them, and was often accompanied by his daughter.
Some audience feedback arriving at Jack Warner's office condemned the film for its sordid story, while just as many others were favorable.[45]Of greater interest to Mr. Warner was the box office take, and the "receipts soon told the true story: Strangers on a Trainwas a success, and Hitchcock was pronounced at the top of his form as master of the dark, melodramatic suspense thriller."[45]
Themes and motifs[edit]
The film includes a number of punsand visual metaphorsthat demonstrate a running motif of crisscross, double-crossing, and crossing one's double. Talking about the structure of the film, Hitchcock said to Truffaut, "Isn't it a fascinating design? One could study it forever."[3]
The two characters Guy and Bruno can be viewed as doppelgängers. As with Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Trainis one of many Hitchcock films to explore the doppelgängertheme. The pair has what writer Peter Dellolio refers to as a "dark symbiosis."[46]Bruno embodies Guy's dark desire to kill Miriam, a "real-life incarnation of Guy's wish-fulfillment fantasy".[46]
Doubles[edit]
The theme of doublesis "the key element in the film's structure,"[47]and Hitchcock starts right off in his title sequence making this point: there are two taxicabs, two redcaps, two pairs of feet, two sets of train rails that cross twice. Once on the train, Walker orders a pair of double drinks — "The only kind of doubles I play", he says charmingly. In Hitchcock's cameo he carries a double bass.

There are two respectable and influential fathers, two women with eyeglasses, and two women at a party who delight in thinking up ways of committing the perfect crime. There are two sets of two detectives in two cities, two little boys at the two trips to the fairground, two old men at the carousel, two boyfriends accompanying the woman about to be murdered, and two Hitchcocks in the film.[47]
Hitchcock carries the theme into his editing, crosscutting between Guy and Bruno with words and gestures: one asks the time and the other, miles away, looks at his watch; one says in anger "I could strangle her!" and the other, far distant, makes a choking gesture.[47]
All this doubling has no precedent in the novel; it was quite deliberately added by Hitchcock, "dictated in rapid and inspired profusion to Czenzi Ormonde and Barbara Keon during the last days of script preparation."[47]It undergirds the whole film because it finally serves to associate the world of light, order, and vitality with the world of darkness, chaos, lunacy and death."[48]
Guy and Bruno are in some ways doubles, but in many more ways, they are opposites. The two sets of feet in the title sequence match each other in motion and in cutting, but they establish immediately the contrast between the two men: the first shoes "showy, vulgar brown-and-white brogues; [the] second, plain, unadorned walking shoes."[49]They also demonstrate Hitchcock's gift for deft visual storytelling: For most of the film, Bruno is the actor, Guy the reactor, and Hitchcock always shows Bruno's feet first, then Guy's. And since it is Guy's foot that taps Bruno's under the table, we know Bruno has not engineered the meeting.[50]
Roger Ebert writes that "it is this sense of two flawed characters — one evil, one weak, with an unstated sexual tension — that makes the movie intriguing and halfway plausible, and explains how Bruno could come so close to carrying out his plan."[5]
Darkness–Light continuum[edit]
It is those flaws that set up the real themes of Strangers.It wasn't enough for Hitchcock to construct merely a world of doubles — even contrasting doubles — in a strict polar-opposite structure; for Hitchcock, the good-and-evil, darkness-and-light poles "didn't have to be mutually exclusive."[5]Blurring the lines puts both Guy and Bruno on a good-evil continuum, and the infinite shades of gray in between become Hitchcock's canvas for telling the story and painting his characters.
At first glance, Guy represents the ordered life where people stick to the rules, while Bruno comes from the world of chaos,[50]where they get thrown out of multiple colleges for drinking and gambling. Yet "[b]oth men, like so many of Hitchcock's protagonists, are insecure and uncertain of their identity. Guy is suspended between tennis and politics, between his tramp wife and his senator's daughter, and Bruno is seeking desperately to establish an identity through violent, outréactions and flamboyance (shoes, lobster-patterned tie, name proclaimed to the world on his tiepin)."[51]
Bruno tells Guy early on that he admires him: "I certainly admire people who do things", he says. "Me, I never do anything important." Yet as Bruno describes his "theories" over lunch, "Guy responds to Bruno — we see it in his face, at once amused and tense. To the man committed to a career in politics, Bruno represents a tempting overthrow of all responsibility."[50]And at this point the blurring of good and evil accelerates: Guy fails to repudiate Bruno's suggestive statement about murdering Miriam ("What's a life or two, Guy? Some people are better off dead.") with any force or conviction. "When Bruno openly suggests he would like to kill his wife, he merely grins and says 'That's a morbid thought,' but we sense the tension that underlies it."[50]It ratchets up a notch when Guy leaves Bruno's compartment and "forgets" his cigarette lighter. "He is leaving in Bruno's keeping his link with Anne, his possibility of climbing into the ordered existence to which he aspires.... Guy, then, in a sense connives at the murder of his wife, and the enigmatic link between him and Bruno becomes clear.[52]Guy is not a clear-cut hero, Bruno not an all-black villain: the continuum has been established.
Light and dark onscreen[edit]
Having given his characters overlapping qualities of good and evil, Hitchcock then renders them on the screen according to a very strict template with which he sticks to a remarkable degree. Writes Ebert:

Hitchcock was a classical technician in terms of controlling his visuals, and his use of screen space underlined the tension in ways the audience isn't always aware of. He always used the convention that the left side of the screen is for evil and/or weaker characters, while the right is for characters who are either good or temporarily dominant.[53]
Nowhere is this more evident than the scene where Guy arrives home at his D.C. apartment to find Bruno lurking across the street; Bruno killed Miriam that evening in Metcalf and has her glasses to give to Guy almost as a "receipt" that he's executed hispart of their "deal". "On one side of the street, [are] stately respectable houses; towering in the background, on the right of the screen, the floodlit dome of the U.S. Capitol, the life to which Guy aspires, the world of light and order."[54]Bruno tells Guy what he's done and gives him the glasses. "You're a free man now", he says, just as a police car drives up, looking for the husband of a certain recent murder victim. Guy nervously steps into the shadows with Bruno, literally behind the bars of an iron fence; "You've got me acting like I'm a criminal", he says. "The scene gives a beautifully exact symbolic expression to Guy's relationship with Bruno and what he stands for."[54]
Hitchcock continues the interplay of light and dark throughout the film: Guy's bright, light tennis attire, versus "the gothic gloominess of [Bruno's] Arlington mansion";[47]the crosscutting between his game in the sunshine at Forest Hills while Bruno's arm stretches into the dark and debris of the storm drain trying to fish out the cigarette lighter;[55]even a single image where "Walker is photographed in one visually stunning shot as a malignant stain on the purity of the white-marble Jefferson Memorial, as a blot on the order of things."[56]
Political subtext[edit]
Although its first rumblings came in 1947 with the trial and conviction of the "Hollywood Ten", the so-called Red Scarewas truly gathering steam in the year 1950 with the espionage-related arrests of Julius and Ethel Rosenbergand the trial of Alger Hiss. These events were the background to their work while Hitchcock, Cook, Ormonde and Keon were preparing the script for Strangers, and film scholar Robert L. Carrington writes of a political subtext to the film.[12]Treatment writer Cook used Guy to make the film "a parable quietly defiant of the Cold War hysteria sweeping America."[12]

That hysteria was targeting homosexualsalong with Communistsas enemies of the state.... The U.S. Senate was busy investigating the suspicion that 'moral perverts' in the government were also undermining national security — going so far as to commission a study, Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government.[20]
Carrington argues that the film was crucially shaped by the Congressional inquiries, making Guy the stand-in for victims of the homophobicclimate.[20]"To all appearances Guy is the all-American stereotype, an athlete, unassuming despite his fame, conservatively dressed", writes Carrington; he is "a man of indeterminate sexual identityfound in circumstances making him vulnerable to being compromised."[20]
Hitchcock, who had drawn gay characters so sharply yet subtly in Ropein 1948, "drafted the left-leaning Cook... expressly because he was comfortable with sexually ambiguous characters."[12]
Differences from the novel[edit]
Even before sewing up the rights for the novel, Hitchcock's mind was whirling with ideas about how to adapt it for the screen. He narrowed the geographic scope to the Northeast corridorbetween Washington, D.C. and New York — the novel ranged through the southwest and Florida, among other locales.[20]The scripting team added the tennis match — and the crosscutting with Bruno's storm drain travails in Metcalf — added the cigarette lighter, the Tunnel of Love, Miriam's eyeglasses; in fact, the amusement park is only a brief setting in the novel.[20]
Hitchcock's biggest changes were in his two lead characters:
The character called Bruno Anthony in the film is called Charles Anthony Bruno in the book.[57]"Highsmith's Bruno is a physically repugnant alcoholic... but in [Whitfield Cook's] hands, the film's Bruno became a dandy, a mama's boy who speaks French, and who professes ignorance of women."[12]In the book, Bruno dies in a boating accident[57]far removed from any merry-go-round.
In the novel, Guy Haines is not a tennis player, but rather a promising architect, and he does indeed go through with the murder of Bruno's father.[57]In the movie, "Guy became a decent guy who refusesto carry out his part of the crazed bargain..." writes Patrick McGilligan, "to head off the censors."[12]In the novel, Guy is pursued and entrapped by a tenacious detective.[16]
The merry-go-round scene is not in the book, but is taken from the climax of Edmund Crispin's 1946 novel The Moving Toyshop.[58]All the major elements of the scene — the two men struggling, the accidentally shot attendant, the out-of-control merry-go-round, the crawling under the moving merry-go-round to disable it — are present in Crispin's account,[59]though he received no screen credit for it.
In Raymond Chandler's second draft script — which Hitchcock ceremoniously dropped into the wastebasket while daintily holding his nose — the final shot is Guy Haines, institutionalized, bound in a straitjacket.[18]
Critical reaction[edit]
Upon its release in 1951, Strangers on a Trainreceived mixed reviews. Varietypraised it, writing: "Performance-wise, the cast comes through strongly. Granger is excellent as the harassed young man innocently involved in murder. Roman's role as a nice, understanding girl is a switch for her, and she makes it warmly effective. Walker's role has extreme color, and he projects it deftly."[60]
Conversely, Bosley Crowtherof The New York Times, criticized the film: "Mr. Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy murder story in the air and trying to con us into thinking that it will stand up without support. ... Perhaps there will be those in the audience who will likewise be terrified by the villain's darkly menacing warnings and by Mr. Hitchcock's sleekly melodramatic tricks. ... But, for all that, his basic premise of fear fired by menace is so thin and so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand."[61]Leslie Halliwellfelt that Hitchcock was "at his best" and that the film "makes superior suspense entertainment," but called the story "unsatisfactory."[62]
More recent criticism is generally, though not universally, more positive. The film holds a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Eberthas called Strangers on a Traina "first-rate thriller" that he considers to be among the top five of Hitchcock's films.[4]
David Keyes, writing at cinemaphile.org in 2002, saw the film as a seminal entry in its genre: "Aside from its very evident approach as a crowd-pleasing popcorn flick, the movie is one of the original shells for identity-inspired mystery thrillers, in which natural human behavior is the driving force behind the true macabre rather than supernatural elements. Even classic endeavors like Fargoand A Simple Planseem directly fueled by this concept..."[63]
Almar Haflidason was effusive about Strangers on a Trainin 2001 at the BBCwebsite: "Hitchcock's favourite device of an ordinary man caught in an ever-tightening web of fear plunges Guy into one of the director's most fiendishly effective movies. Ordinary Washington locations become sinister hunting grounds that mirror perfectly the creeping terror that slowly consumes Guy, as the lethally smooth Bruno relentlessly pursues him to a frenzied climax. Fast, exciting, and woven with wicked style, this is one of Hitchcock's most efficient and ruthlessly delicious thrillers."[64]
Patricia Highsmith's opinion of the film varied over time. She initially praised it, writing: "I am pleased in general. Especially with Bruno, who held the movie together as he did the book." Later in life, while still praising Robert Walker's performance as Bruno, she criticized the casting of Ruth Roman as Anne, Hitchcock's decision to turn Guy from an architect into a tennis player, and the fact that Guy does not murder Bruno's father as he does in the novel.[65][66]
Accolades[edit]

Award
Category
Subject
Result
Academy Award Best Cinematography Robert Burks Nominated
Directors Guild of America Award Outstanding Directing – Feature Film Alfred Hitchcock Nominated
National Board of Review Award Best Film[67] Nominated
American Film InstituteLists
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies- Nominated
AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills- #32
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains: Bruno Antony - Nominated Villain
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)- Nominated
Alternative versions[edit]
An early preview edit of the film, sometimes labeled the "British" version although it was never released in Britain or anywhere else,[citation needed]includes some scenes either not in, or else different from the film as released. According to biographer Charlotte Chandler(Lyn Erhard), Hitchcock himself did not like either the "British" orthe "American" version:

Hitchcock told [Chandler] that the picture should have ended with Guy at the amusement park after he has been cleared of murdering his wife. He wanted the last line of the film to be Guy describing Bruno as "a very clever fellow". This ending, however, was not acceptable to Warner Bros.[29]
In 1997, Warner released the film onto DVD as a 'flipper' (double sided) disc, with the "British" version on one side, and the "Hollywood" version on the reverse. Between the two versions of the film, the "British" version most prominently omits the final scene on the train.[citation needed]A two-disc DVD edition was released in 2004 containing both versions of the film, this time with the "British" version entitled "Preview Version" and the "American" version entitled "Final Release Version." The film was later made available on Blu-rayin 2012 with the same contents as the 2004 DVD edition.[68]
Legacy[edit]
Strangers on a Trainwas adapted for the radio program Lux Radio Theatreon two occasions: on December 3, 1951 with Ruth Roman, Frank Lovejoy, and Ray Millandand on April 12, 1954 with Virginia Mayo, Dana Andrews, and Robert Cummings.[45]
The film has also been the inspiration for other film and television projects with similar themes of criss-cross murder, often treated comically. They include:
Throw Momma from the Train, a 1987 comedy film.[69]
Soch, a 2002 Indian Bollywood film.
Horrible Bosses, a 2011 comedy film.[70]
Muran, a 2011 Indian Tamil film.[71]
"Perfect Strangers", an episode of Due South, a CBS and CTV television program.
"The Double Down", an episode of Castle, an ABC television program.[72]
"Dream Job", an episode of Peep Show, a British TV series starring Mitchell and Webb.
"A Night at the Movies" and "Tell-Tale Hearts", episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, a CBS television program.
"Strangers on a Treadmill", an episode of Modern Family, an ABC television program.[73]
NCISepisode "The Inside Man"
In the season 6 Law & Order: Criminal Intentthe episode Bedfellows, is briefly inspired in the movie.
BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Playbroadcast on 29 September 2011 was Strangers on a Filmby Stephen Wyatt, which gives an imagined account of a series of meetings between Hitchcock (Clive Swift) and Raymond Chandler (Patrick Stewart) as they unsuccessfully attempt to create the screenplay for Strangers on a Train.
"Breaking the Girls", a 2012 thriller with lesbian main text. Directed by Jamie Babbit.[citation needed]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^Box Office Information for Strangers on a Train
2.Jump up ^Ebert, Roger(2006). The Great Movies IINew York: Broadway Press. ISBN 978-0-7679-1986-9. p. 428
3.^ Jump up to: abTruffaut, François(1967). Hitcock By Truffaut. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-60429-5
4.^ Jump up to: abStrangers on a Train (1951)review by Roger Ebert
5.^ Jump up to: abcdEbert, Great II, p. 428
6.Jump up ^Spoto, Donald(1983). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-31462-X(paperback edition). p. 345 All footnotes use page numbers from the first paperback edition, March 1984
7.Jump up ^McGilligan, Patrick(2004). Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-098827-2. p. 450
8.^ Jump up to: abcdSpoto, p. 346
9.Jump up ^Strangers on a Train: The Victim's P.O.V.(2004), DVD documentary
10.^ Jump up to: abSpoto, p. 341
11.^ Jump up to: abcIMDB trivia
12.^ Jump up to: abcdefMcGilligan, p. 442
13.^ Jump up to: abMcGilligan, p. 444
14.^ Jump up to: abcdeSpoto, p. 342
15.Jump up ^I Confess - Historical note
16.^ Jump up to: abcdSpoto, p. 344
17.^ Jump up to: abMcGilligan, p. 447
18.^ Jump up to: abcdeMcGilligan, p. 449
19.Jump up ^Chandler, Charlotte(2006). It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal Biography. New York: Applause Books. ISBN 978-1-55783-692-2. p. 192
20.^ Jump up to: abcdefMcGilligan, p. 443
21.^ Jump up to: abcdeSpoto, p. 347
22.^ Jump up to: abcdefMcGilligan, p. 450
23.^ Jump up to: abcdMcGilligan, p. 452
24.Jump up ^Spoto, p. 343
25.^ Jump up to: abSpoto, p. 345
26.Jump up ^Spoto, pp. 339-340
27.^ Jump up to: abcdeSpoto, p. 353
28.Jump up ^Chandler, pp. 201-202
29.^ Jump up to: abcdChandler, p. 197
30.^ Jump up to: abSpoto, p. 352
31.^ Jump up to: abChandler, p. 198
32.Jump up ^Ebert, Great II, p. 429
33.Jump up ^Spoto, p. 348
34.Jump up ^Chandler, p. 66
35.Jump up ^Chandler, p. 194
36.^ Jump up to: abcdMcGilligan, p. 453
37.Jump up ^Sullivan, Jack(2006). Hitchcock's Music.New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-13618-0. p. 157
38.Jump up ^Sullivan, p. 156
39.^ Jump up to: abSullivan, p. 157
40.Jump up ^Sullivan, p. 159
41.^ Jump up to: abSullivan, p. 162
42.Jump up ^Chandler, p. 203
43.Jump up ^Warner Bros. press release #HO9-1251, Nov. 30, 1950
44.^ Jump up to: abcChandler, p. 202.
45.^ Jump up to: abcdeSpoto, p. 354
46.^ Jump up to: abDellolio, Peter (2004). "Hitchcock and Kafka: Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Train". Midwest Quarterly(45.3): 240–255.
47.^ Jump up to: abcdeSpoto, p. 349
48.Jump up ^Spoto, p. 350
49.Jump up ^Wood, Robin, (1965), Marshall Deutelbaum and Leland A. Poague, editors, (2004). A Hitchcock Reader.Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-5556-4. p. 172
50.^ Jump up to: abcdWood, p. 172
51.Jump up ^Wood, pp. 172-173
52.Jump up ^Wood, p. 173
53.Jump up ^Ebert, Great II, p. 430
54.^ Jump up to: abWood, p. 175
55.Jump up ^Wood, p. 180
56.Jump up ^Spoto, pp. 349-350
57.^ Jump up to: abcHighsmith, Patricia(2001). Strangers on a Train. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. ISBN 978-0-393-32198-22001 paperback edition.
58.Jump up ^Swanson, Peter (2012-02-17). "Armchair Audience: The Moving Toyshop (1946)". Retrieved 2013-05-25.
59.Jump up ^Crispin, Edmund(2007 (first published 1946)). The Moving Toyshop. Vintage. pp. 195–200. ISBN 9780099506225.
60.Jump up ^Variety, 1951. [1]
61.Jump up ^Crowther, Bosley, (1951). "The Screen In Review", The New York Times, July 4, 1951
62.Jump up ^Halliwell, Leslie, with John Walker, ed. (1994). Halliwell's Film Guide. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-273241-2. p. 1139
63.Jump up ^"Keyes, David, (2002). ''Cinemaphile.org''". Cinemaphile.org. 1951-07-03. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
64.Jump up ^Reviewed by Almar Haflidason Updated 25 June 2001 (2001-06-25). "Haflidason, Almar, (2001). ''BBC.co.uk.''". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
65.Jump up ^Schenkar, Joan. The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith. St. Martin's Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-312-30375-4- page 318-319
66.Jump up ^Interview with Patricia Highsmithby Gerald Peary
67.Jump up ^"Strangers on a Train > Awards". Allmovie. Retrieved January 8, 2010.
68.Jump up ^Kauffman, Jeffrey (October 6, 2012). "Strangers on a Train Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved October 8, 2012.
69.Jump up ^Maslin, Janet(1987). "Throw Momma." The New York Times, December 11, 1987
70.Jump up ^Chang, Justin (2011) "Horrible Bosses." Variety, July 5, 2011
71.Jump up ^Mannath, Malini (5 October 2011). "Muran". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
72.Jump up ^Allen, Conception (2010-11-12). "On the set with "Castle"". Blastmagazine.com. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
73.Jump up ^Donna Bowman (October 13, 2010). "MODERN FAMILY "Strangers on a Treadmill"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
Further reading[edit]
Hare, Bill. "Strangers on a Train:Hitchcock's Rich Imagery Reigning Supreme"on Noir of the Week, April 20, 2008.
Schneider, Dan. "Strangers On A Train- DVD"on Culturevulture.net.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Strangers on a Train (film).
 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Strangers on a Train
Strangers on a Trainat the Internet Movie Database
Strangers on a Trainat allmovie
Strangers on a Trainat Rotten Tomatoes
Strangers on a Trainat the TCM Movie Database
Eyegate Gallery: 1951 - Strangers on a Train
Strangers on a Trainon Lux Radio Theater: April 12, 1954


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Rebecca (1940 film)
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Rebecca
Rebecca 1940 film poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by
David O. Selznick
Screenplay by
Philip MacDonald
Michael Hogan

Story by
Joan Harrison
Robert E. Sherwood

Based on
Rebecca
 by Daphne du Maurier
Starring
Laurence Olivier
Joan Fontaine
George Sanders
Judith Anderson

Music by
Franz Waxman
Cinematography
George Barnes
Editing by
W. Donn Hayes
Studio
Selznick International Pictures
Distributed by
United Artists
Release dates
April 12, 1940 (USA)

Running time
130 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$1,288,000[1]
Box office
$6,000,000[1]
Rebecca is a 1940 American psychological drama film, a thriller. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, it was his first American project, and his first film produced under contract with David O. Selznick. The film's screenplay was a version by Joan Harrison and Robert E. Sherwood based on Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan's adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel of the same name. The film was produced by Selznick[2] and stars Laurence Olivier as the brooding aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter, Joan Fontaine as the young woman who becomes his second wife, and Judith Anderson as the stern housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers.
The film is shot in black and white, and is a gothic tale. We never see Maxim de Winter's first wife, Rebecca, who died before the story starts, but her reputation, and recollections about her, are a constant presence to Maxim, his new young second wife, and the housekeeper Danvers.
The film won two Academy Awards, including Best Picture, out of a total 11 nominations. Olivier, Fontaine and Anderson were all Oscar nominated for their respective roles. However, since 1936 (when awards for actors in supporting roles were first introduced), Rebecca is the only film that, despite winning Best Picture, received no Academy Award for acting, directing or writing.
Rebecca was the opening film at the 1st Berlin International Film Festival in 1951.[3]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Adaptation
3 Cast
4 Awards 4.1 1940 Academy Awards wins
4.2 1940 Academy Award nominations
5 Radio and TV adaptations
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
A naïve young woman (Joan Fontaine), whose name is never mentioned, is in Monte Carlo working as a paid companion to Edythe Van Hopper (Florence Bates) when she meets the aristocratic but brooding widower Maximilian "Maxim" de Winter (Laurence Olivier). They fall in love, and within two weeks they are married.
She is now the second "Mrs. de Winter"; Maxim takes her back to Manderley, his country house in Cornwall. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), is domineering and cold, and is obsessed with the beauty, intelligence and sophistication of the first Mrs. de Winter, the eponymous Rebecca, preserving her former bedroom as a shrine. Rebecca's so-called "cousin", Jack Favell (George Sanders), visits the house while Maxim is away.
The new Mrs. de Winter is intimidated by her responsibilities and begins to doubt her relationship with her husband. The continuous reminders of Rebecca overwhelm her; she believes that Maxim is still deeply in love with his first wife. She also discovers that her husband sometimes becomes very angry at her for apparently insignificant actions.



 Mrs. Danvers attempts to persuade Mrs. de Winter to leap to her death.
Trying to be the perfect wife, the young Mrs. de Winter convinces Maxim to hold a costume party, as he had done with Rebecca. The heroine wants to plan her own costume, but Mrs. Danvers suggests she copy the beautiful outfit in the ancestral portrait of Caroline de Winter. At the party, when the costume is revealed, Maxim is appalled; Rebecca wore the same outfit at the ball a year ago, shortly before her death.
The heroine confronts Danvers, who tells her she can never take Rebecca's place, and almost manages to convince her to jump to her death. A sudden commotion reveals that a ship is sinking. The heroine rushes outside, where she hears that during the rescue a sunken boat has been found with Rebecca's body in it.
Maxim admits to his new wife that he had earlier misidentified another body as Rebecca's, in order to conceal the truth. His first marriage, until now viewed by every other character as ideal, was in fact a sham. At the very beginning of their marriage Rebecca had told Maxim she intended to continue the scandalous life she had previously lived. He hated her for this, but they agreed to an arrangement: in public she would pretend to be the perfect wife and hostess, and he would ignore Rebecca's promiscuity. However, Rebecca grew careless, including an ongoing affair with her "cousin" Jack Favell. One night, Rebecca told Maxim she was pregnant with Favell's child. During the ensuing heated argument she fell, hit her head and died. Maxim took the body out in her boat, which he then scuttled.
Shedding the remnants of her girlish innocence, Maxim's wife coaches her husband how to conceal the mode of Rebecca's death from the authorities. In the police investigation, deliberate damage to the boat points to suicide. However Favell shows Maxim a note from Rebecca which appears to prove she was not suicidal; Favell tries to blackmail Maxim. Maxim tells the police, and then falls under suspicion of murder. The investigation reveals Rebecca's secret visit to a London doctor (Leo G. Carroll), which Favell assumes was due to her illicit pregnancy. However, the coroner's interview with the doctor establishes that Rebecca was was not actually pregnant; the doctor had told her she was suffering from a late-stage cancer instead.
The coroner renders a finding of suicide. Only Frank Crawley (Maxim's best friend and manager of the estate), Maxim, and his wife know the full story: that Rebecca told Maxim she was pregnant with another man's child in order to try to goad him into killing her, an indirect means of suicide that would also have ensured her husband's ruination and possible execution.
As Maxim returns home from London to Manderley, he sees that the manor is on fire, set alight by the deranged Mrs. Danvers. The second Mrs. de Winter and the staff escape the blaze, but Danvers is killed when a floor collapses. Finally a silk nightdress case on Rebecca's bed, with a beautifully embroidered "R", is consumed by flames.
Adaptation[edit]
At Selznick's insistence, the film adapts the plot of du Maurier's novel Rebecca faithfully.[4] However, at least one plot detail was altered to comply with the Hollywood Production Code, which said that the murder of a spouse had to be punished.[4] In the novel, Maxim shoots Rebecca, while in the film, he only thinks of killing her as she taunted him into believing that she was pregnant with another man's child. However, Rebecca was not pregnant but had incurable cancer and had a motive to commit suicide. Therefore her death is declared a suicide, not murder.
According to the book It's Only a Movie, Selznick wanted the smoke from the burning Manderley to spell out a huge "R". Hitchcock thought the touch lacked subtlety. While Selznick was preoccupied by Gone with the Wind (1939), Hitchcock was able to replace the smoky "R" with the burning of a monogrammed négligée case lying atop a bed pillow. According to Leonard Luff's book Hitchcock and Selznick, Selznick took control of the film once Hitchcock had completed filming, reshooting many sequences and rerecording many performances.[5] Some sources say this experience led Hitchcock to edit future pictures in camera—shooting only what he wanted to see in the final film—a method of filmmaking that restricts a producer's power to reedit the picture.
Although Selznick insisted that the film be faithful to the novel, Hitchcock did make some other changes, especially with the character of Mrs. Danvers, though not as many as he had made in a previous rejected screenplay, in which he altered virtually the entire story. In the novel, Mrs. Danvers is something of a jealous mother figure, and her past is mentioned in the book. But in the film, Mrs. Danvers is a much younger character (the actress, Judith Anderson, would have been about 42 at the time of shooting) and her past is not revealed at all. The only thing we know about her is that she came to Manderley when Rebecca was a bride. Hitchcock made her more of a mysterious figure with subtly lesbian overtones, overtones which match well with du Maurier's own bisexuality.
The Hollywood Reporter reported in 1944 that Edwina Levin MacDonald sued Selznick, Daphne du Maurier, United Artists and Doubleday for plagiarism. MacDonald claimed that the film Rebecca was stolen from her novel Blind Windows, and sought an undisclosed amount of accounting and damages.[6] The complaint was dismissed on 14 January 1948[7] and the judgment can be read online.
Cast[edit]
Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs. de Winter
Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter, owner of Manderley
Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers, housekeeper of Manderley
George Sanders as Jack Favell, Rebecca's first cousin and lover
Reginald Denny as Frank Crawley, Maxim's estate manager of Manderley and friend
Gladys Cooper as Beatrice Lacy, Maxim's sister
C. Aubrey Smith as Colonel Julyan
Nigel Bruce as Major Giles Lacy, Beatrice's husband
Florence Bates as Mrs. Edythe Van Hopper, employer of the second Mrs. de Winter
Edward Fielding as Frith, butler of Manderley
Melville Cooper as Coroner at trial
Leo G. Carroll as Dr. Baker, Rebecca's doctor
Leonard Carey as Ben, the beach hermit at Manderley
Lumsden Hare as Mr. Tabbs, boat builder
Hitchcock's cameo appearance, a signature feature of his films, takes place near the end; he is seen walking, back turned to the audience, outside a phone box just after Jack Favell completes a call.
Awards[edit]
Rebecca won two Academy Awards and was nominated for nine more:[8]
1940 Academy Awards wins[edit]
Best Picture – Selznick International Pictures – David O. Selznick
Best Cinematography, Black and White – George Barnes[9]
1940 Academy Award nominations[edit]
Best Actor in a Leading Role – Laurence Olivier
Best Actress in a Leading Role – Joan Fontaine
Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Judith Anderson
Best Director – Alfred Hitchcock
Art Direction, Black and White – Lyle R. Wheeler
Special Effects – Jack Cosgrove and Arthur Johns
Best Film Editing – Hal C. Kern
Best Music, Original Score – Franz Waxman
Best Writing, Screenplay – Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison
Rebecca was twice honored by the AFI in their AFI 100 Years... series
AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #80
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains – Mrs. Danvers, #31 Villain
Radio and TV adaptations[edit]
[clarification needed]
Rebecca was adapted as a radio play on numerous occasions, including 31 May 1943, as an episode of Screen Guild Theater starring Joan Fontaine, Brian Aherne and Agnes Moorehead; again on Screen Guild Theater on 18 November 1948, with Loretta Young, John Lund, and Agnes Moorehead; on Lux Radio Theatre on 3 February 1941, broadcast with Ronald Colman and Ida Lupino; and again on Lux on 6 November 1950, with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
Rebecca has been remade by Bollywood twice. The first remake was Kohra (1964), starring Waheeda Rehman and Biswajit Chatterjee; the second was Anamika (2008), starring Dino Morea, Minissha Lamba and Koena Mitra.
There was also a 1962 television adaptation on NBC, starring James Mason as Maxim, Joan Hackett as the second Mrs. de Winter, and Nina Foch as Mrs. Danvers.[10]
There was a take-off of the film on The Carol Burnett Show in 1972 called "Rebecky".[11]
There is also a BBC adaptation, first screened in 1979 and shown on PBS in the US, starring Jeremy Brett as Maxim, Joanna David as the second Mrs. de Winter, and Brett's former wife Anna Massey as Mrs. Danvers.[12]
Rebecca was used as the basis of a sketch on the BBC comedy sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look. In the skit, the plot is changed at the insistence of the producer so that it is set while the first Mrs. de Winter is still alive and has just begun living with Maxim. The humour is derived from references to the then-unknown second Mrs. de Winter scattered throughout the mansion, such as a dress "reserved for the second Mrs. de Winter" and a painting of a woman with her face covered and the letters "TBA" written.[13]
Rebecca serves as inspiration and as part of an interwoven subplot in the Interactive-theatre experience Sleep No More put on by the London-based theatre group Punchdrunk.
See also[edit]
A Sucessora
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Box Office Information for Rebecca. The Numbers. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Rebecca at the Internet Movie Database
3.Jump up ^ "1st Berlin International Film Festival". Berlin International Film Festival.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Spoto, Donald (1999). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Da Capo Press. pp. 213–214. ISBN 978-0-306-80932-3.
5.Jump up ^ Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick in Hollywood, Leonard J. Leff, University of California Press 1999 - see e.g. here
6.Jump up ^ The Hollywood Reporter, January 13, 1944
7.Jump up ^ The Fresno Bee Republican, January 17, 1948 - see e.g. here
8.Jump up ^ "The 13th Academy Awards (1941) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2013-06-19.
9.Jump up ^ "Critic's Pick: Rebecca". The New York Times. Retrieved December 13, 2008.
10.Jump up ^ Rebecca (1962) (TV), IMDb. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
11.Jump up ^ The Carol Burnett Show: Episode No. 6.3 (27 September 1972), IMDb. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
12.Jump up ^ "Rebecca" (1979), IMDb. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
13.Jump up ^ YouTube
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Rebecca (film)
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rebecca (film).
Rebecca at the American Film Institute Catalog
Rebecca at allmovie
Rebecca at Rotten Tomatoes
Rebecca at the Internet Movie Database
List of distributors
Rebecca at the TCM Movie Database
Criterion Collection essay by Robin Wood
Rebecca Eyegate Gallery
Rebecca trivia
Streaming audio
Rebecca on Screen Guild Theater: May 31, 1943
Rebecca on Lux Radio Theater: November 6, 1950


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Barry Lyndon
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Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon A.jpg
Theatrical release poster by Jouineau Bourduge

Directed by
Stanley Kubrick
Produced by
Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay by
Stanley Kubrick
Based on
The Luck of Barry Lyndon
 by William Makepeace Thackeray
Narrated by
Michael Hordern
Starring
Ryan O'Neal
Marisa Berenson
Patrick Magee
Hardy Krüger
Gay Hamilton
Godfrey Quigley
Steven Berkoff

Cinematography
John Alcott
Editing by
Tony Lawson
Studio
Hawk Films
Peregrine Productions

Distributed by
Warner Bros.
Release dates
18 December 1975

Running time
184 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
 United States
Language
English
 German
 French
Budget
$11 million (estimated)
Box office
$20,000,000 (US)[1] $2,800,000 (Germany) $9,500,000 (rentals)
Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period drama film written, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It stars Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee and Hardy Krüger. The film is based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray which recounts the exploits of a fictional 18th-century Irish adventurer. Most of the exteriors were shot on location in Ireland. At the 1975 Academy Awards, the film won four Oscars in production categories.
The film, which had a modest commercial success and a mixed critical reception on initial release, is now regarded as one of Kubrick's finest films. In numerous polls, such as Village Voice (1999), Sight and Sound (2002), and Time magazine (2005), it has been rated one of the greatest films ever made.[2][3][4] Director Martin Scorsese has cited Barry Lyndon as his favorite Kubrick film.[5] Quotations from its script have also appeared in such disparate works as Ridley Scott's The Duellists, Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, Wes Anderson's Rushmore and Lars von Trier's Dogville.[citation needed]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot 1.1 Act I
1.2 Act II
1.3 Epilogue
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Development
3.2 Principal photography
3.3 Cinematography
3.4 Music
4 Reception 4.1 Awards
5 Source novel
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
Act I[edit]
By What Means Redmond Barry Acquired the Style and Title of Barry Lyndon
An omniscient (though unreliable[6]) narrator (voiced by Michael Hordern) informs us that in 1750s Ireland, the father of Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) is killed in a duel over a disputed horse sale. The widow (Marie Kean), disdaining offers of marriage, devotes herself to her only son.
As a teenager, Barry falls in love with his older cousin, Nora Brady (Gay Hamilton). Though she seduces him, she later drops Barry (who has no money) for the well-off English Captain John Quin (Leonard Rossiter). Nora and her family plan to relieve their poverty with an advantageous marriage, but Barry refuses to accept the situation and shoots Quin in a duel.
Barry flees to Dublin, but en route is robbed of purse and equipment by Captain Feeney (Arthur O'Sullivan), a famous highwayman. Broke, Barry joins the British army, whereupon he reunites with Captain Grogan (Godfrey Quigley), a family friend, who informs him that, in fact, he did not kill Quin — Barry's dueling pistol was loaded with tow. The duel was staged by Nora's family to get rid of Barry so that their family finances would be secured through the marriage of Nora and Quin.
Barry's regiment is sent to Germany to fight in the Seven Years' War, where Captain Grogan is fatally wounded by the French in a skirmish at the Battle of Minden. Barry deserts the army, stealing an officer courier's uniform, horse, and identification papers. En route to neutral Holland he encounters the Prussian Captain Potzdorf (Hardy Krüger), who, seeing through his disguise, offers him the choice of being turned back over to the British where he will be shot as a deserter, or enlisting in the Prussian army. Barry enlists in his second army and later receives a special commendation from Frederick the Great for saving Potzdorf's life in a battle.
After the war ends in 1763, Barry is employed by Captain Potzdorf's uncle in the Prussian Ministry of Police to become the servant of the Chevalier de Balibari (Patrick Magee), a professional gambler. The Prussians suspect he is a spy and send Barry as an undercover agent to verify this. Barry reveals himself to the Chevalier right away and they become confederates cheating at cards.
After he and the Chevalier cheat the Prince of Tübingen at the cardtable, the Prince accuses the Chevalier (without proof) and refuses to pay his debt unless the Chevalier demands satisfaction. When Barry relays this to his Prussian handlers, they (still suspecting that the Chevalier is a spy) are wary of allowing another meeting between the Chevalier and the Prince. So, the Prussians arrange for the Chevalier to be expelled from the country. Barry conveys this plan to the Chevalier, who flees in the night. The next morning, Barry, under disguise as the Chevalier, is escorted from Prussian territory by Prussian officers.
For the next few years, Barry and the Chevalier travel the spas and parlors of Europe, profiting from their gambling with Barry enforcing reluctant debtors with a duel. Seeing that his life is going nowhere, Barry decides to marry into wealth. At a gambling table in Belgium, he encounters the beautiful and wealthy Countess of Lyndon (Marisa Berenson). He seduces and later marries her after the death of her elderly husband, Sir Charles Lyndon (Frank Middlemass).
Intermission
Act II[edit]
Containing an Account of the Misfortunes and Disasters Which Befell Barry Lyndon
On marriage (in 1773), Barry takes the Countess' last name and settles in England to enjoy her wealth, still with no money of his own. Lord Bullingdon (Dominic Savage), Lady Lyndon's 10-year-old son by Sir Charles, does not approve of the marriage and quickly comes to hate Barry, aware that Barry is merely a "common opportunist" and does not love his mother. The Countess bears Barry a son, Bryan Patrick, but the marriage is unhappy: Barry is openly unfaithful and enjoys spending his wife's money in self-indulgent spending sprees while keeping his wife in dull seclusion.
Some years later, Barry's mother comes to live with him at the Lyndon estate. She warns her son that his position is precarious: If Lady Lyndon were to die, all her wealth would go to her first-born son Lord Bullingdon (now a young man, played by Leon Vitali), leaving Barry penniless. Barry's mother advises him to obtain a noble title to protect himself. To further this goal, he cultivates the acquaintance of the influential Lord Wendover (André Morell) and begins to expend even larger sums of money to ingratiate himself to high society. All this effort is wasted, however, during a birthday party for Lady Lyndon, where Lord Bullingdon announces his hatred of his stepfather and his intention to leave the family estate for as long as his mother remains married to Barry. Angered, Barry assaults Bullingdon before the guests. This public display of cruelty loses Barry all the powerful friends he has worked so hard to make and he is shunned socially. Bullingdon makes good on his announcement and leaves the estate and England itself for parts unknown.
In contrast to his mistreatment of his stepson, Barry proves a compassionate and doting father to Bryan, with whom he spends all his time after Bullingdon's departure. He cannot refuse his son anything, and succumbs to Bryan's insistence on receiving a full-grown horse for his ninth birthday. The spoiled Bryan disobeys his parents' direct instructions that Bryan ride the horse only in the presence of his father, and is thrown by the horse. Bryan dies a few days later from his injuries.
The grief-stricken Barry turns to alcohol, while Lady Lyndon seeks solace in religion, assisted by the Reverend Samuel Runt (Murray Melvin), who had been tutor first to Lord Bullingdon and then to Bryan. Left in charge of the families' affairs while Barry and Lady Lyndon grieve, Barry's mother dismisses the Reverend, both because the family no longer needs (nor can afford, due to Barry's spending debts) a tutor and for fear that his influence worsens Lady Lyndon's condition. Plunging even deeper into grief, Lady Lyndon later attempts suicide (though she ingests only enough poison to make herself ill). The Reverend and the family's accountant and emissary Graham (Philip Stone) then seek out Lord Bullingdon. Upon hearing of these events, Lord Bullingdon returns to England where he finds Barry in a local tavern getting drunk and mourning the loss of his son rather than being with Lady Lyndon. Bullingdon demands "satisfaction" (a challenge to a duel) for Barry's public assault.
The duel with pistols is held in an abandoned chapel. A coin-toss gives Bullingdon the right of first fire, but his pistol misfires as it is being cocked. Barry, reluctant to shoot Bullingdon, magnanimously fires into the ground, but the unmoved Bullingdon refuses to let the duel end. In the second round, Bullingdon shoots Barry in his left leg. At a nearby inn, a surgeon informs Barry that the leg will need to be amputated below the knee if he is to survive.
While Barry is recovering, Bullingdon takes control of the estate. He sends a very nervous Graham to the inn with a proposition: Bullingdon will grant Barry an annuity of 500 guineas per year for life on the conditions that he leave England forever and end his marriage to Lady Lyndon. Otherwise, with his credit and bank accounts exhausted, Barry's creditors and bill collectors will assuredly see that he is jailed. Defeated, Barry accepts. The narrator states that Barry goes first to Ireland with his mother, then to the European continent to resume his former profession of gambler (though without his former success) and that he never sees Lady Lyndon again. The final scene (set in December 1789) shows the middle-aged Lady Lyndon signing Barry's annuity cheque as Bullingdon looks on.
Epilogue[edit]
It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.
Cast[edit]



 Original suits used in Barry LyndonRyan O'Neal as Redmond Barry (later Redmond Barry Lyndon)
Marisa Berenson as Lady Lyndon
Patrick Magee as the Chevalier du Balibari
Hardy Krüger as Captain Potzdorf
Gay Hamilton as Nora Brady
Godfrey Quigley as Captain Grogan
Steven Berkoff as Lord Ludd
Marie Kean as Belle, Barry's mother
Murray Melvin as Reverend Samuel Runt
Frank Middlemass as Sir Charles Reginald Lyndon
Leon Vitali as Lord Bullingdon
Dominic Savage as young Bullingdon
Leonard Rossiter as Captain John Quin
André Morell as Lord Wendover
Anthony Sharp as Lord Hallam
Philip Stone as Graham
David Morley as Bryan Patrick Lyndon
Michael Hordern (voice) as Narrator
Diana Koerner as Lischen (German Girl)
Arthur O'Sullivan as Captain Feeny
Billy Boyle as Seamus Feeny
Critic Tim Robey suggests, that the film "makes you realise that the most undervalued aspect of Kubrick's genius could well be his way with actors."[7] He adds that the supporting cast is a "glittering procession of cameos, not from star names but from vital character players."[7]
The cast featured Leon Vitali as the older Lord Bullingdon, who would then become Kubrick's personal assistant, working as the casting director on his following films, and supervising film-to-video transfers for Kubrick. Their relationship lasted until Kubrick's death. The film's cinematographer, John Alcott, appears at the men's club in the non-speaking role of the man asleep in a chair near the title character when Lord Bullingdon challenges Barry to a duel. Kubrick's daughter Vivian also appears (in an uncredited role) as a guest at Bryan's birthday party.
Kubrick stalwarts Patrick Magee (who had played the handicapped writer in A Clockwork Orange) and Philip Stone (who had played Alex's father in A Clockwork Orange, and would go on to play the dead caretaker Grady in The Shining) are featured as the Chevalier du Balibari and as Graham, respectively.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
After 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick made plans for a film about Napoleon Bonaparte. During pre-production, however, Sergei Bondarchuk and Dino De Laurentiis' Waterloo was released and subsequently failed at the box office. As a result, Kubrick's financiers pulled their funding for the film and he turned his attention to his next film, A Clockwork Orange. Subsequently, Kubrick showed an interest in Thackeray's Vanity Fair but dropped the project when a serialised version for television was produced. He told an interviewer, "At one time, Vanity Fair interested me as a possible film but, in the end, I decided the story could not be successfully compressed into the relatively short time-span of a feature film...as soon as I read Barry Lyndon I became very excited about it."[8]
Having garnered Oscar nominations for Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick's reputation in the early 1970s was that of "a perfectionist auteur who loomed larger over his movies than any concept or star."[7] His studio—Warner Bros.—was therefore "eager to bankroll" his next project, which Kubrick kept "shrouded in secrecy" from the press partly due to the furor surrounding the controversially violent A Clockwork Orange (particularly in the UK) and partly due to his "long-standing paranoia about the tabloid press."[7]
Having felt compelled to set aside his plans for a film about Napoleon Bonaparte, Kubrick set his sights on Thackeray's 1844 "satirical picaresque about the fortune-hunting of an Irish rogue," Barry Lyndon, the setting of which allowed Kubrick to take advantage of the copious period research Kubrick had done for the now-aborted Napoleon.[7] At the time, Kubrick merely announced only that his next film would star Ryan O'Neal (deemed "a seemingly un-Kubricky choice of leading man"[7]) and Marisa Berenson, a former Vogue and Time magazine cover model, and be shot largely in Ireland.[7] So heightened was the secrecy surrounding the film that "Even Berenson, when Kubrick first approached her, was told only that it was to be an 18th-century costume piece [and] she was instructed to keep out of the sun in the months before production, to achieve the period-specific pallor he required."[7]
Principal photography[edit]



Stanley Kubrick on location directing Barry Lyndon.
Principal photography took 300 days, from spring 1973 through early 1974, with a break for Christmas.
Many of the film's exteriors were shot in Ireland, playing "itself, England, and Prussia during the Seven Years' War."[7] Drawing inspiration from "the landscapes of Watteau and Gainsborough," Kubrick and cinematographer Alcott also relied on the "scrupulously researched art direction" of Ken Adam and Roy Walker.[7] Alcott, Adam and Walker would be among those who would win Oscars for their "amazing work" on the film.[7]
Several of the interior scenes were filmed in Powerscourt House, a famous 18th-century mansion in County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland. The house was destroyed in an accidental fire several months after filming (November 1974), so the film serves as a record of the lost interiors, particularly the "Saloon" which was used for more than one scene. The Wicklow Mountains are visible, for example, through the window of the Saloon during a scene set in Berlin. Other locations included Kells Priory (the English Redcoat encampment)[9] Blenheim Palace, Castle Howard (exteriors of the Lyndon estate), Corsham Court (various interiors and the music room scene), Petworth House (chapel, and so on.), Stourhead (lake and temple), Longleat, and Wilton House (interior and exterior) in England, Dunrobin Castle (exterior and garden as Spa) in Scotland, Dublin Castle in Ireland (the chevalier's home), Ludwigsburg Palace near Stuttgart and Frederick the Great's Neues Palais at Potsdam near Berlin (suggesting Berlin's main street Unter den Linden as construction in Potsdam had just begun in 1763). Some exterior shots were also filmed at Waterford Castle (now a luxury hotel and golf course) and Little Island, Waterford. Moorstown Castle in Tipperary also featured.
Cinematography[edit]
The film—as with "almost every Kubrick film"—is a "showcase for [a] major innovation in technique."[7] While 2001: A Space Odyssey had featured "revolutionary effects," and The Shining would later feature heavy use of the Steadicam, Barry Lyndon saw a considerable number of sequences shot "without recourse to electric light."[7] Cinematography was overseen by director of photography John Alcott (who won an Oscar for his work), and is particularly noted for the technical innovations that made some of its most spectacular images possible. To achieve photography without electric lighting "[f]or the many densely furnished interior scenes... meant shooting by candlelight," which is known to be difficult in still photography, "let alone with moving images."[7]



 Special ultra-fast lenses were used for Barry Lyndon to allow filming using only natural light.
Kubrick was "determined not to reproduce the set-bound, artificially lit look of other costume dramas from that time."[7] After "tinker[ing] with different combinations of lenses and film stock," the production got hold of three super-fast 50mm lenses (Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7) developed by Zeiss for use by NASA in the Apollo moon landings," which Kubrick had discovered in his search for low-light solutions.[7][10] These super-fast lenses "with their huge aperture (the film actually features the lowest f-stop in film history) and fixed focal length" were problematic to mount, and were extensively modified into three versions by Cinema Products Corp. for Kubrick so to gain a wider angle of view, with input from optics expert Richard Vetter of Todd-AO.[7][10] This allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot scenes lit with actual candles to an average lighting volume of only three candela, "recreating the huddle and glow of a pre-electrical age."[7] In addition, Kubrick had the entire film push-developed by one stop.[10]
Although Kubrick's express desire was to avoid electric lighting where possible, most shots were achieved with conventional lenses and lighting, but were lit to deliberately mimic natural light rather than for compositional reasons. In addition to potentially seeming more realistic, these methods also gave a particular period look to the film which has often been likened to 18th-century paintings (which were, of course, depicting a world devoid of electric lighting), in particular owing "a lot to William Hogarth, with whom Thackeray had always been fascinated."[7]



 Hogarth's The Country Dance (c.1745) illustrates the type of interior scene that Kubrick sought to emulate with Barry Lyndon.
According to critic Tim Robey, the film has a "stately, painterly, often determinedly static quality."[7] For example, to help light some interior scenes, lights were placed outside and aimed through the windows, which were covered in a diffuse material to scatter the light evenly through the room rather than being placed inside for maximum use as most conventional films do. A sign of this method occurs in the scene where Barry duels Lord Bullingdon. Though it appears to be lit entirely with natural light, one can see that the light coming in through the cross-shaped windows in the abandoned chapel appears blue in color, while the main lighting of the scene coming in from the side is not. This is because the light through the cross-shaped windows is daylight from the sun, which when recorded on the film stock used by Kubrick showed up as blue-tinted compared to the incandescent electric light coming in from the side.
Despite such slight tinting effects, this method of lighting not only gave the look of natural daylight coming in through the windows, but it also protected the historic locations from the damage caused by mounting the lights on walls or ceilings and the heat from the lights. This helped the film "fit... perfectly with Kubrick's gilded-cage aesthetic - the film is consciously a museum piece, its characters pinned to the frame like butterflies."[7]
Music[edit]
The film's period setting allowed Kubrick to indulge his penchant for classical music, and the film score uses pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach (an arrangement of the Concerto for violin and oboe in C minor), Antonio Vivaldi (Cello Concerto in E-Minor, a transcription of the Cello Sonata in E Minor RV 40), Giovanni Paisiello, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Franz Schubert (German Dance No. 1 in C major, Piano Trio in E-Flat, Opus 100 and Impromptu No. 1 in C minor), as well as the Hohenfriedberger March.[note 1] The piece most associated with the film, however, is the main title music: George Frideric Handel's stately Sarabande from the Suite in D minor HWV 437. Originally for solo harpsichord, the versions for the main and end titles are performed very romantically with orchestral strings, harpsichord, and timpani. It is used at various points in the film, in various arrangements, to indicate the implacable working of impersonal fate.[citation needed]
The score also includes Irish folk music, including Seán Ó Riada's song Women of Ireland, arranged by Paddy Moloney and performed by The Chieftains.
Reception[edit]
The film "was not the commercial success Warner Bros. had been hoping for" within the United States,[7] although it fared better in Europe. This mixed reaction saw the film (in the words of one retrospective review) "greeted, on its release, with dutiful admiration – but not love. Critics... rail[ed] against the perceived coldness of Kubrick's style, the film's self-conscious artistry and slow pace. Audiences, on the whole, rather agreed..."[7] This "air of disappointment"[7] factored into Kubrick's decision to next film Stephen King's The Shining – a project that would not only please him artistically, but also be more likely to succeed financially. Still, several other critics, including Gene Siskel, praised the film's technical quality and strong narrative, and Siskel himself counted it as one of the five best films of the year.
In recent years, the film has gained a more positive reaction. As of March 2012 it holds a 94% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 49 reviews.[11] Roger Ebert added the film to his 'Great Movies' list on September 9, 2009, writing, "It defies us to care, it asks us to remain only observers of its stately elegance", and it "must be one of the most beautiful films ever made."[12]
Awards[edit]
In 1976, at the 48th Academy Awards, the film won four awards, for Best Art Direction (Ken Adam, Roy Walker, Vernon Dixon), Best Cinematography (John Alcott), Best Costume Design (Milena Canonero, Ulla-Britt Söderlund) and Best Musical Score (Leonard Rosenman, "for his arrangements of Schubert and Handel".)[7] Kubrick was nominated three times, for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay.[13]
Kubrick won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Direction. John Alcott won for Best Cinematography. Barry Lyndon was also nominated for Best Film, Art Direction, and Costume Design.
Source novel[edit]
Stanley Kubrick based his original screenplay on William Makepeace Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon (republished as the novel Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.), a picaresque tale written and published in serial form in 1844. The serial, which is told in the first person and "edited" by the fictional George Savage FitzBoodle, concerns a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy.
The source novel is written by Lyndon while imprisoned looking back on his life. Lyndon is a notable example of the literary device of the unreliable narrator – throughout the novel the reader is constantly asked to question the veracity of the events described by him. Although later editions dropped the frame device of FitzBoodle's (Thackeray's pseudonym) editions, it is crucial in unmasking Lyndon's narcissism through occasional notes inserted at the bottom of the page noting information that is contradictory or inconsistent in relation to what Lyndon writes elsewhere. As Andrew Sanders argues in his introduction for the Oxford Classics edition, these annotations were relevant to the novel as an ingenious narrative device as Thackeray constantly invites the reader to question Lyndon's version of the events.
Kubrick however felt that using a first-person narrative would not be useful in a film adaptation:

"I believe Thackeray used Redmond Barry to tell his own story in a deliberately distorted way because it made it more interesting. Instead of the omniscient author, Thackeray used the imperfect observer, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the dishonest observer, thus allowing the reader to judge for himself, with little difficulty, the probable truth in Redmond Barry's view of his life. This technique worked extremely well in the novel but, of course, in a film you have objective reality in front of you all of the time, so the effect of Thackeray's first-person story-teller could not be repeated on the screen. It might have worked as comedy by the juxtaposition of Barry's version of the truth with the reality on the screen, but I don't think that Barry Lyndon should have been done as a comedy."[14]
As in the case of most literary adaptations, Kubrick shortens or in some cases omits characters who were significant in the novel. The time period constituting his escape from the Prussian army to his marriage is given greater detail in the novel than the film.
It is also interesting to note that the film ends much before the novel's ending. At the end of the film, Barry Lyndon survives with an amputated leg from a duel (an incident absent in the novel) and returns to his gambling lifestyle with lesser success while Lady Lyndon pays the debts accumulated during her marriage to Barry, including the sum promised to Redmond in return for leaving the country. Though these events occur in the novel as well, Thackeray also writes that upon Lady Lyndon's death, the sum promised to Barry is cancelled and he becomes destitute eventually winding up in prison for his confidence schemes. It is at this place where Barry writes his memoirs, which end noting that he has to 'eke out a miserable existence, quite unworthy of the famous and fashionable Barry Lyndon'.
At this point Fitz-Boodle writes an epilogue of sorts about Barry's final days, where his only visitor is his mother. He dies after spending 19 years in prison.
Thackeray based the novel on the life and exploits of the Irish rakehell and fortunehunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, who married (and subsequently was divorced by) Mary Eleanor Bowes, the Countess of Strathmore, who became known as "The Unhappy Countess" because of the tempestuous liaison.
The revised version, which is the novel that the world generally knows as Barry Lyndon, was shorter and tighter than the original serialization, and dropped the FitzBoodle, Ed. device. It generally is considered the first "novel without a hero" or novel with an antihero in the English language. Upon its publication in 1856, it was entitled by Thackeray's publisher The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. Of The Kingdom Of Ireland Containing An Account of His Extraordinary Adventures; Misfortunes; His Sufferings In The Service Of His Late Prussian Majesty; His Visits To Many Courts of Europe; His Marriage and Splendid Establishments in England And Ireland; And The Many Cruel Persecutions, Conspiracies And Slanders Of Which He Has Been A Victim.[15]
Barry Lyndon departs from its source novel in several ways. In Thackeray's writings, events are related in the first person by Barry himself. A comic tone pervades the work, as Barry proves both a raconteur and an unreliable narrator. Kubrick's film, by contrast, presents the story objectively. Though the film contains voice-over (by actor Michael Hordern), the comments expressed are not Barry's, but those of an omniscient, although not entirely impartial, narrator. This change in perspective alters the tone of the story; Thackeray tells a jaunty, humorous tale, but Kubrick's telling is essentially tragic, albeit with a satirical tone.
Kubrick also changed the plot. The novel does not include a final duel. By adding this episode, Kubrick establishes dueling as the film's central motif: the film begins with a duel where Barry's father is shot dead, and duels recur throughout the film. Also, in Thackeray's novel, the Chevalier de Balibari (played by Patrick Magee in the film) is Barry's long-lost uncle ("Balibari" being a gentrified version of "Bally Barry," the family's home), and by marrying into the Lyndons, Barry intends to regain his family fortune (his ancestors were dispossessed by the Lyndons). In the film, Kubrick eliminated these familial connections from the story.
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ The soundtrack album for Barry Lyndon attributes the composition of the Hohenfriedberger March to Frederick the Great. The origin of this attribution is uncertain; see the relevant articles for further details.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Barry Lyndon, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 2012-01-22.
2.Jump up ^ "100 Best Films of the 20th Century: Village Voice Critics' Poll". Village Voice Media, Inc.
3.Jump up ^ "Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 2002". British Film Institute.
4.Jump up ^ Schickel, Richard (12 February 2005). "All-TIME 100 Movies: Barry Lyndon". Time.
5.Jump up ^ Kubrick Coirner - Scorsese on Kubric: "I’m not sure if I can say that I have a favourite Kubrick picture, but somehow I keep coming back to Barry Lyndon".
6.Jump up ^ Miller, Mark Crispin (1976). "Barry Lyndon Reconsidered". The Georgia Review XXX (4).
7.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Robey, Tim, "Kubrick's Neglected Masterpiece", in Telegraph Review (31 January 2009), pp. 16-17
8.Jump up ^ Ciment, Michel. "Kubrick on Barry Lyndon". Archived from the original on 5 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-31.
9.Jump up ^ movie-locations.com -Barry Lyndon film locations
10.^ Jump up to: a b c Two Special Lenses for "Barry Lyndon", by Ed DiGiulio (President, Cinema Products Corp.), American Cinematographer
11.Jump up ^ "Barry Lyndon (1975)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
12.Jump up ^ "Barry Lyndon (1975)". rogerebert.chicagosuntimes.com. Retrieved September 25, 2010.
13.Jump up ^ "NY Times: Barry Lyndon". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-12-29.
14.Jump up ^ "visual-memory.co.uk". visual-memory.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
15.Jump up ^ The Victorian Web
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon at the Internet Movie Database
Barry Lyndon at allmovie
Barry Lyndon at Rotten Tomatoes
Barry Lyndon at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
Movie trailer
Screenplay of Barry Lyndon (February 18, 1973)
Barry Lyndon Press Kit
"Two Special Lenses for Barry Lyndon, Superfast lenses employed in the filming of Barry Lyndon article from American Cinematographer
"Barry Lyndon Reconsidered" essay by Mark Crispin Miller
"Kubrick's Anti-Reading Of The Luck Of Barry Lyndon" essay by Mark Crispin Miller
"Barry Lyndon: The Shape of Things to Come" essay by Bilge Ebiri
"Narrative and Discourse in Kubrick's Modern Tragedy" essay by Michael Klein
"Photographing Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon", interview with John Alcott first published in American Cinematographer
Stanley Kubrick's letter to projectionists on Barry Lyndon at Some Came Running


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The Best Years of Our Lives
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For the album and song, see The Best Years of Our Lives (album) and Best Years of Our Lives (song).

The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives film poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
William Wyler
Produced by
Samuel Goldwyn
Screenplay by
Robert E. Sherwood
Based on
the novella Glory for Me
 by MacKinlay Kantor
Starring
Myrna Loy
Fredric March
Dana Andrews
Teresa Wright
Virginia Mayo
Harold Russell
Music by
Hugo Friedhofer
Cinematography
Gregg Toland
Editing by
Daniel Mandell
Studio
Samuel Goldwyn Productions
Distributed by
RKO Radio Pictures
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
November 21, 1946 (United States)

Running time
172 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$2.1 million[1]
Box office
$23,650,000[2]
The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Harold Russell. The film is about three United States servicemen readjusting to civilian life after coming home from World War II. Samuel Goldwyn was inspired to produce a film about veterans after reading an August 7, 1944 article in Time about the difficulties experienced by men returning to civilian life. Goldwyn hired former war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor to write a screenplay. His work was first published as a novella, Glory for Me, which Kantor wrote in blank verse.[3][4] Robert Sherwood then adapted the novella as a screenplay.[4]
The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Academy Awards in 1946, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Sherwood), and Best Original Score (Hugo Friedhofer).[5] In addition to its critical success, the film quickly became a great commercial success upon release. It became the highest-grossing film and most attended film in both the United States and UK since the release of Gone with the Wind, selling approximately 55 million tickets in the United States [6] which equaled a gross of $23,650,000.[7] It remains the sixth most-attended film of all time in the UK, with over 20 million tickets sold.[8] The film had one of the highest viewing figures of all time, with ticket sales exceeding $20.4 million.[9]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Reception

5 References

6 External links

Plot[edit]
After World War II, Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), and Al Stephenson (Fredric March) meet while flying home to Boone City (a fictional city patterned after Cincinnati, Ohio[3]). Fred was a decorated Army Air Forces captain and bombardier in Europe. Homer lost both hands from burns suffered when his aircraft carrier was sunk, and now uses mechanical hook prostheses. Al served as an infantry platoon sergeant in the Pacific. All three have trouble adjusting to civilian life.
Al has a comfortable home and a loving family: wife Milly (Myrna Loy), adult daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright), and college freshman son Rob. He returns to his old job as a bank loan officer. The bank president views his military experience as valuable in dealing with other returning servicemen. When Al approves a loan (without collateral) to a young Navy veteran, however, the president advises him against making a habit of it. Later, at a banquet held in his honor, a slightly inebriated Al expounds his belief that the bank (and America) must stand with the vets who risked everything to defend the country and give them every chance to rebuild their lives.



 Homer playing piano. Note the in-focus figure of Fred in the phone booth in the background, while maintaining clear focus on Homer, Butch, and Al, showing Gregg Toland's use of deep focus photography.
Before the war, Fred had been an unskilled drugstore soda jerk. He wants something better, but the tight postwar job market forces him to return to his old job. Fred had met Marie (Virginia Mayo) while in flight training and married her shortly afterward, before shipping out less than a month later. She became a nightclub waitress while Fred was overseas. Marie makes it clear she does not enjoy being married to a lowly soda jerk.
Homer was a football quarterback and became engaged to Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell) before joining the Navy. Both Homer and his parents now have trouble dealing with his disability. He does not want to burden Wilma with his handicap and so pushes her away, although she still wants to marry him.
Peggy meets Fred while bringing her father home from a bar where the three men meet once again. They are attracted to each other. Peggy dislikes Marie, and informs her parents she intends to end Fred and Marie's marriage, but they tell her that their own marriage overcame similar problems. Concerned, Al demands that Fred stop seeing his daughter. Fred agrees, but the friendship between the two men is strained.
At the drugstore, an obnoxious customer, who claims that the war was fought against the wrong enemies, gets into a fight with Homer. Fred intervenes and knocks the man into a glass counter, costing him his job. Later, Fred encourages Homer to put his misgivings behind him and marry Wilma, offering to be his best man.
One evening, Wilma visits Homer and tells him that her parents want her to leave Boone City for an extended period to try to forget him. Homer bluntly demonstrates to her how hard life with him would be. When Wilma is undaunted, Homer reconsiders.
On arriving home, Fred discovers his wife with another veteran (Steve Cochran). Marie tells him that she is getting a divorce. Fred decides to leave town, and gives his father his medals and citations. His father is unable to persuade Fred to stay. After Fred leaves, his father reads the citation for his Distinguished Flying Cross. At the airport, Fred books space on the first outbound aircraft, without regard for the destination. While waiting, he wanders into a vast aircraft boneyard. Inside the nose of a B-17, he relives the intense memories of combat. The boss of a work crew rouses him from his flashback. When the man says the aluminum from the aircraft is being salvaged to build housing, Fred persuades the boss to hire him.
Homer and Wilma's wedding takes place in the Parrish home, with the now-divorced Fred as Homer's best man. Fred and Peggy watch each other from across the room. After the ceremony, he approaches and holds her, telling her that it will be a struggle before they become comfortable. She smiles, and they kiss and embrace.
Cast[edit]


Myrna Loy as Milly Stephenson
Fredric March as Sergeant First Class Al Stephenson
Dana Andrews as Captain Fred Derry
Teresa Wright as Peggy Stephenson
Virginia Mayo as Marie Derry
Cathy O'Donnell as Wilma Cameron
Hoagy Carmichael as Uncle Butch
Harold Russell as Petty Officer 2nd Class Homer Parrish
Gladys George as Hortense Derry
Roman Bohnen as Pat Derry
Ray Collins as Mr. Milton
Minna Gombell as Mrs. Parrish
 Walter Baldwin as Mr. Parrish
Steve Cochran as Cliff
Dorothy Adams as Mrs. Cameron
Don Beddoe as Mr. Cameron
Marlene Aames as Luella Parrish
Charles Halton as Prew
Ray Teal as Mr. Mollett
Howland Chamberlain as Thorpe
Dean White as Novak
Erskine Sanford as Bullard
Michael Hall as Rob Stephenson
Victor Cutler as Woody

Casting brought together established stars as well as character actors and relative unknowns. Famed drummer Gene Krupa was seen in archival footage, while Tennessee Ernie Ford, later a famous television star, appeared as an uncredited "hillbilly singer" (in the first of his only three film appearances). At the time the film was shot, Ford was unknown as a singer. He worked in San Bernardino as a radio announcer-disc jockey. Blake Edwards, later notable as a film producer and director, appeared fleetingly as an uncredited "Corporal". Actress Judy Wyler was cast in her first role in her father's production.
Production[edit]
Director William Wyler had flown combat missions over Europe in filming Memphis Belle (1944) and worked hard to get accurate depictions of the combat veterans he had encountered. Wyler changed the original casting that had featured a veteran suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and sought out Harold Russell, a non-actor to take on the exacting role of Homer Parrish.[10]
For The Best Years of Our Lives, he asked the principal actors to purchase their own clothes, in order to connect with daily life and produce an authentic feeling. Other Wyler touches included constructing life-size sets, which went against the standard larger sets that were more suited to camera positions. The impact for the audience was immediate, as each scene played out in a realistic, natural way.[10]
The movie began filming on April 15, 1946 at a variety of locations, including the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, Ontario International Airport, Ontario, California, Raleigh Studios, Hollywood, and the Samuel Goldwyn/Warner Hollywood Studios.[10] Many scenes were also filmed in Phoenixville, PA, most notably the banking scenes using the Farmers and Mechanics Bank located on Main Street and various other scenes showing Bridge Street and Main Street in Phoenixville, PA. The Best Years of Our Lives is notable for cinematographer Gregg Toland's use of deep focus photography, in which objects both close to and distant from the camera are in sharp focus.[11] For the passage of Fred Derry's reliving a combat mission while sitting in the remains of a former bomber, Wyler used "zoom" effects to simulate Derry's subjective state.[12]
The "Jackson High" football stadium seen early in the movie in aerial footage was Corcoran Stadium, the home of Xavier University's (Cincinnati) football team from 1929 to 1973.
After the war, the combat aircraft featured in the film were being destroyed and disassembled for reuse as scrap material. The scene of Derry's walking among aircraft ruins was filmed at the Ontario Army Air Field in Ontario, California. The former training facility had been converted into a scrap yard, housing nearly 2,000 former combat aircraft in various states of disassembly and reclamation.[10]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Upon its release, The Best Years of Our Lives received extremely positive reviews from critics. Shortly after its premiere at the Astor Theater, New York, Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, hailed the film as a masterpiece. He wrote,

It is seldom that there comes a motion picture which can be wholly and enthusiastically endorsed not only as superlative entertainment but as food for quiet and humanizing thought... In working out their solutions Mr. Sherwood and Mr. Wyler have achieved some of the most beautiful and inspiring demonstrations of human fortitude that we have had in films." He also said the ensemble casting gave the "'best' performance in this best film this year from Hollywood."[13]
David Thomson offers tempered praise: "I would concede that Best Years is decent and humane... acutely observed, despite being so meticulous a package. It would have taken uncommon genius and daring at that time to sneak a view of an untidy or unresolved America past Goldwyn or the public."[14]
The film has a 97% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 37 reviews.[15] Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert put the film on his "Great Movies" list in 2007, calling it "...modern, lean, and honest."[16]
The Best Years of Our Lives was a massive popular success, earning an estimated $11.5 million at the North American box office during its initial theatrical run.[17] When box office prices are adjusted for inflation, it remains one of the top 100 grossing films in U.S. history. Among films released before 1950, only Gone With the Wind, The Bells of St. Mary's, and four Disney titles have done more total business, in part due to later re-releases. (Reliable box office figures for certain early films such as Birth of a Nation and Charlie Chaplin's comedies are unavailable.)[18]
Awards and honors[edit]
1947 Academy Awards
The Best Years of Our Lives received nine Academy Awards. Fredric March won his second Best Actor award (also having won in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).
Despite his Oscar-nominated performance, Harold Russell was not a professional actor. As the Academy Board of Governors considered him a long shot to win, they gave him an honorary award "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance". When Russell won Best Supporting Actor, there was an enthusiastic response. He is the only actor to have received two Academy Awards for the same performance. He later sold his Best Supporting Actor award at auction for $60,500, to pay his wife's medical bills.[19]

Award
Result
Winner
Best Motion Picture Won Samuel Goldwyn Productions (Samuel Goldwyn, Producer)
Best Director Won William Wyler
Best Actor Won Fredric March
Best Writing (Screenplay) Won Robert E. Sherwood
Best Supporting Actor Won Harold Russell
Best Film Editing Won Daniel Mandell
Best Music (Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) Won Hugo Friedhofer
Best Sound Recording Nominated Gordon E. Sawyer
Winner was John P. Livadary - The Jolson Story
Honorary Award Won To Harold Russell
Memorial Award Won Samuel Goldwyn
Some posters say the film won nine Academy Awards, this is due to the honorary award won by Harold Russell, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award won by Samuel Goldwyn, in addition to the seven awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing, and Best Music Score.
1947 Golden Globe Awards
Won: Best Dramatic Motion Picture
Won: Special Award for Best Non-Professional Acting - Harold Russell
1947 Brussels World Film Festival
Won: Best Actress Of The Years - Myrna Loy[20]
1948 BAFTA Awards
Won: BAFTA Award for Best Film from any Source
Other wins
National Board of Review: NBR Award Best Director, William Wyler; 1946.
New York Film Critics Circle Awards: NYFCC Award Best Director, William Wyler; Best Film; 1946.
Bodil Awards: Bodil; Best American Film, William Wyler; 1948.
Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain: CEC Award; Best Foreign Film, USA; 1948.
In 1989, the National Film Registry selected it for preservation in the United States Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
American Film Institute recognition
1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies #37
2006 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers #11
2007 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #37
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ David Thomson, Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Abacus, 1993 p 490-491
2.Jump up ^ " 'Best Years of Our Lives' (1946)." Box Office Mojo. Retrieved: February 4, 2010.
3.^ Jump up to: a b Orriss 1984, p. 119.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Levy, Emmanuel. "Review: "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)." emanuellevy.com, 4 May 2010. Retrieved: November 20, 2011.
5.Jump up ^ "The 19th Academy Awards (1947) Nominees and Winners." oscars.org. Retrieved: November 20, 2011.
6.Jump up ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=bestyearsofourlives.htm&adjust_yr=1&p=.htm
7.Jump up ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=bestyearsofourlives.htm
8.Jump up ^ "BFI'S Ultimate Film Chart." BFi.org.uk. Retrieved: July 27, 2010.
9.Jump up ^ "Top 100 films." Channel 4. Retrieved: October 25, 2010.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c d Orriss 1984, p. 121.
11.Jump up ^ Kehr, Dave. The Best Years of Our Lives. The Chicago Reader. Retrieved: April 26, 2007.
12.Jump up ^ Orriss 1984, pp. 121–122
13.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley. The Best Years of our Lives. The New York Times, November 22, 1946. Retrieved: April 26, 2007.
14.Jump up ^ Thomson, 2002, p. 949.
15.Jump up ^ " 'The Best Years of Our Lives'." Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved: July 30, 2010.
16.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger. "The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)." Chicago Sun Times, December 29, 2007. Retrieved: November 20, 2011.
17.Jump up ^ "All Time Domestic Champs". Variety, January 6, 1960, p. 34
18.Jump up ^ "All-time Films (adjusted)." Box Office Mojo. Retrieved: September 19, 2010.
19.Jump up ^ Bergan, Ronald. "Obituary: Harold Russell; Brave actor whose artificial hands helped him win two Oscars." The Guardian, February 6, 2002. Retrieved: June 12, 2012.
20.Jump up ^ http://books.google.it/books?id=cUUhGfrBPkUC&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&dq=brussels+world+film+festival+1947+myrna+loy&source=bl&ots=A0VNSdjGW1&sig=5dvumWn5vKb7gg4b_oyb3eCOi0Y&hl=it&sa=X&ei=N5duUeLJG8SQ7Aa_24H4BA&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=brussels%20world%20film%20festival%201947%20myrna%20loy&f=false
Bibliography[edit]
Dolan, Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. ISBN 0-86124-229-7.
Flood, Richard. "Reel crank - critic Manny Farber." Artforum, Volume 37, Issue 1, September 1998. ISSN 0004-3532.
Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies", in The Making of the Great Aviation Films. General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
Kinn, Gail and Jim Piazza. The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2008. ISBN 978-1-57912-772-5.
Orriss, Bruce. When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II. Hawthorn, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. ISBN 0-9613088-0-X.
Thomson, David. "Wyler, William". A Biographical Dictionary of Film. London: Little, Brown, 2002. ISBN 0-316-85905-2.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Best Years of Our Lives
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Best Years of Our Lives.
The Best Years of Our Lives at the Internet Movie Database
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American Graffiti
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American Graffiti
American graffiti ver1.jpg
Film poster by Mort Drucker

Directed by
George Lucas
Produced by
Francis Ford Coppola
Gary Kurtz
Written by
George Lucas
Gloria Katz
Willard Huyck
Starring
Richard Dreyfuss
Ron Howard
Paul Le Mat
Charles Martin Smith
Candy Clark
Mackenzie Phillips
Cindy Williams
Wolfman Jack
Cinematography
Jan D'Alquen
Ron Eveslage
Haskell Wexler
Editing by
Verna Fields
Marcia Lucas
Studio
American Zoetrope
Lucasfilm
Distributed by
Universal Pictures
Release dates
August 11, 1973

Running time
112 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$775,000
Box office
$140,000,000[1]
American Graffitiis a 1973 coming of agefilm directed and co-written by George Lucasstarring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillipsand Wolfman Jack; Suzanne Somerswas the blonde in the T-bird. Set in 1962 Modesto, California, the film is a study of the cruisingand rock and rollcultures popular among the post–World War II baby boomgeneration. The film is told in a series of vignettes, telling the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures in one night.
The genesis of American Graffitiwas in Lucas' own teenage years in early 1960s Modesto. He was unsuccessful in pitchingthe concept to financiers and distributors but finally found favor at Universal Picturesafter United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Paramount Picturesturned him down. Filming was initially set to take place in San Rafael, California, but the production crew was denied permission to shoot beyond a second day. As a result, most filming was done in Petaluma.
The film was released to critical acclaim and financial success, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Produced on a $775,000 budget, it has become one of the most profitable films of all time. Since its initial release, American Graffitihas garnered an estimated return of well over $200 million in box office gross and home video sales, not including merchandising. In 1995, the United States Library of Congressdeemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.


Contents [hide]
1Plot
2Cast
3Development3.1Inspiration
3.2United Artists
3.3Universal Pictures
4Production4.1Casting
4.2Filming
4.3Cinematography
4.4Editing
5Soundtrack
6Reception6.1Release
6.2Critical analysis
6.3Themes
6.4Awards
7Legacy
8References8.1Footnotes
8.2Bibliography
9External links

Plot[edit]
In August 1962 recent high school graduates and longtime friends, Curt Henderson and Steve Bolander, meet John Milner and Terry "The Toad" Fields at the local Mel's Drive-Inparking lot. Despite receiving a $2,000 scholarship from the local Moose lodge, Curt is undecided if he wants to leave the next morning with Steve to go to the northeastern United States to begin college. Steve lets Toad borrow his 1958 Chevy Impalafor the evening, and while he will be away at college. Steve's girlfriend, Laurie, who also is Curt's younger sister, is unsure of Steve leaving, to which he suggests they see other people while he is away to "strengthen" their relationship.
Curt, Steve, and Laurie go to the local sock hop, while Toad and John begin cruising. En route to the hop, Curt sees a beautiful blonde girl in a white 1956 Ford Thunderbird. She mouths "I love you" before disappearing down the street. After leaving the hop, Curt is desperate to find the mysterious blonde, but is coerced by a group of greasers("The Pharaohs") through an initiation rite that involves hooking a chain to a police car and successfully ripping out its back axle. Curt is told rumors that "The Blonde" is either a trophy wifeor prostitute, which he immediately refuses to accept.
Steve and Laurie break up following a series of arguments, and John inadvertently picks up Carol, an annoying teenybopperwho seems fond of him. Toad, who is normally socially inept with girls, meets a flirtatious, and somewhat rebellious, girl named Debbie. Meanwhile, Curt learns that DJ Wolfman Jackbroadcasts from just outside of Modesto. Inside the dark, eerie radio station, Curt encounters a bearded man he assumes to be the manager. Curt hands the man a message for "The Blonde" to call or meet him. As he walks away, Curt hears the voice of The Wolfman, and seeing him broadcasting realizes he had been speaking with him.
The other story lines intertwine until Toad and Steve end up on "Paradise Road" to watch John race against the handsome (but arrogant) Bob Falfa, with Laurie as Bob's passenger. Within seconds Bob loses control of his car after blowing a front tire, plunges into a ditch and rolls his car. Steve and John run to the wreck, and a dazed Bob and Laurie stagger out of the car before it explodes. Distraught, Laurie grips Steve tightly and tells him not to leave her. He assures her that he has decided not to leave Modesto after all. The next morning Curt is awakened by the sound of a phone ringing in a telephone booth, which turns out to be "The Blonde". She tells him she might see him cruising tonight, but Curt replies that is not possible, because he will be leaving. At the airfield he says goodbye to his parents, his sister, and friends. As the plane takes off, Curt, gazing out of the window, sees the white Ford Thunderbird belonging to the mysterious blonde.
Prior to the end credits an on-screen epilogue reveals that John was killed by a drunk driver in December 1964, Toad was reported missing in action near An Lộcin December 1965, Steve is an insurance agent in Modesto, California, and Curt is a writer living in Canada.
Cast[edit]




John Milner (Paul Le Mat) is confronted by Officer Holstein (Jim Bohan)Richard Dreyfussas Curt Henderson
Ron Howardas Steve Bolander
Paul Le Matas John Milner
Charles Martin Smithas Terry "The Toad" Fields
Candy Clarkas Debbie Dunham
Mackenzie Phillipsas Carol Morrison
Cindy Williamsas Laurie Henderson
Harrison Fordas Bob Falfa
Bo Hopkinsas Joe Young
Wolfman Jackas himself, an XERBDisc Jockey
Kathleen Quinlanas Peg
Manuel Padilla, Jr.as Carlos
Beau Gentry as Ants
Jim Bohan as Officer Holstein
Jana Bellan as Budda
Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kidsas Herbie and the Heartbeats
Deby Celiz as Wendy
Suzanne Somersas "The Blonde" in T-Bird
Johnny Weissmuller, Jr.as Badass 1
Kay Lenzas Jane
Lynne Marie Stewartas Bobbie Tucker
Debralee Scottas Falfa's Girl
Susan Richardsonas Judy
Joe Spanoas Vic
Development[edit]
Inspiration[edit]
During the production of THX 1138(1971), producer Francis Ford Coppolachallenged co-writer/director George Lucasto write a script that would appeal to mainstreamaudiences.[2]Lucas embraced the idea, using his early 1960s teenage experiences cruisingin Modesto, California. "Cruising was gone, and I felt compelled to document the whole experience and what my generationused as a way of meeting girls," Lucas explained.[2]As he developed the story in his mind, Lucas included his fascination with Wolfman Jack. Lucas had considered doing a documentary about The Wolfman when he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but dropped the idea.[3]
Adding in semi-autobiographical connotations, Lucas set the story in 1962 Modesto.[2]The characters Curt Henderson, John Milner and Terry "The Toad" Fields also represent different stages from his younger life. Curt is modeled after Lucas's personality during USC, while Milner is based on Lucas's teenage street racingand junior college years, and hot rodenthusiasts he had known from the Kustom Kulturein Modesto. Toad represents Lucas's nerdyears as a freshman in high school, specifically his "bad luck" with dating.[4]The filmmaker was also inspired by Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni(1953).[5]
After the financial failure of THX 1138, Lucas wanted the film to act as a release for a world-weary audience:[6]

[THX] was about real things that were going on and the problems we're faced with. I realized after making THXthat those problems are so real that most of us have to face those things every day, so we're in a constant state of frustration. That just makes us more depressed than we were before. So I made a film where, essentially, we can get rid of some of those frustrations, the feeling that everything seems futile.[6]
United Artists[edit]
After Warner Bros.abandoned Lucas's early version of Apocalypse Now(1979) (during the post-production of THX 1138), the filmmaker decided to continue developing Another Quiet Night in Modesto, eventually changing its title to American Graffiti.[3]To co-write a fifteen-page film treatment, Lucas hired Willard Huyckand Gloria Katz, who also added semi-autobiographical material to the story.[7]Lucas and producer Gary Kurtzbegan pitchingthe American Graffititreatment to various Hollywood studios and production companies in an attempt to secure the financing needed to expand it into a screenplay,[2]but they were unsuccessful. The potential financiers were concerned that music licensingcosts would cause the film to go way over budget. Along with Easy Rider(1969), American Graffitiwas one of the first films to eschew a traditional film scoreand successfully rely instead on synchronizing a series of popular hit songs with individual scenes.[8]
THX 1138was released in March 1971[2]and Lucas was offered opportunities to direct Lady Ice(1973), Tommy(1975) or Hair(1979). He turned down those offers, determined to pursue his own projects despite his urgent desire to find another film to direct.[9][10]During this time, Lucas conceived the idea for a space opera(as yet untitled) which later became the basis for his Star Warsfranchise. At the May 1971 Cannes Film Festival, THXwas chosen for the Directors' Fortnightcompetition. There, Lucas met David Picker, then president of United Artists, who was intrigued by American Graffitiand Lucas's space opera. Picker decided to give Lucas $10,000 to develop Graffitias a screenplay.[9]
Lucas planned to spend another five weeks in Europe, and hoped that Huyck and Katz would agree to finish the screenplay by the time he returned, but they were about to start on their own film, Messiah of Evil(1972),[7]so Lucas hired Richard Walter, a colleague from the USC School of Cinematic Artsfor the job. Walter was flattered, but initially tried to sell Lucas on a different screenplay called Barry and the Persuasions, a story of East Coastteenagers in the late 1950s. Lucas held firm - his was a story about West Coastteenagers in the early 1960s. Walter was paid the $10,000, and he began to expand the Lucas/Huyck/Katz treatment into a screenplay.[9]
Lucas was dismayed when he returned to America in June 1971 and read Walter's script, which was written in the style and tone of an exploitation film, similar to 1967's Hot Rods to Hell. "It was overtly sexual and very fantasy-like, with playing chickenand things that kids didn't really do," Lucas explained. "I wanted something that was more like the way I grew up."[11]Walter's script also had Steve and Laurie going to Nevada to get married without their parents' permission.[5]Walter rewrote the screenplay, but Lucas nevertheless fired him due to their creative differences.[9]
After paying Walter, Lucas had exhausted his development fund from United Artists. He began writing a script, completing his first draft in just three weeks. Drawing upon his large collection of vintage records, Lucas wrote each scene with a particular song in mind as its musical backdrop.[9]The cost of licensing the 75 songs Lucas wanted was one factor in United Artists' ultimate decision to reject the script; the studio also felt it was too experimental—"a musical montage with no characters". United Artists also passed on Star Wars, which Lucas shelved for the time being.[10]
Universal Pictures[edit]
Lucas spent the rest of 1971 and early 1972 trying to raise financing for the American Graffitiscript.[10]During this time, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Foxand Columbia Picturesall turned down the opportunity to co-finance and distribute the film.[12]Lucas, Huyck and Katz rewrote the second draft together, which, in addition to Modesto, was also set in Mill Valleyand Los Angeles. Lucas also intended to end American Graffitishowing a title card detailing the fate of the characters, including the death of Milner and the disappearance of Toad in Vietnam. Huyck and Katz found the ending depressing and were incredulous that Lucas planned to include only the male characters. Lucas argued that mentioning the girls meant adding another title card, which he felt would prolong the ending. Because of this, Pauline Kaellater accused Lucas of chauvinism.[12]
Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz took the script to American International Pictures, who expressed interest, but ultimately believed American Graffitiwas not violent or sexual enough for the studio's standards.[13]Lucas and Kurtz eventually found favor at Universal Pictures, who allowed Lucas total artistic controland the right of final cut privilegeon the condition that he make American Graffition a strict, low budget.[10]This forced Lucas to drop the opening scene, in which the Blonde Angel, Curt's image of the perfect woman, drives through an empty drive-in cinema in her Ford Thunderbird, her transparency revealing she does not exist.[14]
Universal initially projected a $600,000 budget, but added an additional $175,000 once producer Francis Ford Coppolasigned on. This would allow the studio to advertise American Graffitias "from the Man who Gave you The Godfather(1972)". However, Lucas was forced to concede final cut privilege. The proposition also gave Universal first look dealson Lucas's next two planned projects, Star Wars(1977) and Radioland Murders(1994).[13]As he continued to work on the script, Lucas encountered difficulties on the Steve and Laurie storyline. Lucas, Katz and Huyck worked on the third draft together, specifically on the scenes featuring Steve and Laurie.[15]
Production proceeded with virtually no input or interference from Universal. American Graffitiwas a low-budget film, and executive Ned Tanenhad only modest expectations of its commercial success. However, Universal did object to the film's title, not knowing what "American Graffiti" meant;[15]Lucas was dismayed when some executives assumed he was making an Italian movie about feet.[12]The studio therefore submitted a long list of over 60 alternative titles, with their favorite being Another Slow Night in Modesto[15]and Coppola's Rock Around the Block.[12]They pushed hard to get Lucas to adopt any of the titles, but he was displeased with all the alternatives and persuaded Tanen to keep American Graffiti.[15]
Production[edit]
Casting[edit]
The film's lengthy casting process was overseen by Fred Roos, who worked with producer Francis Ford Coppola on The Godfather.[7]Because American Graffiti's main cast was associated with younger actors, the casting call and notices went through numerous high school drama groups and community theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area.[4]Among the actors was Mark Hamill, the future Luke Skywalkerin Lucas' Star Warstrilogy.[14]
Over 100 unknown actors auditioned for Curt Henderson before Richard Dreyfusswas cast. George Lucas was impressed with Dreyfuss' thoughtful analysis of the role,[4]and, as a result, offered the actor his choice of Curt or Terry "The Toad" Fields.[14]Roos, a former casting director on The Andy Griffith Show, suggested Ron Howardfor Steve Bolander. Howard reluctantly accepted the part in attempting to avoid his typecastingas a child actor.[4]Bob Balabanturned down The Toad out of fear of typecasting, a decision which he later regretted. Charles Martin Smith, who, in his first year as a professional actor, had already appeared in two feature films including 20th Century Fox's The Culpepper Cattle Co., and 4 TV episodes, was eventually cast in the role.[16]
Although Cindy Williamswas cast as Laurie Henderson, the actress hoped she would get the part of Debbie Dunham, which ended up going to Candy Clark.[7]Mackenzie Phillips, who portrays Carol, was only 12 years old, and under California law, producer Gary Kurtz had to become her legal guardian for the duration of filming.[14]As Bob Falfa, Roos cast Harrison Ford, who was then concentrating on a carpentrycareer. Ford agreed to take the role on the condition that he would not have to cut his hair. The character has a flattophaircut in the script, but a compromise was eventually reached whereby Ford wore a stetsonto cover his hair. Producer Francis Ford Coppola encouraged Lucas to cast Wolfman Jackas himself in a cameo appearance. "George Lucas and I went through thousands of Wolfman Jack phone calls that were taped with the public," Jack reflected. "The telephone calls [heard on the broadcasts] in the motion picture and on the soundtrack were actual calls with real people."[15]
Charles Martin Smith (18) and Ron Howard (18) were the only two real teenage principal actors of the film. Most of the remaining principal cast members were in their 20s with the exceptions of the 12-year-old Mackenzie Phillips, and Harrison Ford, who turned 30 during filming.
Filming[edit]
Although American Graffitiis set in 1962 Modesto, California, Lucas believed the city had changed too much in 10 years and initially chose San Rafaelas the primary shooting location.[14]Filming began on June 26, 1972. However, Lucas soon became frustrated at the time it was taking to fix camera mounts to the cars.[17]A key member of the production had also been arrested for growing marijuana,[12]and, in addition to already running behind the shooting schedule, the San Rafael City Council immediately became concerned about the disruption that filming caused for local businesses and therefore withdrew permission to shoot beyond a second day.[17]
Petaluma, a similarly small town approximately 20 miles north of San Rafael, became more cooperative and American Graffitimoved there without the loss of a single day of shooting. Lucas convinced the San Rafael City Council to allow two further nights of filming for general cruising shots, which he used to evoke as much of the intended location as possible in the finished film. Shooting in Petaluma began on June 28 and proceeded at a quick pace.[17]Lucas mimicked the filmmaking style of B movieproducer Sam Katzmanin attempting to save money and authenticated low-budget filming methods.[14]




The San Francisco Mel's Drive-Inrestaurant used in the film had been closed and was reopened specifically for filming. It was demolished after American Graffitiwas completed.[14]
In addition to Petaluma, other locations included Van Ness Avenuein San Francisco, Sonoma, Richmond, Novato, and the Buchanan Field Airportin Concord.[18]The freshman hop dance was filmed in the Gus Gymnasium, previously known as the Boys Gym, at Tamalpais High Schoolin Mill Valley.[19]
More problems ensued during filming: Paul Le Mat was sent to the hospital after an allergic reaction to walnuts. Le Mat, Harrison Ford, and Bo Hopkins were often drunk between takes, and had conducted climbing competitions to the top of the local Holiday Innsign. One actor set fire to Lucas' motel room. Another night, Le Mat threw Richard Dreyfuss into a swimming pool, gashing Dreyfuss' forehead on the day before he was due to have his close-ups filmed. Dreyfuss also complained over the wardrobe that Lucas had chosen for the character. Ford was arrested one night while in a bar fight and kicked out of his motel room. In addition, two camera operators were nearly killed when filming the climactic race scene on Frates Road outside Petaluma.[20]Principal photographyended on August 4, 1972.[18]
The final scenes in film, shot at Buchanan Field, feature a Douglas DC-7Cairliner of Magic Carpet Airlines which had previously been leased from owner Club America Incorporated by the rock band Grand Funk Railroadfrom March 1971 to June 1971.[19][21][22]
Cinematography[edit]
Lucas considered covering duties as the sole cinematographer, but dropped the idea.[14]Instead, he elected to shoot American Graffitiusing two cinematographers (as he had done in THX 1138) and no formal director of photography. Two cameras were used simultaneously in scenes involving conversations between actors in different cars, which resulted in significant production time savings.[17]After CinemaScopeproved to be too expensive,[14]Lucas decided that American Graffitishould have a documentary-like feel, and shot the film using Techniscopecameras. He believed that Techniscope, an inexpensive way of shooting in 35 mm filmand utilizing only half of the film's frame, would give a perfect widescreen format resembling 16 mm. Adding to the documentary feel was Lucas's openness for the cast to improvisescenes. He also used goofsfor the final cut, notably Charles Martin Smith's (Toad) arriving on his scooter to meet Steve outside Mel's Drive-In.[23]Jan D'Alquen and Ron Eveslagewere hired as the cinematographers, but filming with Techniscope cameras brought lighting problems. As a result, Lucas commissioned help from friend Haskell Wexler, who was credited as the "visual consultant".[17]
Editing[edit]
Lucas had wanted his wife, Marcia, to edit American Graffiti, but Universal executive Ned Tanen insisted on hiring Verna Fields, who had just finished editing Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express(1974).[20]Fields worked on the first rough cutof the film before she left to resume work on What's Up, Doc?(1972). After Fields's departure, Lucas struggled with editing the film's story structure. He had originally written the script so that the four (Curt, Steve, John and Toad) storylines were always presented in the same sequence (an "ABCD" plot structure). But the first cut of American Graffitiwas three-and-a-half hours long, and in order to whittle the film down to a more manageable two hours, so many scenes had to be cut, shortened, or combined that the film's structure became increasingly loose, and no longer adhered to Lucas's original "ABCD" presentation.[23]Lucas completed his final cut of American Graffiti, which ran 112 minutes, in December 1972.[24]Walter Murchassisted Lucas in post-production for audio mixingand sound designpurposes.[23]Murch suggested making Wolfman Jack's radio show the "backbone" of the film. "The Wolfman was an ethereal presence in the lives of young people," said producer Gary Kurtz, "and it was that quality we wanted and obtained in the picture."[20]
Soundtrack[edit]
Main article: 41 Original Hits from the Soundtrack of American Graffiti
Lucas's choice of background music was crucial to the mood of each scene, but he was realistic about the complexities of copyright clearances and suggested a number of alternative tracks. Universal wanted Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz to hire an orchestra for sound-alikes. The studio eventually proposed a flat deal that offered every music publisher the same amount of money. This was acceptable to most of the companies representing Lucas's first choices, but not to RCA- with the consequence that Elvis Presleyis conspicuous by his absence from the soundtrack.[10]Clearing the music licensingrights had cost approximately $90,000,[20]and as a result there was no money left for a traditional film score. "I used the absence of music, and sound effects, to create the drama," Lucas later explained.[24]
A soundtrack albumfor the film, 41 Original Hits from the Soundtrack of American Graffiti, was issued by MCA Records. The album contains all the songs used in the film (with the exception of "Gee" by the Crows, which was subsequently included on a second soundtrack album), presented in the order in which they appeared in the film.
Reception[edit]
Release[edit]
Despite unanimous praise at a January 1973 test screeningattended by Universal executive Ned Tanen, the studio told Lucas they wanted to re-edit his original cut of American Graffiti.[24]Producer Coppola sided with Lucas against Tanen and Universal, offering to "buy the film" from the studio and reimburse it for the $775,000 it had cost to make it.[18]20th Century Foxand Paramount Picturesmade similar offers to the studio.[3]Universal refused these offers and told Lucas they planned to have William Hornbeckre-edit the film.[25]
When Coppola's The Godfather(1972) won the Academy Award for Best Picturein March 1973, Universal relented, and agreed to cut only three scenes (about four minutes) from Lucas's cut—an encounter between Toad and a fast-talking car salesman, an argument between Steve and his former teacher Mr. Kroot at the sock hop, and an effort by Bob Falfa to serenade Laurie with "Some Enchanted Evening"—but decided that the film was fit for release only as a television movie.[18]
However, various studio employees who had seen the film began talking it up, and its reputation grew through word of mouth.[18]The studio dropped the TV movie idea and began arranging for a limited releasein selected theaters in Los Angeles and New York.[8]Universal presidents Sidney Sheinbergand Lew Wassermanheard about the praise the film had been garnering in LA and New York, and the marketing department amped up their promotion strategy for it,[8]investing an additional $500,000 in marketing and promotion.[3]The film was released in the United States on August 1, 1973 to sleeper hitreception.[26]The film had cost only $1.27 million to produce and market, but yielded worldwide box officegross revenues of more than $55 million.[27]It had only modest success outside the United States, but became a cult filmin France.[25]
Universal reissuedGraffitiin 1978 and earned an additional $63 million, which brought the total revenue for the two releases to $118 million.[3]The reissue included stereophonic sound,[27]and the additional four minutes that the studio had removed from Lucas's original cut. All home videoreleases also included these scenes.[18]At the end of its theatrical run, American Graffitihad one of the lowest cost-to-profit ratios of a motion picture ever.[3]Producer Francis Ford Coppola regretted having not financed the film himself. Lucas recalled, "He would have made $30 million on the deal. He never got over it and he still kicks himself."[25]It was the thirteenth-highest grossing film of all time in 1977,[26]and, adjusted for inflation, is currently the forty-third highest.[28]By the 1990s, American Graffitihad earned more than $200 million in box office gross and home video sales.[3]In December 1997 Varietyreported that the film had earned an additional $55.13 million in rental revenue.[29]
Universal Studios Home Entertainmentfirst released the film on DVD in September 1998,[30]and once more as a double featurewith More American Graffiti(1979) in January 2004.[31]
Aside from the four minutes originally deleted from Lucas' original cut retained, the only major change in the DVD version is the main title sequence, particularly the sky background to Mel's Drive-In, which was redone by ILM.
Universal released the film on Blu-rayon May 31, 2011.[32][33]
Critical analysis[edit]
American Graffitiwent on to receive widespread critical acclaim. Based on 33 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of the critics enjoyed the film with an average score of 8.3/10. The consensus reads: "One of the most influential of all teen films, American Graffitiis a funny, nostalgic, and bittersweet look at a group of recent high school grads' last days of innocence."[34]Roger Ebertpraised the film for being "not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant".[35]
Jay Cocksof Timemagazinewrote that American Graffiti"reveals a new and welcome depth of feeling. Few films have shown quite so well the eagerness, the sadness, the ambitions and small defeats of a generation of young Americans."[36]A.D. Murphy from Varietyfelt American Graffitiwas a vivid "recall of teenage attitudes and morals, told with outstanding empathy and compassion through an exceptionally talented cast of unknown actors".[37]Dave Kehr, writing in the Chicago Reader, called the film a brilliant work of popular art that redefined nostalgia as a marketable commodity, while establishing a new narrative style.[38]
Themes[edit]
American Graffitidepicts multiple characters going through a coming of age, such as the decisions to attend college or reside in a small town.[7]The 1962 setting represents nearing an end of an era in American society and pop culture. The musical backdrop also links between the early years of rock and rollin the mid-late 1950s (i.e. Bill Haley & His Comets, Elvis Presleyand Buddy Holly) and the early 1960s British Invasion, which Don McLean's "American Pie" and the 1972 revival of 1950s acts and oldies paralleled during the conception and filming. The setting is also before the outbreaks of the Vietnam Warand the John F. Kennedy assassination[7]and before the peak years of the counterculture movement. American Graffitievokes mankind's relationship with machines, notably the elaborate number of hot rods- having been called a "classic car flick", representative of the motor car's importance to American culture at the time it was made.[39]Another theme is teenagers' obsession with radio, especially with the inclusion of Wolfman Jackand his mysterious and mythological faceless (to most) voice.
Awards[edit]
American Graffitiwas nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picturebut lost to The Sting(1973). Further nominations at the 46th Academy Awardsincluded Best Director(George Lucas), Best Original Screenplay(Lucas, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz), Best Supporting Actress(Candy Clark) and Best Film Editing(Verna Fields and Marcia Lucas).[40]The film won Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy)at the 31st Golden Globe Awards, while Paul Le Mat won Most Promising Newcomer. Lucas was nominated for Best Directorand Richard Dreyfuss was nominated for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical.[41]More nominations included Cindy Williams by the British Academy of Film and Television Artsfor Best Actress in a Supporting Role,[42]Lucas for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing,[43]and Lucas, Huyck and Katz by the Writers Guild of Americafor Best Original Comedy.[25]
Legacy[edit]
Internet reviewer MaryAnn Johanson acknowledged that American Graffitirekindled public and entertainment interest in the 1950s and 1960s, and influenced other films such as The Lords of Flatbush(1974) and Cooley High(1975) and the TV series Happy Days.[44]Alongside other films from the New Hollywoodera, American Graffitiis often cited for helping give birth to the summer blockbuster.[45]The film's box office success made George Lucas an instant millionaire. He gave an amount of the film's profits to Haskell Wexlerfor his visual consulting help during filming, and to Wolfman Jackfor "inspiration". Lucas's net worth was now $4 million, and he set aside a $300,000 independent fund for his long cherished space operaproject, which would eventually become the basis for Star Wars(1977).[18]
The financial success of Graffitialso gave Lucas opportunities to establish more elaborate development for Lucasfilm, Skywalker Sound, and Industrial Light & Magic.[27]Based on the success of the 1977 reissue, Universal began production for the sequel More American Graffiti(1979).[3]Lucas and writers, Willard Huyckand Gloria Katz, later collaborated on Radioland Murders(1994), also released by Universal Pictures, for which Lucas acted as executive producer. The film features characters intended to be Curt and Laurie Henderson's parents, Roger and Penny Henderson.[27]In 1995 American Graffitiwas deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant by the United States Library of Congressand selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[46]In 1997 the city of Modesto, California, honored Lucas with a statue dedication of American Graffitiat George Lucas Plaza.[2]
In 1998 the American Film Institute(AFI) ranked it as the 77th greatest film ever in the 100 Years... 100 Movieslist. When the 10th Anniversary Editioncame in June 2007, AFI moved American Graffitito the sixty-second greatest film.[47]The movie was also listed as the forty-third funniest.[48]The song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs.[49]Director David Finchercredited American Graffitias a visual influence for Fight Club(1999).[50]Lucas's Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones(2002) features references to the film. The yellow airspeederthat Anakin Skywalkerand Obi-Wan Kenobiuse to pursue the bounty hunter, Zam Wesell, is based on John Milner's yellow deuce coupe,[51]while Dex's Diner is reminiscent of Mel's Drive-In.[52]Adam Savageand Jamie Hynemanof MythBustersconducted the "rear axle" experiment on the January 11, 2004, episode.[53]
Given the popularity of the film's cars with customizersand hot roddersin the years since its release, their fate immediately after the film is ironic. All were offered for sale in San Francisco newspaper ads; only the '58 Impala(driven by Ron Howard) attracted a buyer, selling for only a few hundred dollars. The yellow Deuce and the white T-birdwent unsold, despite being priced as low as US$3,000.[54]The registration plate on Milner's yellow, deuce coupe is THX 138 on a yellow, California license plate, slightly altered, reflecting Lucas's earlier science fiction film.
References[edit]
Footnotes[edit]
1.Jump up ^"American Graffiti, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
2.^ Jump up to: abcdefHearn, pp. 10–11, 42–47
3.^ Jump up to: abcdefghBaxter, pp. 70, 104, 148, 254
4.^ Jump up to: abcdHearn, pp. 56–57
5.^ Jump up to: abBaxter, pp. 106–118
6.^ Jump up to: abSturhahn, Larry (March 1974). "The Filming of American Graffiti". Filmmakers Newsletter.
7.^ Jump up to: abcdef(DVD) The Making of American Graffiti. Universal Studios Home Entertainment. 1998.
8.^ Jump up to: abcKen Plume (2002-11-11). "An Interview with Gary Kurtz". IGN. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
9.^ Jump up to: abcdeHearn, pp. 52–53
10.^ Jump up to: abcdeHearn, pp. 54–55
11.Jump up ^Staff (1999-06-19). "A Life Making Movies". Academy of Achievement. Archivedfrom the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
12.^ Jump up to: abcdePollock, pp. 105–111
13.^ Jump up to: abBaxter, pp. 120–123
14.^ Jump up to: abcdefghiBaxter, pp. 124–128
15.^ Jump up to: abcdeHearn, pp. 58–60
16.Jump up ^Staff (2008-10-17). "The Hardest Working Actors in Showbiz". Entertainment Weekly. Archivedfrom the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
17.^ Jump up to: abcdeHearn, pp. 61–63
18.^ Jump up to: abcdefgHearn, pp. 70–75
19.^ Jump up to: abAmerican Graffiti Filming Locations (June - August 1972)
20.^ Jump up to: abcdBaxter, pp. 129–135
21.Jump up ^Douglas DC-6 and DC-7 Tankers
22.Jump up ^American Graffiti
23.^ Jump up to: abcHearn, pp. 64–66
24.^ Jump up to: abcHearn, pp. 67–69
25.^ Jump up to: abcdPollock, pp. 120–128
26.^ Jump up to: ab"American Graffiti". Box Office Mojo. Archivedfrom the original on 16 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-03.
27.^ Jump up to: abcdHearn, pp. 79–86, 122
28.Jump up ^"Domestic Grosses Adjusted For Inflation". Box Office Mojo. Archivedfrom the original on 4 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-03.
29.Jump up ^Staff (1997-12-16). "Rental champs: Rate of return". Variety. Archivedfrom the original on 15 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-03.
30.Jump up ^"American Graffiti (1973)". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-05-03.
31.Jump up ^"American Graffiti / More American Graffiti (Drive-In Double Feature) (1979)". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-05-03.
32.Jump up ^"'American Graffiti' Blu-ray Detailed". High-Def Digest. Retrieved 2011-05-05.
33.Jump up ^"American Graffiti (Special Edition) [Blu-ray] (1973)". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2011-05-05.
34.Jump up ^"American Graffiti". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
35.Jump up ^Roger Ebert(1973-08-11). "American Graffiti". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
36.Jump up ^Jay Cocks(1973-08-20). "Fabulous '50s". Time. Archivedfrom the original on 15 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
37.Jump up ^A.D. Murphy (1973-06-20). "American Graffiti". Variety. Archivedfrom the original on 15 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
38.Jump up ^Dave Kehr. "American Graffiti". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
39.Jump up ^Badger, Emily. "What the Steamship and the Landline Can Tell Us About the Decline of the Private Car". The Atlantic Cities. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
40.Jump up ^"American Graffiti". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2008-05-09.
41.Jump up ^"The 31st Annual Golden Globe Awards (1974)". Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archivedfrom the original on 30 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-09.
42.Jump up ^"Supporting Actress 1974". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 2008-05-09.
43.Jump up ^"1970s - DGA Award Winners for: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film". Directors Guild of America. Archivedfrom the original on 15 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-13.[dead link]
44.Jump up ^MaryAnn Johanson (1999-06-16). "Boy Meets World". The Flick Filosopher. Archivedfrom the original on 16 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
45.Jump up ^Staff (1991-05-24). "The Evolution of the Summer Blockbuster". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
46.Jump up ^"National Film Registry: 1989–2007". National Film Registry. Archivedfrom the original on 1 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-09.
47.Jump up ^"Citizen KaneStands the Test of Time"(PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
48.Jump up ^"AFI's 100 YEARS...100 LAUGHS". American Film Institute. Archived from the originalon June 15, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-18.
49.Jump up ^AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs Nominees
50.Jump up ^Staff (1999-08-13). "Movie Preview: Oct. 15". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
51.Jump up ^"Anakin Skywalker's Airspeeder". StarWars.com. Retrieved 2008-01-19.[dead link]
52.Jump up ^"Dex's Diner". StarWars.com. Retrieved 2008-01-19.[dead link]
53.Jump up ^"Explosive Decompression/Frog Giggin'/Rear Axle". Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman. MythBusters. 2004-01-11. No. 13, season 1.
54.Jump up ^Rod and CustomMagazine, 12/91, pp. 11–12.
Bibliography[edit]
John Baxter(1999). Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas. New York City: Spike Books. ISBN 0-380-97833-4.
Marcus Hearn (2005). The Cinema of George Lucas. New York City: ABRAMS Books. ISBN 0-8109-4968-7.
Dale Pollock (1999). Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas. New York City: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80904-4.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: American Graffiti
Official website
American Graffitiat the Internet Movie Database
American Graffitiat the TCM Movie Database
American Graffitiat allmovie
American GraffitiFilmsite.org
The City of Petaluma's salute to American Graffiti
American Graffitiat Rotten Tomatoes
American Graffitiat Box Office Mojo
Staff (1977-05-30). "Star Wars: The Year's Best Movie". Time. Archivedfrom the original on 14 November 2010. Retrieved 2010-11-16.


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Mrs. Miniver (film)
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Mrs. Miniver
Mrs Miniver poster.gif
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
William Wyler
Produced by
Sidney Franklin
Screenplay by
George Froeschel
James Hilton
Claudine West
Arthur Wimperis

Based on
Mrs. Miniver
 by Jan Struther
Starring
Greer Garson
Walter Pidgeon

Music by
Herbert Stothart
Cinematography
Joseph Ruttenberg
Editing by
Harold F. Kress
Studio
MGM
Distributed by
MGM
Release dates
June 4, 1942 (USA)

Running time
134 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$1,344,000[1]
Box office
$8,878,000 (initial release)[1]
Mrs. Miniver is a 1942 British dramatic film directed by William Wyler, and starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. Based on the 1940 novel Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther,[2] the film shows how the life of an unassuming British housewife in rural England is touched by World War II. She sees her eldest son go to war, finds herself confronting a German pilot who has parachuted into her idyllic village while her husband is participating in the Dunkirk evacuation, and loses her daughter-in-law as a casualty.
Produced and distributed by MGM, the film features a strong supporting cast that includes Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Richard Ney and Henry Wilcoxon.[3]
Mrs. Miniver won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actress (Greer Garson) and Best Supporting Actress (Teresa Wright).[4][5] In 1950, a film sequel The Miniver Story was made with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon reprising their roles.[3]
In 2006, the film was ranked number 40 on the American Film Institute's list celebrating the most inspirational films of all time. In 2009, the film was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant and will be preserved for all time.[6]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Screenplay
4 Reception 4.1 Critical response
4.2 Box office
4.3 Awards and nominations
5 Sequel and adaptations
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
Mrs. Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) and her family live a comfortable life at a house called 'Starlings' in Balham, a fictional village outside London. The house has a large garden, with a private landing stage on the River Thames at which is moored a motorboat belonging to her devoted husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon), a successful architect. They have three children: the youngsters Toby and Judy (Christopher Severn and Clare Sandars) and an older son Vin (Richard Ney) at university. They have live-in staff: Gladys the housemaid (Brenda Forbes) and Ada the cook (Marie De Becker).
As World War II looms, Vin comes down from university and meets Carol Beldon (Teresa Wright), granddaughter of Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty) from nearby Beldon Hall. Despite initial disagreements—mainly contrasting Vin's idealistic attitude to class differences with Carol's practical altruism—they fall in love. Vin proposes to Carol after a yachting club dinner-dance. As the war comes closer to home, Vin feels he must "do his bit" and enlists in the Royal Air Force, qualifying as a fighter pilot. He is posted to a base near to his parents' home and is able to signal his safe return from operations to his parents by cutting his engines briefly as he flies over the house. Together with other boat owners, Clem volunteers to take his motorboat to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation.
Early one morning, Kay unable to sleep as Clem is still away, wanders down to the landing stage. She is startled to discover a wounded German pilot (Helmut Dantine) hiding in her garden and he holds her at gunpoint. Demanding food and a coat, the pilot maniacally asserts that the Third Reich will mercilessly overcome its enemies. She feeds him, calmly disarms him and then calls the police. Soon after, Clem returns home, exhausted, from Dunkirk.
Lady Beldon visits Kay to try and convince her to talk Vin out of marrying Carol on account of her granddaughter's comparative youth. Lady Beldon is unsuccessful and admits defeat when Kay reminds her that she, too, was young when she married her late husband. Lady Beldon concedes defeat and realises that she would be foolish to try and stop the marriage. Vin and Carol are married; Carol has now also become Mrs Miniver, and they return from their honeymoon in Scotland. Later, Kay and her family take refuge in their Anderson shelter in the garden during an air raid, and attempt to keep their minds off the frightening bombing by reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which Clem refers to as a "lovely story" as they barely survive a bomb landing and destroying parts of the house.
At the annual village flower show, Lady Beldon silently disregards the judges' decision that her rose is the winner, instead announcing the entry of the local stationmaster, Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers), named the "Mrs. Miniver" rose, as the winner, with her own rose taking second prize. As air raid sirens sound and the villagers take refuge in the cellars of Beldon Hall, Kay and Carol drive Vin to join his squadron. On their journey home they witness fighter planes in a 'dogfight'. For safety, Kay stops the car and they see the German plane crash. Kay realises Carol has been wounded by shots from the plane and takes her back to 'Starlings'. She dies a few minutes after they reach home. Kay is devastated. When Vin returns from battle, he is told the terrible news.
The villagers assemble at the badly damaged church where their vicar (Henry Wilcoxon) affirms their determination in a powerful sermon:

We in this quiet corner of England have suffered the loss of friends very dear to us, some close to this church. George West, choirboy. James Ballard, stationmaster and bellringer, and the proud winner only an hour before his death of the Beldon Cup for his beautiful Miniver Rose. And our hearts go out in sympathy to the two families who share the cruel loss of a young girl who was married at this altar only two weeks ago. The homes of many of us have been destroyed, and the lives of young and old have been taken. There's scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart. And why? Surely you must have asked yourselves this question? Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness? Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed?
I shall tell you why. Because this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is the war of the people, of all the people. And it must be fought not only on the battlefield but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home and in the heart of every man, woman and child who loves freedom. Well, we have buried our dead, but we shall not forget them. Instead they will inspire us with an unbreakable determination to free ourselves, and those who come after us, from the tyranny and terror that threaten to strike us down. This is the People's War. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it then. Fight it with all that is in us. And may God defend the right.
A solitary Lady Beldon stands in her family's church pew. Vin moves to stand alongside her, united in shared grief, as the members of congregation rise and stoically sing "Onward, Christian Soldiers", while through a gaping hole in the bombed church roof can be seen flight after flight of RAF fighters in the V-for-Victory formation heading out to face the enemy.
Cast[edit]
Greer Garson as Mrs. Kay Miniver
Walter Pidgeon as Clem Miniver
Teresa Wright as Carol Beldon
Dame May Whitty as Lady Beldon          
Reginald Owen as Foley
Henry Travers as James Ballard
Richard Ney as Vin Miniver[Note 1]
Henry Wilcoxon as Vicar
 Christopher Severn as Toby Miniver
Brenda Forbes as Gladys, the housemaid
Clare Sandars as Judy Miniver
Marie De Becker as Ada, the cook
Helmut Dantine as German Flyer
John Abbott as Fred
Connie Leon as Simpson
David Clyde as Carruthers

Production[edit]
Screenplay[edit]
The film went into pre-production in the autumn of 1940, when the United States was still a neutral country. The script was written over many months, and during that time the USA moved closer to war. As a result, scenes were re-written to reflect the increasingly pro-British and anti-German outlook of Americans. The scene in which Mrs. Miniver confronts a downed German flyer in her garden, for example, was made more and more confrontational with each new version of the script. It was initially filmed before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor brought the USA into the war, but following the attack, the scene was filmed again to reflect the tough, new spirit of a nation at war. The key difference was that in the new version of the scene, filmed in February 1942, Mrs Miniver was allowed to slap the flyer across the face. The film was released 4 months later.[7]
Wilcoxon and director William Wyler "wrote and re-wrote" the key sermon the night before the sequence was to be shot.[8] The speech "made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder and part of it was the basis for leaflets printed in various languages and dropped over enemy and occupied territory."[8] Roosevelt ordered it rushed to the theaters for propaganda purposes.[9]
There is a parallel story concerning the Dunkirk evacuation. Sub-Lieut. Robert Owen Wilcoxon of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, only brother of Henry Wilcoxon, assisted in the Dunkirk evacuation on 29 May 1940; but, having helped to get hundreds of Allied troops off the beach to safety in his assault landing craft, he was fatally injured when, after returning to the sloop HMS Bideford to arrange a tow back to Dover, the ship had its stern blown off by a bomb dropped from a dive-bombing German aircraft. This must have been on Wilcoxon's mind during the making of the film.[10]
An interesting footnote on the production was provided by Air Vice-Marshal Sandy Johnstone, CB,DFC in his book, ENEMY IN THE SKY. While in command of 602 Squadron in 1941 (after he fought in the Battle of Britain), he and his squadron pilots provided the Spitfire flying sequences for Twentieth Century Fox to be used in this film, Mrs. Miniver. Reference details found under Epilogue-1975, ENEMY IN THE SKY, copyright 1976.
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
In 2006, the film was ranked number 40 on the American Film Institute's list of the most inspiring American films of all time. In 2009, Mrs. Miniver was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant and will be preserved for all time.[6] The film was selected for the following reasons:

This remarkably touching wartime melodrama pictorialises the classic British stiff upper lip and the courage of a middle class English family (headed by Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon) amid the chaos of air raids and family loss. The film's iconic tribute to the sacrifices on the home front, as movingly directed by William Wyler, did much to rally America’s support for its British allies.[6]
Box office[edit]
The film exceeded all expectations, grossing $5,358,000 in the US and Canada (the highest for any MGM film at the time) and $3,520,000 abroad. In the United Kingdom, it was named the top box office attraction of 1942. The initial theatrical release of the movie made MGM a profit of $4,831,000, their most profitable film of the year.[1]
Of the 592 film critics polled by American magazine Film Daily, 555 named it the best film of 1942.[11]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Mrs. Miniver won six Academy Awards in 1943.[12]

Award
Result
Nominee
Notes
Outstanding Motion Picture Won Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Before 1951, this award was given to the production company instead of the individual producer.)
Best Director Won William Wyler 
Best Actor Nominated Walter Pidgeon Winner was James Cagney for Yankee Doodle Dandy
Best Actress Won Greer Garson[Note 2] 
Best Writing, Screenplay Won George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West, Arthur Wimperis 
Best Supporting Actor Nominated Henry Travers Winner was Van Heflin for Johnny Eager
Best Supporting Actress Won Teresa Wright 
Best Supporting Actress Nominated May Whitty Winner was Teresa Wright for Mrs. Miniver
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White Won Joseph Ruttenberg 
Best Effects, Special Effects Nominated A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic)
Warren Newcombe (photographic)
Douglas Shearer (sound) Winner was Gordon Jennings, Farciot Edouart, William L. Pereira, Louis Mesenkop for Reap the Wild Wind
Best Film Editing Nominated Harold F. Kress Winner was Daniel Mandell for The Pride of the Yankees
Best Sound, Recording Nominated Douglas Shearer Winner was Nathan Levinson for Yankee Doodle Dandy
Sequel and adaptations[edit]
In 1943, the film was adapted into an episode of the Lux Radio Theatre. That episode in turn was popular enough to inspire a 5 day a week serial, starring radio veteran Trudy Warner on CBS.[13]
In 1950, a film sequel The Miniver Story was made with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon reprising their roles.
In 1960, a 90-minutes television adaptation directed by Marc Daniels was broadcast on CBS, with Maureen O'Hara as Mrs. Miniver and Leo Genn as Clem Miniver.
References[edit]
Notes
1.Jump up ^ Soon after playing Greer Garson's son in the film, Richard Ney married Garson, who was 11 years his senior.
2.Jump up ^ Greer Garson's Academy Award acceptance speech was the longest of all time, taking five-and-a-half minutes to finish. A 45-second time limit was imposed on acceptance speeches shortly thereafter.
Citations
1.^ Jump up to: a b c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
2.Jump up ^ Struther, Jan (1940). Mrs. Miniver. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company. ASIN B000O9ZBGA.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "Mrs. Miniver (1942)". The New York Times. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
4.Jump up ^ "Awards for Mrs. Miniver". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
5.Jump up ^ "Mr. Miniver (1942)". Reel Classics. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c "News from the Library of Congress". Library of Congress. December 30, 2009. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
7.Jump up ^ Glancy, Mark (1999). When Hollywood Loved Britain: The Hollywood 'British' Film, 1939-45. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 147–148. ISBN 978-0719048531.
8.^ Jump up to: a b Daynard, Don Henry Wilcoxon in Peter Harris (ed.) The New Captain George's Whizzbang #13 (1971), p. 5
9.Jump up ^ Yellin, Emily (2005). Our Mothers' War. New York: Free Press. pp. 99–100. ISBN 978-0743245166.
10.Jump up ^ Gardner, W. J. R.(ed.), The Evacuation from Dunkirk, 'Operation Dynamo', 26 May-4 June 1940, Frank Cass, London, 2000 ISBN 0-7146-5120-6.
11.Jump up ^ Glancy 1999, p. 154.
12.Jump up ^ "The 15th Academy Awards (1943) Nominees and Winners". Oscars. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
13.Jump up ^ "Jan Struther Bibliography". October 20, 2008.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mrs. Miniver (film).
Mrs. Miniver at the Internet Movie Database
Mrs. Miniver at allmovie
Mrs. Miniver at the TCM Movie Database
Mrs. Miniver at Rotten Tomatoes
"Where Is Today's Mrs. Miniver?". Retrieved 2008-04-28.
"Mrs. Miniver Opening Scenes". Retrieved 2008-08-20.
"Mrs. Miniver and the German Soldier". Retrieved 2008-08-20.
"The full Cast of Mrs. Miniver". Retrieved 2008-10-09.
"Mrs. Miniver Script transcript". Retrieved 2008-10-08.
Mrs. Miniver on Lux Radio Theater: December 6, 1943

Awards
Preceded by
Gone with the Wind Academy Award winner for

Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress
 Succeeded by
A Streetcar Named Desire


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Categories: 1942 films
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Films set in the 1940s
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Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award
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