Hurry Sundown (film)
Encyclopedia
Hurry Sundown is a 1967
American
drama film
produced and directed by Otto Preminger
. It stars Jane Fonda
and Michael Caine
. The screenplay by Horton Foote
and Thomas C. Ryan is based on the 1965 novel of the same title by K.B. Gilden, a pseudonym
for married couple Katya and Bert Gilden.
. Two plots remain beyond their grasp, one owned by Henry's cousin Rad McDowell and his wife Lou, the other by black sharecropper
Reeve Scott, whose mother Rose had been Julie's mammy. Neither man is interested in selling his land, and they form a partnership to strengthen their claim to it, which infuriates Henry.
When Rose dies, Henry tries to persuade his wife to charge Reeve with illegal ownership of his property, but local teacher Vivian Thurlow searches the town's records and uncovers proof that Reeve legally registered the deed to his land. Julie, upset with Henry's treatment of their mentally challenged son, decides to leave him and drops her suit against Reeve.
With the help of Ku Klux Klan
smen, Henry dynamites the levee
above the farms, and Rad's oldest child drowns in the ensuing flood, much to Henry's dismay. Rather than admit defeat, Rad and Reeve decide to rebuild their decimated property with the assistance of their neighbors.
of the 1,064-page Gilden manuscript by his brother Ingo
and, fully expecting it to be another Gone with the Wind
, purchased the film rights to the novel for $100,000 eight months prior to its publication. He initially intended to adapt it for a four-and-a-half-hour epic film
that would be shown twice-a-day at what would be the highest price scale in the history of American film exhibition, with a top admission of $25 on Friday and Saturday nights. When the book sold a mere 300,000 copies, Preminger decided a less grandiose project might be in order.
Because he admired his screenplay for the Harper Lee
novel To Kill a Mockingbird
, Preminger hired Horton Foote
to adapt the Gilden book, which the author thought was "embarrassing," with "no genuine Southern flavor at all." His first instinct was to decline the offer, but he then decided he could do something with it, so Preminger installed him and his family in a house in London
, where the director was filming Bunny Lake Is Missing
. Foote completed his draft in three months, but Preminger was unhappy with it, feeling it was missing the melodrama and theatricality the story required. He paid Foote his full fee and dismissed him, although he later insisted on giving the writer screen credit, which Foote accepted. (In later years he admitted he never saw the film and never included it on his résumé.) Preminger replaced Foote with Thomas C. Ryan, who worked for him as his chief reader
and was familiar with the type of material his employer found appealing.
Preminger wanted to shoot the entire film in Georgia, and in November and December 1965 he visited the state to scout locations, but a union dispute changed his plans. Because he would be filming during the oppressively hot and humid months of June through August, he planned to shoot at night as much as possible. The New York union, which had jurisdiction over Georgia, demanded crews be paid double for any filming after 4:00pm, an added expense Preminger knew would be prohibitive. Production designer
Gene Callahan
suggested his home state of Louisiana
might be a viable alternative, since the unions there were governed by the more liberal one in Chicago. Baton Rouge and its environs were selected, and Callahan's crew began planting cornfields, erecting shanties, and constructing a dam and reservoir
containing 17.5 million gallons of water.
From the start, Preminger and his cast and crew encountered strong resistance from the locals, who resented having a film featuring a biracial friendship made in their midst. Tires were slashed, some actors received telephoned death threats, and a burning cross appeared on one of the sets at 3:00am. The manager of the hotel where everyone was housed advised Preminger mixed bathing
would not be permitted in the swimming pools, but grudgingly agreed to designate one "interracial" when the director threatened to vacate the premises and not pay the bill. Eventually armed state troopers were called in to guard the hotel wing where everyone was staying, making them feel as if they were under house arrest
. Problems were encountered even in New Orleans, where a racially mixed group was refused admission to Brennan's
restaurant. Matters came to a head when a convoy of cars and trucks returning to the hotel through a heavily wooded area one evening became the target of a volley of sniper
gunfire. Robert Hooks
later recalled, "All of us were convinced that we were surrounded by some of the dumbest and meanest people on the face of the earth, to say nothing of being the most cowardly."
Midway through filming, Preminger had to replace cinematographer Loyal Griggs with Milton R. Krasner
when Griggs seriously injured his back. He later banned screenwriter Ryan from the set for talking to Rex Reed
for an article published in the New York Times. In it Reed characterized the director as an autocrat who was losing his grip, quoted Michael Caine
as saying, "He's only happy when everybody else is miserable," and claimed Griggs had been fired by Preminger "in a moment of uncontrolled fury." Griggs demanded and received a retraction from the Times.
Preminger greatly regretted casting Faye Dunaway
, with whom he clashed on a regular basis. She felt the director didn't know "anything at all about the process of acting." She resented having him yell at her in public and commented, "Once I've been crossed, I'm not very conciliatory." After filming was completed, she sued Preminger to win her release from the five-film contract she had signed with him. An out-of-court settlement was reached in March 1968. Dunaway later admitted, "It cost me a lot of money to not work for Otto again . . . I regretted paying him [but] I thought he was awful."
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
called the film "a frustrating case, not good but not particularly bad, with a smokescreen of controversy surrounding it and obscuring its real faults. The trouble with this film . . . is not that it's racist and tasteless, but that it's naive and dull."
Bosley Crowther
of the New York Times described the film as "pure pulp fiction
" and "an offence to intelligence."
Time
observed, "Obviously, Hurry Sundown was intended as a paean to racial justice, but Producer-Director Otto Preminger chooses strange ways to display his big brotherhood. One sequence shows Negro sharecroppers singing a white-eyed hallelujah number reminiscent of those '40s films that pretended to liberalize but patently patronized. Two hours of such cinematic clichés make the viewer intolerant of everyone in the film, regardless of race, creed or color."
Variety
said, "Otto Preminger has created an outstanding, tasteful but hard-hitting, and handsomely-produced film . . . Told with a depth and frankness, the story develops its theme in a welcome, straight-forward way that is neither propaganda nor mere exploitation material."
Time Out London stated, "The Preminger flair which made The Cardinal
so enjoyable, despite its hackneyed script, seems to have deserted him in this lumbering melodrama
, put together with the sort of crudely opportunistic style which alternates scenes of the rich folks parading in a stately mansion with shots of the poor sitting down to their humble fare while thumping mood music makes sure you get the point."
Channel 4
noted, "Preminger wears a liberal heart on his sleeve and then blows his nose on it as heavy-handed sentimentality and nobility dominate this story . . . God, sex, class, guilt, moralizing and Negro spirituals are all thrown into the stew, and you'll come away feeling that although it's worthy in its ideals, it could have done with a touch less overblown melodrama."
The Legion of Decency gave the film a "C", "Condemned" rating citing the portrayal of Blacks and portrayal of sex.
for her performances in this and Bonnie and Clyde
. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress but lost to Katharine Ross
in The Graduate
.
1967 in film
The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered as one of the most ground-breaking years in film.-Events:* December 26 - The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour airs on British television....
American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
produced and directed by Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
. It stars Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
and Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
. The screenplay by Horton Foote
Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television...
and Thomas C. Ryan is based on the 1965 novel of the same title by K.B. Gilden, a pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
for married couple Katya and Bert Gilden.
Plot
In 1946, bigoted, draft-dodging Henry Warren and his wife Julie Ann, owners of a Northern canning plant, are determined to purchase a large tract of uncultivated farmland in rural GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Two plots remain beyond their grasp, one owned by Henry's cousin Rad McDowell and his wife Lou, the other by black sharecropper
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...
Reeve Scott, whose mother Rose had been Julie's mammy. Neither man is interested in selling his land, and they form a partnership to strengthen their claim to it, which infuriates Henry.
When Rose dies, Henry tries to persuade his wife to charge Reeve with illegal ownership of his property, but local teacher Vivian Thurlow searches the town's records and uncovers proof that Reeve legally registered the deed to his land. Julie, upset with Henry's treatment of their mentally challenged son, decides to leave him and drops her suit against Reeve.
With the help of Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
smen, Henry dynamites the levee
Levee
A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
above the farms, and Rad's oldest child drowns in the ensuing flood, much to Henry's dismay. Rather than admit defeat, Rad and Reeve decide to rebuild their decimated property with the assistance of their neighbors.
Production
Otto Preminger was shown the galley proofGalley proof
In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronic...
of the 1,064-page Gilden manuscript by his brother Ingo
Ingo Preminger
Ingwald "Ingo" Preminger was a film producer. He was also the literary agent for several writers, including Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner Jr., both of whom were blacklisted in the McCarthy era...
and, fully expecting it to be another Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
, purchased the film rights to the novel for $100,000 eight months prior to its publication. He initially intended to adapt it for a four-and-a-half-hour epic film
Epic film
An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film...
that would be shown twice-a-day at what would be the highest price scale in the history of American film exhibition, with a top admission of $25 on Friday and Saturday nights. When the book sold a mere 300,000 copies, Preminger decided a less grandiose project might be in order.
Because he admired his screenplay for the Harper Lee
Harper Lee
Nelle Harper Lee is an American author known for her 1960 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama...
novel To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature...
, Preminger hired Horton Foote
Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television...
to adapt the Gilden book, which the author thought was "embarrassing," with "no genuine Southern flavor at all." His first instinct was to decline the offer, but he then decided he could do something with it, so Preminger installed him and his family in a house in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where the director was filming Bunny Lake Is Missing
Bunny Lake Is Missing
Bunny Lake Is Missing is a 1965 British psychological thriller film directed and produced by Otto Preminger, who filmed it in black and white widescreen format in London. It was based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell. The score is by Paul Glass and the opening theme is often heard as...
. Foote completed his draft in three months, but Preminger was unhappy with it, feeling it was missing the melodrama and theatricality the story required. He paid Foote his full fee and dismissed him, although he later insisted on giving the writer screen credit, which Foote accepted. (In later years he admitted he never saw the film and never included it on his résumé.) Preminger replaced Foote with Thomas C. Ryan, who worked for him as his chief reader
Publisher's reader
A publisher's reader or first reader is a person paid by a publisher or book club to read manuscripts from the slush pile, and to advise their employers as to quality and marketability of the work. They can exercise considerable influence over the offerings of the publishers for whom they worked,...
and was familiar with the type of material his employer found appealing.
Preminger wanted to shoot the entire film in Georgia, and in November and December 1965 he visited the state to scout locations, but a union dispute changed his plans. Because he would be filming during the oppressively hot and humid months of June through August, he planned to shoot at night as much as possible. The New York union, which had jurisdiction over Georgia, demanded crews be paid double for any filming after 4:00pm, an added expense Preminger knew would be prohibitive. Production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
Gene Callahan
Gene Callahan (production designer)
Gene Callahan was an American art director as well as set and production designer who contributed to over fifty films and more than a thousand TV episodes. He received nominations for the British Academy Film Award and four Oscars, including two wins .A native of Louisiana, Eugene F...
suggested his home state of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
might be a viable alternative, since the unions there were governed by the more liberal one in Chicago. Baton Rouge and its environs were selected, and Callahan's crew began planting cornfields, erecting shanties, and constructing a dam and reservoir
Reservoir
A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...
containing 17.5 million gallons of water.
From the start, Preminger and his cast and crew encountered strong resistance from the locals, who resented having a film featuring a biracial friendship made in their midst. Tires were slashed, some actors received telephoned death threats, and a burning cross appeared on one of the sets at 3:00am. The manager of the hotel where everyone was housed advised Preminger mixed bathing
Mixed bathing
Mixed bathing is a term that refers to members of the opposite gender swimming together in the same pool. In ancient Rome, mixed bathing was never the rule in public installations, although it did occur in private facilities. Today, in Japan, the practice is not common...
would not be permitted in the swimming pools, but grudgingly agreed to designate one "interracial" when the director threatened to vacate the premises and not pay the bill. Eventually armed state troopers were called in to guard the hotel wing where everyone was staying, making them feel as if they were under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
. Problems were encountered even in New Orleans, where a racially mixed group was refused admission to Brennan's
Brennan's
Brennan's is a creole restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is known for its lavish breakfast and for the creation of Bananas Foster.-History:...
restaurant. Matters came to a head when a convoy of cars and trucks returning to the hotel through a heavily wooded area one evening became the target of a volley of sniper
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
gunfire. Robert Hooks
Robert Hooks
Robert Hooks is an American actor of films, television and stage. With a career as a producer and political activist to his credit, he is most recognizable to the public for his over 100 roles in films and television, as well as his political and civil rights activities...
later recalled, "All of us were convinced that we were surrounded by some of the dumbest and meanest people on the face of the earth, to say nothing of being the most cowardly."
Midway through filming, Preminger had to replace cinematographer Loyal Griggs with Milton R. Krasner
Milton R. Krasner
Milton R. Krasner, A.S.C. was a film cinematographer. He won an Academy Award for Three Coins in the Fountain .-Career:...
when Griggs seriously injured his back. He later banned screenwriter Ryan from the set for talking to Rex Reed
Rex Reed
Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...
for an article published in the New York Times. In it Reed characterized the director as an autocrat who was losing his grip, quoted Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
as saying, "He's only happy when everybody else is miserable," and claimed Griggs had been fired by Preminger "in a moment of uncontrolled fury." Griggs demanded and received a retraction from the Times.
Preminger greatly regretted casting Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
, with whom he clashed on a regular basis. She felt the director didn't know "anything at all about the process of acting." She resented having him yell at her in public and commented, "Once I've been crossed, I'm not very conciliatory." After filming was completed, she sued Preminger to win her release from the five-film contract she had signed with him. An out-of-court settlement was reached in March 1968. Dunaway later admitted, "It cost me a lot of money to not work for Otto again . . . I regretted paying him [but] I thought he was awful."
Cast
- Michael CaineMichael CaineSir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
..... Henry Warren - Jane FondaJane FondaJane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
..... Julie Ann Warren - Diahann Carroll ..... Vivian Thurlow
- Beah RichardsBeah RichardsBeah Richards was an American actress of stage, screen and television. She was a poet, playwright and author....
..... Rose Scott - Robert HooksRobert HooksRobert Hooks is an American actor of films, television and stage. With a career as a producer and political activist to his credit, he is most recognizable to the public for his over 100 roles in films and television, as well as his political and civil rights activities...
..... Reeve Scott - Faye DunawayFaye DunawayFaye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
..... Lou McDowell - John Phillip LawJohn Phillip LawJohn Phillip Law was an American film actor with over one hundred movie roles to his credit. He was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress Phyllis Sallee and the brother of actor Thomas Augustus Law .He was best known for his roles as the blind angel Pygar in the science fiction cult...
..... Rad McDowell - Luke AskewLuke AskewLuke Askew is an American actor best known for his role in the 1969 film Easy Rider.Askew was born in Macon, Georgia. He made his film debut in Otto Preminger's Hurry Sundown , but was first noticed as an actor for his role in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke...
..... Dolph Higginson - George Kennedy ..... Sheriff Coombs
- Burgess MeredithBurgess MeredithOliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
..... Judge Purcell - Madeleine SherwoodMadeleine SherwoodMadeleine Sherwood is a Canadian actress of stage, film and television. She is widely known for her portrayals of Mae/Sister Woman and Miss Lucy in both the Broadway and film versions of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth...
..... Eula Purcell - Frank ConverseFrank ConverseFrank Converse is an American actor. In 1962, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
..... Reverend Clem De Lavery - Robert ReedRobert ReedRobert Reed was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the popular...
..... Lars Finchley - Jim BackusJim BackusJames Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
..... Carter Sillens
Critical reception
The movie opened to negative reviews from those who felt that Otto Preminger made a film that was not in tune with the problems of the contemporary South. It was also criticized for its out-of-date racial stereotyping and tasteless attitude towards sexuality.Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
called the film "a frustrating case, not good but not particularly bad, with a smokescreen of controversy surrounding it and obscuring its real faults. The trouble with this film . . . is not that it's racist and tasteless, but that it's naive and dull."
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
of the New York Times described the film as "pure pulp fiction
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
" and "an offence to intelligence."
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
observed, "Obviously, Hurry Sundown was intended as a paean to racial justice, but Producer-Director Otto Preminger chooses strange ways to display his big brotherhood. One sequence shows Negro sharecroppers singing a white-eyed hallelujah number reminiscent of those '40s films that pretended to liberalize but patently patronized. Two hours of such cinematic clichés make the viewer intolerant of everyone in the film, regardless of race, creed or color."
Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said, "Otto Preminger has created an outstanding, tasteful but hard-hitting, and handsomely-produced film . . . Told with a depth and frankness, the story develops its theme in a welcome, straight-forward way that is neither propaganda nor mere exploitation material."
Time Out London stated, "The Preminger flair which made The Cardinal
The Cardinal
The Cardinal is a 1963 film which was produced independently and directed by Otto Preminger, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was written by Robert Dozier, based on the novel by Henry Morton Robinson....
so enjoyable, despite its hackneyed script, seems to have deserted him in this lumbering melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
, put together with the sort of crudely opportunistic style which alternates scenes of the rich folks parading in a stately mansion with shots of the poor sitting down to their humble fare while thumping mood music makes sure you get the point."
Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
noted, "Preminger wears a liberal heart on his sleeve and then blows his nose on it as heavy-handed sentimentality and nobility dominate this story . . . God, sex, class, guilt, moralizing and Negro spirituals are all thrown into the stew, and you'll come away feeling that although it's worthy in its ideals, it could have done with a touch less overblown melodrama."
The Legion of Decency gave the film a "C", "Condemned" rating citing the portrayal of Blacks and portrayal of sex.
Awards and nominations
Faye Dunaway won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film RolesBritish Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...
for her performances in this and Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were well-known outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934...
. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress but lost to Katharine Ross
Katharine Ross
Katharine Juliet Ross is an American film and stage actress. Trained at the San Francisco Workshop, she is perhaps best known for her role as Elaine Robinson in the 1967 film The Graduate, opposite Dustin Hoffman, which won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and her role...
in The Graduate
The Graduate
The Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...
.