Country Dance | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Directed by | J. Lee Thompson |
Written by | James Kennaway |
Based on | Household Ghosts by James Kennaway |
Produced by | Robert Emmett Ginna |
Starring | Peter O'Toole Susannah York Michael Craig |
Cinematography | Ted Moore |
Edited by | Willy Kemplen |
Music by | John Addison |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date | 22 April 1970 |
Running time | 112 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $3 million [1] |
Country Dance is a 1970 British drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Peter O'Toole, Susannah York and Michael Craig. [2] It is based on the novel Household Ghosts (1961) by James Kennaway which became a three-act stage play in 1967. It was released as Brotherly Love in the United States.
The film's sets were designed by the art director Maurice Fowler. Shooting took place in Perthshire and County Wicklow.
A tragicomedy set in a fading Scottish aristocratic family, in which the drunken Sir Charles Henry Arbuthnot Pinkerton Ferguson, Bt (Peter O'Toole) has an incestuous relationship with his equally eccentric sister Hilary Dow (Susannah York).
The stage play version played at the Edinburgh Festival in 1967. James Kennard wrote the female lead with Susannah York in mind; she was a cousin. Edward Fox played the male lead on stage.
In December 1968 James Kennaway, author of the novel, was driving home from a meeting Peter O'Toole to discuss the film version when he died in a car accident. [3] [4]
In February 1969 it was announced O'Toole would make the film with Susannah York under the direction of J. Lee Thompson. [5]
Filming took place in Ireland in mid 1969. [6] York said "it was the happiest film experience of my life." [7] O'Toole drank heavily through the shoot and at one stage was arrested. [8] Brian Blessed recalled it as "a delightful experience" but admits O'Toole could be difficult. [9]
At one point the film was called The Same Skin. [10] Then it was changed to Brotherly Love. [11]
In April 1970 producer Robert Ginna announced he would make another film with O'Toole and Thompson from a Kennaway novel, The Cost of Living Like This, but it was never made. [12]
Peter Seamus O'Toole was a British stage and film actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic and with the English Stage Company. In 1959 he made his West End debut in The Long and the Short and the Tall, and played the title role in Hamlet in the National Theatre's first production in 1963. Excelling on the London stage, O'Toole was known for his "hellraiser" lifestyle off it.
Susannah Yolande Fletcher, known professionally as Susannah York, was an English actress. Her appearances in various films of the 1960s, including Tom Jones (1963) and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), formed the basis of her international reputation. An obituary in The Telegraph characterised her as "the blue-eyed English rose with the china-white skin and cupid lips who epitomised the sensuality of the swinging sixties", who later "proved that she was a real actor of extraordinary emotional range".
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a 1969 American psychological drama film directed by Sydney Pollack, from a screenplay written by Robert E. Thompson and James Poe, based on Horace McCoy's 1935 novel of the same name, and starring Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Gig Young, Bonnie Bedelia and Red Buttons. It focuses on a disparate group of individuals desperate to win a Depression-era dance marathon and an opportunistic emcee who urges them on.
Kel Johari Rice Mitchell is an American actor and stand-up comedian. He is known for his work as an original cast member of the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That for its first five seasons (1994–1999), where he was often paired as one-half of a comedic duo opposite Kenan Thompson, most notably the sketch Mavis and Clavis. His role as Ed in the All That sketch was reprised for the 1997 theatrical film Good Burger. He portrayed Kel Kimble on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel from 1996 to 2000. Mitchell was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for his role as T-Bone in the 2000's animated series Clifford the Big Red Dog in both 2001 and 2002 respectively. From 2015 to 2019, he starred as Double G on the Nickelodeon comedy series Game Shakers. Mitchell competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2019, placing as the runner-up with his partner Witney Carson.
Murphy's War is an Eastmancolor 1971 Panavision war film starring Peter O'Toole and Siân Phillips. It was directed by Peter Yates based on the 1969 novel by Max Catto. The film's cinematographer was Douglas Slocombe.
Brian Manion Dennehy was an American actor of stage, television, and film. He won two Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, and a Golden Globe, and received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Dennehy had roles in over 180 films and in many television and stage productions. His film roles included First Blood (1982), Gorky Park (1983), Silverado (1985), Cocoon (1985), F/X (1986), Presumed Innocent (1990), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Ratatouille (2007), and Knight of Cups (2015). Dennehy won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Willy Loman in the television film Death of a Salesman (2000).
Richard Samuel Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known film productions, including Goodbye, Columbus (1969), based on the novella by Philip Roth; Catch-22 (1970), from the Joseph Heller best-seller; Westworld (1973), a science-fiction thriller by Michael Crichton; and The Sunshine Boys (1975), written by Neil Simon. After directing for television, his first film as director was the 1982 comedy My Favorite Year. His other films as director include City Heat (1984), starring Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood, The Money Pit (1986) with Tom Hanks, and Made in America (1993) with Whoopi Goldberg.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a 1969 British musical film directed by Herbert Ross. The screenplay by Terence Rattigan is based on James Hilton's 1934 novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which was first adapted for the screen in 1939.
John Lee Thompson was a British film director, active in London and Hollywood, best known for award winning films such as Woman in a Dressing Gown, Ice Cold in Alex and The Guns of Navarone along with cult classics like Cape Fear, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and The White Buffalo.
Tunes of Glory is a 1960 British drama film directed by Ronald Neame, based on the 1956 novel and screenplay by James Kennaway. The film is a "dark psychological drama" focusing on events in a wintry Scottish Highland regimental barracks in the period immediately following the Second World War. It stars Alec Guinness and John Mills, featuring Dennis Price, Kay Walsh, John Fraser, Duncan MacRae, Gordon Jackson and Susannah York.
Peter James Yates was an English film director and producer.
Peter Collinson was a British film director probably best remembered for directing The Italian Job (1969).
Man of La Mancha is a 1972 film adaptation of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman, with music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion. The musical was suggested by the classic novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, but more directly based on Wasserman's 1959 non-musical television play I, Don Quixote, which combines a semi-fictional episode from the life of Cervantes with scenes from his novel.
Kidnapped is a 1960 American adventure drama film. It is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic 1886 novel Kidnapped. It stars Peter Finch and James MacArthur, and was Disney's second production based on a novel by Stevenson, the first being Treasure Island. It also marked Peter O'Toole's feature-film debut.
The Lion in Winter is a 1968 British-American historical drama film set around the Christmas of 1183, about political and personal turmoil among the royal family of Henry II of England, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their children, and their guests. The film was directed by Anthony Harvey; written by James Goldman ; produced by Joseph E. Levine, Jane C. Nusbaum, and Martin Poll; and starred Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, John Castle, Anthony Hopkins, Jane Merrow, Timothy Dalton and Nigel Terry.
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon is a 1970 American comedy-drama film directed and produced by Otto Preminger. The film is based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Marjorie Kellogg.
James Peeble Ewing Kennaway was a Scottish novelist and screenwriter. He was born in Auchterarder in Perthshire and attended Glenalmond College.
Scream and Scream Again is a 1970 British science fiction conspiracy thriller film starring Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Alfred Marks, Michael Gothard, and Peter Cushing. It is based on the novel The Disorientated Man (1967) attributed to 'Peter Saxon', a house pseudonym used by various authors in the 1960s and 1970s.
Flareup is a 1969 American thriller film directed by James Neilson and written by Mark Rodgers. The film stars Raquel Welch, James Stacy, Luke Askew, Don Chastain, Ron Rifkin and Jean Byron. The film was released on November 10, 1969, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Household Ghosts is a 1961 novel by the British writer James Kennaway. It portrays the intense relationship between a brother and sister, members of a declining upper-class family in rural Perthshire.