Long Day's Journey into Night | |
---|---|
Directed by | Sidney Lumet |
Written by | Eugene O'Neill |
Based on | Long Day's Journey into Night (1956 play) by Eugene O'Neill |
Produced by | Ely Landau |
Starring | Katharine Hepburn Ralph Richardson Jason Robards Dean Stockwell |
Cinematography | Boris Kaufman |
Edited by | Ralph Rosenblum |
Music by | André Previn |
Distributed by | Embassy Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 170 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $435,000 [1] |
Long Day's Journey into Night is a 1962 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, adapted from Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer-winning play of the same name. It stars Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell. The story deals with themes of addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the nuclear family, and is drawn from O'Neill's own experiences. It was shot at Chelsea Studios in New York, with exteriors filmed on City Island. [2]
The film won Best Actor (for Richardson) and Best Actress (for Hepburn) at the Cannes Film Festival and was named by the National Board of Review as one of the Top Ten Films of 1962. Hepburn's performance earned her an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
O'Neill's play was adapted to film again in 1996, directed by David Wellington.
The film is a direct translation of O'Neill's stage play, without any major cuts or changes to the source material.
Producer Ely Landau did a version of The Iceman Cometh for TV. This impressed the widow of Eugene O'Neill enough for her to give him the screen rights to Long Day's Journey. The cast and director formed a cooperative and agreed to work for a lower fee in exchange for a percentage of the profits. [3]
Jason Robards was the only actor from the stage version to also star in the film, he had won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for playing Jamie Tyrone in the 1957 Broadway staging, and reprised the part in O'Neill's sequel A Moon for the Misbegotten . He later played James Tyrone in several productions of the play.
Marlon Brando was offered the role of Jamie, but turned it down.
The film was reportedly shot for $435,000 over 37 days, two days over schedule. [1] The entire film was shot in-sequence, after three weeks of rehearsals. Lumet later wrote that the total budget was $490,000. [3] Exteriors were shot at the house at 21 Tier Street in City Island in the Bronx, and interiors were on sets at Chelsea Television Studios in Manhattan.
Joseph E. Levine bought the film for distribution, but said he lost money on it. "You cannot stay in business by making O'Neill pictures", he said. [4] Lumet later wrote that "there actually were some profits". [3]
The film has received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 94% based on 17 reviews, with an average score of 8.2/10. [5] Critics regularly praised Lumet's direction and Hepburn's performance.
Dwight MacDonald from Esquire magazine, wrote of the film "In his screen version of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, Sidney Lumet has given us a superb cinematic translation of the only American play to which the much-abused adjective "great" can seriously be applied." When speaking of Hepburn's performance he said "I have never been an addict of Katharine Hepburn; she struck me usually as mannered, to say the least; but here, stimulated by O'Neill and Lumet, she emerges as a superb tragédienne." [6] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said that "Under the direction of Sidney Lumet, they charge the place with electricity. That is, on the whole they do so. They develop an overall sense of deep disquiet within the passionate individuals and an acrid air of smoldering savagery." And when commenting on Hepburn's performance he stated "In the moments of deepest anguish, she is vibrant with hot and tragic truth, an eloquent representatation of a lovely woman brought to feeble, helpless ruin." [7]
Institution | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
---|---|---|---|
35th Academy Awards [8] | Best Actress | Katharine Hepburn | Nominated |
1962 Cannes Film Festival [9] | Palme d'Or | Sidney Lumet | Nominated |
Best Actor | Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, Dean Stockwell | Won | |
Best Actress | Katharine Hepburn | Won | |
Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures | Sidney Lumet | Nominated |
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Katharine Hepburn | Nominated |
Laurel Awards | Top Female Dramatic Performance | Nominated | |
National Board of Review Awards | Top Ten Films | Long Day's Journey into Night | Won |
Best Actor | Jason Robards (also for Tender is the Night ) | Won |
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress whose career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women. She worked in a varied range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, which earned her various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any performer.
A Thousand Clowns is a 1965 American comedy-drama film directed by Fred Coe and starring Jason Robards, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam, and Barry Gordon. An adaptation of a 1962 play by Herb Gardner, it tells the story of an eccentric comedy writer who is forced to conform to society to retain legal custody of his nephew.
Long Day's Journey into Night is a play in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939–1941 and first published posthumously in 1956. It is widely regarded as his magnum opus and one of the great American plays of the 20th century. It premiered in Sweden in February 1956 and then opened on Broadway in November 1956, winning the Tony Award for Best Play. O'Neill received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama posthumously for Long Day's Journey into Night. The work is openly autobiographical in nature. The "long day" in the title refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day.
Jason Nelson Robards Jr. was an American actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he gained a reputation as an interpreter of the works of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Robards received numerous accolades and is one of 24 performers to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting having earned competitive wins for two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, and a Emmy Award. He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, and earned the National Medal of Arts in 1997, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999.
Sidney Arthur Lumet was an American film director. Lumet started his career in theatre before moving to film, where he gained a reputation for making realistic and gritty New York dramas which focused on the working class, tackled social injustices, and often questioned authority.
Robert Dean Stockwell was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he appeared in Anchors Aweigh (1945), Song of the Thin Man (1947), The Green Years (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), The Boy with Green Hair (1948), and Kim (1950). As a young adult, he had a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and 1959 screen adaptation of Compulsion; and in 1962 he played Edmund Tyrone in the film version of Long Day's Journey into Night, for which he won two Best Actor Awards at the Cannes Film Festival. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his starring role in the 1960 film version of D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.
The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1946, the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 9, 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling, where it ran for 136 performances before closing on March 15, 1947. It has subsequently been adapted for the screen multiple times. The work tells the story of a number of alcoholic dead-enders who live together in a flop house above a saloon and what happens to them when the most outwardly "successful" of them embraces sobriety and reveals that he has been on the run after murdering his "beloved" wife.
Bradford Dillman was an American actor and author.
Jason Nelson Robards was an American stage and screen actor, and the father of actor Jason Robards Robards appeared in many films, initially as a leading man, then in character roles and occasional bit parts. Most of his final roles were in television.
José Benjamín Quintero was a Panamanian theatre director, producer and pedagogue best known for his interpretations of the works of Eugene O'Neill.
The Eugene O'Neill Award is one of Sweden's finest awards for stage actors. It is a scholarship for actors at the Swedish theater. It has been awarded annually by the Royal Dramatic Theatre since 1956.
A Moon for the Misbegotten is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. The play is a sequel to O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, with the Jim Tyrone character as an older version of Jamie Tyrone. He began drafting the play late in 1941, set it aside after a few months and returned to it a year later, completing the text in 1943 – his final work, as his failing health made it physically impossible for him to write. The play premiered on Broadway in 1957 and has had four Broadway revivals, plus a West End engagement.
Ely Abraham Landau was an American film producer and production executive best remembered for films of plays in the American Film Theatre series.
The Play of the Week is an American anthology series of televised stage plays which aired in NTA Film Network syndication from October 12, 1959, to May 1, 1961.
The 15th Cannes Film Festival was held from 7 to 23 May 1962. The Palme d'Or went to the O Pagador de Promessas by Anselmo Duarte. The festival opened with Les Amants de Teruel, directed by Raymond Rouleau.
Oliver A. Unger was an American film producer, distributor, and exhibitor. In a 45-year career, he was also a television producer and owner of movie theaters and television stations throughout the United States.
"Long Day's Journey Into Night" is a 1973 videotaped television adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1956 play of the same name. It was written by Michael Blakemore and directed Peter Wood with Cecil Clarke as executive producer. The recording is a version of Royal National Theatre's 1971 staging of the play, and features Laurence Olivier (Tyrone), Constance Cummings (Mary), Denis Quilley (Jamie), Ronald Pickup (Edmund), and Maureen Lipman (Cathleen).
Long Day's Journey into Night is a 1996 Canadian drama film directed by David Wellington. An adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1956 play of the same name, the film starred William Hutt as James, Martha Henry as Mary, Peter Donaldson as Jamie, Tom McCamus as Edmund and Martha Burns as Cathleen.
Edythe Landau was an American film and television producer and executive, known for such films as Long Day's Journey Into Night,The Pawnbroker, King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis, The Chosen and the fourteen movies of the American Film Theatre which she produced with her husband Ely Landau.