The Member of the Wedding | |
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Directed by | Fred Zinnemann |
Screenplay by | |
Based on | The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers |
Produced by | Stanley Kramer |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Hal Mohr |
Edited by | William A. Lyon |
Music by | Alex North |
Production company | Stanley Kramer Productions |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 90 minutes (TCM print) |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Member of the Wedding is a 1952 American film noir drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Ethel Waters, Julie Harris, and Brandon deWilde. The story, based on Carson McCullers' 1946 novel of the same name, is set in a small town in the Southern United States. Frankie Addams is an awkward, moody 12-year-old tomboy whose only friends are her young cousin John Henry and her black housekeeper Berenice. Co-starring as a drunken soldier who tries to take advantage of the vulnerable Frankie is former child actor Dick Moore, making his last film appearance.
Julie Harris was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance. [1] Later versions of McCuller's play were done for television, with Claudia McNeil playing Berenice in 1958, then Pearl Bailey performing the part in 1982, and Alfre Woodard playing the character in 1996, with Anna Paquin cast as Frankie in the latter production.
Feeling rejected when her older brother goes off on his honeymoon without inviting her along, Frankie (Julie Harris) runs away from her middle-class Southern home. She endures several other adolescent traumas, not least of which is the sudden death of her bespectacled young cousin John Henry (Brandon deWilde). With the help of warm-hearted housekeeper Berenice Sadie Brown (Ethel Waters), Frankie eventually makes an awkward transition to young womanhood. [2]
The Sundowners is a 1960 Technicolor comedy-drama film that tells the story of a 1920s Australian outback family torn between the father's desires to continue his nomadic sheep-herding ways and the wife and son's desire to settle in one place. The Sundowners was produced and directed by Fred Zinnemann, adapted by Isobel Lennart from Jon Cleary's 1952 novel of the same name, with Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Peter Ustinov, Glynis Johns, Mervyn Johns, Dina Merrill, Michael Anderson Jr., and Chips Rafferty.
Alfred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director and producer. He won four Academy Awards for directing and producing films in various genres, including thrillers, westerns, film noir and play adaptations. He began his career in Europe before emigrating to the US, where he specialized in shorts before making 25 feature films during his 50-year career.
Ethel Waters was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", "Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Julia Ann Harris was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary roles, she earned numerous accolades including the record five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play, three Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, and a BAFTA Award. She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, received the National Medal of Arts in 1994, the Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2005.
The Member of the Wedding is a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took McCullers five years to complete, although she interrupted the work for a few months to write the novella The Ballad of the Sad Café.
Andre Brandon deWilde was an American theater, film, and television actor. Born into a theatrical family in Brooklyn, he debuted on Broadway at the age of seven and became a national phenomenon by the time he completed his 492 performances for The Member of the Wedding. He won a Donaldson Award for his performance, becoming the youngest actor to win one, and starred in the subsequent film adaptation for which he won a Golden Globe Award.
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Screen Directors Playhouse is an American radio and television anthology series which brought leading Hollywood actors to the NBC microphones beginning in 1949. The radio program broadcast adaptations of films, with original directors of the films sometimes involved in the productions, although their participation was usually limited to introducing the radio adaptations and taking a brief "curtain call" with the cast and host at the end of the program. During the 1955–56 season, the series was seen on television, focusing on original teleplays and several adaptations of famous short stories.
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Hit and Run is a 1957 American drama film noir directed by Hugo Haas starring Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, and Vince Edwards.
All Fall Down, The Brandon deWilde Story is a 2012 biography written by Patrisha McLean and published by Faces, Incorporated. The book was released on June 19, 2012. It is McLean's first written, but second published, work. It is the only published biography of Brandon deWilde since his death in 1972.
Flora Spencer-Longhurst is an English actress. She is known for her roles in the CBBC series Leonardo (2011), and the FX series The Bastard Executioner (2015).
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