I was finally able to see this Powell and Pressburger film., and I think it is definitely worth seeing.
I had the impression it was considered a disappointment (I may be wrong) but I thought it is very interesting and beautifully filmed. Jennifer Jones is beautiful and I think very effective in the role although I don't know what a British viewer would think of her accent. The rest of the cast is impressive and unusual: David Farrar, Cyril Cusack, who I had not seen before and is good as the pastor, a hard part to play, Sybil Thorndike, High Griffith, George Cole and Esmond Knight.
The story is a Victorian melodrama played straight, that is, without commentary or an attempt to update the moral lesson. I found that to be interesting.
The cinematography by Christopher Challis is stunning - it is filmed in Shropshire, a part of England I have never seen, and the color is beautiful, as usual with the Powell and Pressburger films.
I recommend it.
Shropshire is my adjacent county in Britmovie member-land, and indeed local historians in the location of Much Wenlock where it was filmed do advertise the production as a tourist-selling point
http://www.muchwenlockguide.info/muc.../walk-05.shtml
Seems there is quite an archive in the locality somewhere of photographs of the film's shooting
http://search.shropshirehistory.org....%20to%20Earth/
The reports of disappointment may well have come from people who saw the Selznick version, usually known as The Wild Heart
David O. Selznick was brought in by Alexander Korda as an Executive Producer (i.e. he put up some of the money).
Selznick was courting Jennifer Jones at the time (they had recently married) and Selznick had lots of script conferences with Powell & Pressburger and sent them flurries of memos - which they carefully ignored
When he saw the final film Selznick declared that it wasn't the film he had agreed to - and sued The Archers
The case was quite rightly thrown out of court but Selznick had the right to make an edited version for the American market
After a struggle to find a director (most directors approached said it was fine as it was) he finally paid enough to Rouben Mamoulian to get him to direct the additional scenes he wanted.
You mention the lack of a narrator, that was quite common when Victorian melodramas were filmed. GTE does have some brief narration but The Wild Heart has more narration by Joseph Cotten.
In his autobiographies, Powell claimed that Selznick only left about 35 mins of the original film. In fact there's a lot more than that. About 2/3 of the original remains.
Selznick's changes are mainly:- (1) Adding a prologue. (2) Adding scenes explaining things, often by putting labels or inscriptions on them. (3) Adding more close-ups of Jennifer Jones. He also deleted a few scenes that he felt weren't dramatic enough. Sadly some of these were major plot points so the story doesn't make as much sense as the original.
The additional scenes were filmed in America and they must have had difficulty in finding a tame fox for Hazel to carry on her final run. In the American version she is carrying what is obviously a stuffed toy fox
Confusingly, some prints of GTE call it The Wild Heart and some prints of the Selznick version call it GTE
You can easily identify the Selznick version because it opens with the shot of the Selznick mansion that he used at the start of all of his films
Steve
Nick Dando (of this parish) used to live in Shropshire and did an amazing job in identifying most of the locations.
In 2001 I went up there, staying in Much Wenlock for a weekend and we took a tour of the area, visiting most of the locations that Nick had identified and making a Then & Now comparison. Most of the locations are still very recognisable, but the hills are very steep. Just think about the fun they had lugging the massive Technicolor camera and the wind machines (+ generators) up and down those hills
In 2002 I went back there because the Mary Webb Society had helped organise a screening in the parish hall in Much Wenlock. I toured the area again with Columba Powell (Micky's son) and we had put ads in the local paper asking anyone who had been an extra in the film to come along, or if their parents had or if they had any stories about the filming. So many people came along that we had to have two screenings in the hall.
I had contacted a few people about it like the grandson of designer Hein Heckroth. He now lives in Spain but wrote to tell us how his grandfather loved to draw the local countryside in the breaks in filming and Christian had one of those hanging on the wall of his place in Spain to remind him how beautiful the English countryside was - the locals loved that of course.
Then I read a letter I had received apologising that he couldn't join us but wishing us well - from George Cole. George had a small role in the film as Hazel's cousin but has since become very well known due to his work on TV
Another great day
Steve
See my link about the screening in Much Wenlock in 2002. The MW museum put on a fine displayOriginally Posted by Rick C
Steve
Trust the American film executives to make a mess of a fine British film. Look what they did to Sammy Going South, removing a third of the film, re-editing what was left and replacing Tristram Cary's score with another one by Les Baxter. Key scenes vital to the narrative were removed, including the scene where Sammy tells Cocky Wainright about his parents being killed in Port Said and about him being an orphan. This left American audiences wondering why Cocky never asks Sammy why he is trekking all the way from Port Said to Durban on his own when, of course, he did in the British version. I have seen the American cut, retitled A Boy Ten Feet Tall and compared to the British version, it's a mess. No doubt if I saw the American cut of Gone to Earth, I'd regard that as a mess, too. As film makers, Powell and Pressburger ran rings around Selznick and he should have left their film alone.
David.
Some people seem to think that they must always do something, and be seen to have done something - even if it messes up the original
Steve
Hitchcock was also not enamoured to be under contract to Selznick, who was (in)famous for his endless stream of memos. Haven't seen TGE for yonks, must catch it next time it's on TV.
Actually TGE comes out acronym-wise for "The Good Earth", the 1937 melodrama directed (in part) by Victor Fleming of GWTW fame, of thereby Selznick connections. Interesting this, in considering, was the Pearl S.Buck novel any similarity to the roots of the Mary Webb story of peasant (in the proper sense of the word) farmers?
I can understand why the film is still referred to so many years later. It certainly is a beautiful country. The light and the colors of the landscape are enough to make seeing the film worthwhile.
Well, that's the version I saw back in 1966 in a suburb of NYC and it did have a devastating effect on me at the age of 6, so it still had plenty of power. It would have been helpful to know those details about his parents - I can still remember being confused about it. It was traumatic enough without the added confusion.
I don't think anyone need worry about the US version. All of the versions I have seen for sale or in libraries are the original British version. The other one seems to have vaporized.No doubt if I saw the American cut of Gone to Earth, I'd regard that as a mess, too. As film makers, Powell and Pressburger ran rings around Selznick and he should have left their film alone.
David.
Last edited by TimR; 27-06-14 at 05:34 AM.
Thanks for the information and the links. Very nice. Yes - he did an excellent job of identification.
And I still go back several times a year to recharge my batteries.
Nick
The film is mentioned - plays quite a large part in fact - in Jonathan Coe's novel The Rain Before It Falls. Until quite recently I assumed that Coe had invented the film!
It isn't in our set of Powell & Pressburger, but I would like to see it. Another one I'd like to see is the one about St Kilda (can't recall the name).
Edge of the World? Though it was inspired by the evacuation of the St Kilda archipelago in 1930, permission to film there was refused by the owner, so Powell and his crew went to the Shetland island of Foula (still pretty remote), and were stranded there for six weeks. Micky wrote an excellent book on their adventures, originally published as "200,000 feet on Foula", Faber and Faber re-printed it as "Edge of the World" in 1990.
http://www.alibris.co.uk/booksearch?...binding=&wpub=
Nick (cue Steve)
I've got the Jonathan Coe novel and I found the Gone to Earth section very small, and based on a tiny fragment of the back-ground filming in Much Wenlock, which was only a small part of the actual filming effort, as that was spread far and wide over Shropshire, from Pentre deep in the south, to Sleap airfield in the very north, Eyton in the east and Stiperstones in the west, also taking in Ludlow castle, Church Preen and the Portway out of Church Stretton.
Nick
I reckon it was this little girl who was referred to in Coe's novel
It's in the Much Wenlock scene
Steve
All correct
Steve
An article, from the Shropshire Star newspaper, to coincide with an exhibition at Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery to help celebrate the life and work of Shropshire author Mary Webb.
http://www.shropshirestar.com/entert...-time-on-film/
Nick
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