Horton Foote Movies
Often citied as one of America's most beloved dramatists, Horton Foote has shown an unmatched ability to capture the very essence of small-town life, a talent that has become the life-blood of his career since its earliest days. From his Oscar-winning and unforgettably moving adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) to such introspective original works as Tender Mercies (1983) and The Trip to Bountiful (1985), Foote had a way of crafting characters who speak directly to the soul with honesty and sincerity. Born in Wharton, TX, Foote left home at the age of 16 to study acting. Realizing that he would likely have to relocate to the West Coast, he gained experience at the Pasadena Playhouse in California and later in New York, though the good roles still eluded him. Foote's solution to this dilemma was to write them for himself, and the actor soon discovered his true talent as a writer. His work for the stage quickly led to work in television drama, and, before he knew it, he was writing for such respected programs as Playhouse 90 and Studio One during television's Golden Age. His plays The Chase and The Trip to Bountiful proved that his unique style of small-town drama was equally effective on the stage or screen. Foote's career eventually led him to Hollywood, where his screenplays for Storm Fear (1955) and To Kill a Mockingbird began to attract serious attention. In 1966, Foote's play The Chase was adapted into a feature film starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, and Angie Dickinson.Foote worked sporadically through the 1960s and '70s, and, in 1983, he re-teamed with To Kill a Mockingbird actor Robert Duvall for the affecting drama Tender Mercies. Not only was the film a critical success, but it also earned Academy Awards for both its star and screenwriter. The Trip to Bountiful was adapted for the screen two years later, and found actress Geraldine Page cast in the role of an aging mother desperate to revisit the town where she grew up (which was based on Foote's hometown). Many of the writer's plays were adapted to the screen throughout the 1980s, and, in 1992, Foote adapted John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for stars Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. As the '90s progressed, Foote worked frequently in television on such efforts as Lily Dale (1996), Old Man (1997), and Alone (also 1997). ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Colin Firth and Patricia Clarkson headline this ensemble drama from Academy Award-winning screenwriter Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies) concerning a small North Carolina community that is transformed by a most unusual visitor. When their town falls on hard times, the close-knit locals strive to get back on their feet to no avail. Things begin looking up, however, when a mysterious stranger makes a controversial proposal designed to put the town back on the map. Now it's up to the members of the community to make the personal changes that will transform the town from the inside out. Orlando Bloom, Amber Tamblyn, and Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ellen Burstyn, Colin Firth, (more)
- 1997
One of the most frequently dramatized of all William Faulkner stories, Old Man is based on a section of Faulkner's 1939 novel The Wild Palms. Set during the cataclysmic 1927 Mississippi river flood, the story revolves around the curious relationship between prison convict J.J.Taylor (Arliss Howard) and a young, pregnant woman named Addie (Jeanne Trippleman). Pressed into service to rescue victims of the flood, Taylor finds Addie stuck in a tree, her husband nowhere in sight. Managing to get Addie down, Taylor finds himself cut off from the other rescuers, and thus is solely responsible for the future wellbeing of the stranded woman and her unborn child. Time and time again, Taylor is afforded the opportunity to abandon Addie and escape from his prison captors--and time and time again he refuses, not so much out of loyalty to Addie but because of his own stubborn pride: Though his crime was minor, he has promised to return to jail and serve out his term, and he never goes back on his word! (Incidentally, the "Old Man" of the title is not the tactiturn Taylor, but instead the mighty Mississippi itself). Toning down the cynical humor of the Faulkner original, this "Hallmark Hall of Fame" TV adaptation concentrates instead on making its two principal characters flesh-and-blood humans rather than literary archetypes. Adapted by Horton Foote, who won an Emmy Award for his efforts, William Faulkner's 'Old Man' first aired February 9, 1997 on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jeanne Tripplehorn, Arliss Howard, (more)
A white, Inuit boy named Avik is the focus of New Zealand director Vincent Ward's meditation on race and romance. In the opening moments of the movie, set in 1931 in the Arctic-Canadian settlement Nunataaq, Avik (portrayed initially by Robert Joamie) lives under the watchful eye of his grandmother (Jayko Pitseolak). While tagging along after British cartographer Walter Russell (Patrick Bergin), Avik falls prey to the "white man's disease,"--tuberculosis; to assuage his own guilt, Russell takes the boy to a Montreal clinic to recover. There, Avik meets Albertine, a mixed-blood Indian girl, and the two fall in love, but their relationship is quickly broken up by the Mother Superior who is in charge of the clinic. Years later, Avik again meets Russell, who this time is on a mission to recover the German U-boat lying wrecked off the coast of Nunataaq. Avik asks for Russell's help in learning the whereabouts of Albertine, and he gives the cartographer a chest X-ray of the girl which he has carried with him since their separation. More time elapses, and Avik (now played by Jason Scott Lee) has become a British bombardier fighting in World War II. He is sought out by Albertine (Anne Parillaud), who has become Russell's mistress. Still, she begins an affair with Avik; Russell soon finds out, and as revenge sends Avik and his crew on a suicide mission of which Avik is the lone survivor. Despondent over his war experiences, Avik flees to Canada, where he becomes an alcoholic; decades later, he is sought out by Rainee (Clotilde Courau), the daughter born from his affair with Albertine. On his way to the girl's wedding, Avik is killed in an accident; his body washes up on the beach at Nunataaq, a wedding gift still clutched in his arms. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jason Scott Lee, Anne Parillaud, (more)
- 1992
A dreary and depressing tale despite the excellent assemblage of talent, this is the story of a Depression-era family where sibling rivalry and tragedy seem to be the watch words of their home life. A period piece set in 1930s Texas. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi
Gary Sinese directed this respectful re-telling of John Steinbeck's classic novel, with Sinese as the wily George and John Malkovich as the brutish, simple-minded Lennie. Set during the Depression era, the film opens as George and Lennie are running from a woman with a torn dress, who has sent a gang of ruffians to chase the two out of the county. After a long bus ride and a ten-mile walk, George and Lennie arrive at a migrant farm in California's San Joaquin Valley, where they seek work. George dreams of putting together enough money to buy a small piece of land where he and Lennie can build a home; he hopes that in California the two can realize their dream. Unfortunately, the foreman of the ranch, Curley (Casey Siemaszko), enjoys tormenting Lennie, while Curley's frustrated wife (Sherilyn Fenn) entices Lennie with her sexual allure. George warns Lennie to steer clear of Curley's wife, but Lennie follows her to a barn where a tragedy occurs and George and Lennie's dreams are shattered. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, (more)
Set upon a struggling turn-of-the-century Texas sugar-cane plantation, this brutal and realistic drama centers on the efforts of an aging plantation boss (Robert Duvall), using convicts for workers, to keep his farm afloat. The story is adapted from Horton Foote's cycle of plays The Orphan's Home. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Duvall, Lukas Haas, (more)
- 1988
Siblings Eric Roberts and Julia Roberts appear in this old-fashioned saga about oppressed Sicilian wine-growers in 19th-century California. Giancarlo Giannini stars as Sebastian Collogero, the robust Italian patriarch who is battling with railroad mogul William Bradford Berrigan (Dennis Hopper) to prevent his land from being taken over by the rail company. Sebastian's spirited son, Marco (Eric Roberts), is in love with Angelica (Lara Harris), the daughter of a rival wine-grower's clan. Marco is not very concerned about the warfare about to erupt between the wine-growers and the railroad until Berrigan's thugs torture and kill Sebastian in front of his daughter Maria (Julia Roberts). Marco then gets his friends together and organizes a revolt against Berrigan and his railroad empire. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eric Roberts, Giancarlo Giannini, (more)
Horton Foote is the author and his daughter Hallie Foote the star of The Courtship. Set in 1915, this minimalist character piece details the courting customs in the small Texas town of Harrison. Hallie, the daughter of a prosperous small-town family, is sought after by travelling salesman William Converse-Roberts, who must prove himself worthy of her hand. The emphasis is on Hallie, who sees marriage as the most expedient means of escaping the tyranny of her father (Michael Higgins). The Courtship was the first five nostalgic Horton Foote plays which originally aired on the PBS American Playhouse series from April 4 to May 1, 1987, under the umbrella title Story of A Marriage. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
A prequel to Horton Foote's 1918, On Valentine's Day was filmed in 1984, then held back from release till 1986. On the titular day, Elizabeth Vaughn (Hallie Foote, Horton's daughter) and Horace Robedeaux (William Converse-Roberts) elope. Horace stubbornly refuses to ask for financial assistant from his parents or in-laws, so the penniless couple is compelled to live in an inexpensive boarding house. Their fellow tenants are the usual assortment of eccentrics, including alcoholic Bobby Pate (Richard Jenkins), spinster Miss Ruth (Carol Goodheart), heartbroken George Tyler (Steven Hill) and garrulous young Bessie (Jeanne McCarthy). After several months of enduring the woes of the other boarders, Horace swallows his pride and agrees to allow father-in-law Michael Higgins to support him and Elizabeth. There's a reconciliation, but one tinged with the premonition that Horace and Elizabeth aren't out of the woods yet. Together with Portrait of a Marriage (never released theatrically), On Valentine's Day and 1918 were later reedited and incorporated into a Horton Foote TV trilogy on the PBS network. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Converse-Roberts, Hallie Foote, (more)
Adapted by Horton Foote from his own play, 1918 focuses on a small Texas town beset by a major flue epidemic during World War I. In this slow-paced, melancholy story of internecine family strife, Horace Robedaux (William Converse-Roberts) comes from the poor side of the town's citizenry, but he married into the landed gentry when he wed Elizabeth (Hallie Foote), a change that bothers him constantly. His father-in-law is a rigid though well-intentioned patriarch, and his mother-in-law is often at odds with Elizabeth -- the seeds of that friction undoubtedly lie in the family's opposition to Elizabeth marrying Horace. Besides, these wealthy parents treat Elizabeth and Horace as though they were still children -- and they are now the proud parents of a baby boy. Changes occur when Horace makes a sudden decision to go off to war, after assurances from his father-in-law that he will care for Elizabeth in the meantime -- and the flu epidemic strikes much closer to the family than anyone would have imagined. The film was later telecast as part of a Horton Foote trilogy on PBS' American Playhouse. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Converse-Roberts, Hallie Foote, (more)
Adapted by Horton Foote from his own television play, A Trip to Bountiful is set in 1947 Houston. Forced by circumstances to live her loathsome son (John Heard) and daughter-in-law (Carlin Glynn), elderly Geraldine Page wants nothing more out of life than to return to her home town of Bountiful. Escaping from her family's clutches, Page boards a bus to Bountiful, where she makes the acquaintance of young Rebecca DeMornay. The two women immediately hit it off, and their trip is a most pleasant one. Eventually, sheriff Richard Bradford, ordered to find Page and bring her back to her family, catches up with the old woman just 12 miles from Bountiful. Feeling sorry for Page, Bradford permits her to complete her sentimental journey, even though he knows full well that Bountiful is now a ghost town of empty ruins and dilapidated shacks. It doesn't matter, though: Page sees Bountiful just as it was when she left it, and for the first time in years she is truly happy and at peace with herself. After several near-misses, Geraldine Page finally won an Academy Award for A Trip to Bountiful (incidentally, the original TV production, which still exists in kinescope form, starred Lillian Gish and Eva Marie Saint). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Geraldine Page, John Heard, (more)
Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall), a once-famous country western singer, wakes up broke, alone and hung over in a tiny Texas motel run by widowed Rosa Lee (Tess Harper). Having nowhere else to go, Sledge takes a job at the motel, and through the kindness and faith of Rosa he changes his self-destructive ways. He marries Rosa (after he's baptized at her urging) and becomes a father/pal to her son (Allan Hubbard). Given an opportunity to make a comeback, Sledge considers leaving his new family behind, but after a reunion with his own unhappy daughter (Ellen Barkin), he vows never again to ruin anyone else's life. A simple story simply told, Tender Mercies is a warm, persuasive tale of redemption, with Robert Duvall giving one of his finest performances. Also appearing is Betty Buckley as Duvall's ex-wife, a Dolly Parton-type country star, and Wilford Brimley as Duvall's former manager. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, (more)
Introduced by Henry Fonda, this unrated but good family movie is an adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's short story. Taking place in Georgia in the 1940s, Irene Worth plays a widow who allows a Polish WWII refugee family to live on and work her land, but she is soon infected with the same prejudice afflicting many of her neighbors when the immigrants prove so industrious that the home folk are put to shame and begin to feel threatened. Depicting the prejudice that faces many immigrants when they are struggling to make it in a new country, this movie advocates the strong work ethic embodied by the ambitious newcomers to America. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi
Horton Foote was the adapting hand behind this superlative black and white filmization of the 1939 William Faulkner story Tomorrow. Framed in flashback, the film explores the personal reasons that semi-literate farmer Robert Duvall is the lone jury holdout in the guilty verdict for a young killer on trial. We learn in a gradually unfolding fashion that the boy is the son of Olga Bellin, a woman with whom Duvall had had an intense personal involvement some twenty years earlier. Foote's script had previously been utilized on a Playhouse 90 TV version of Tomorrow, which starred Sterling Hayden. Universally regarded as the best-ever film adaptation of a Faulkner work, Tomorrow was in danger of vanishing without truly finding its audience, when it was given a well received TV premiere on PBS on December 17, 1984--twelve years after the film was made. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Otto Preminger directed this star-studded adaptation of K.B. Gliden's novel about racial prejudice and emotional unrest in the Deep South. Henry Warren (Michael Caine) is a land owner obsessed with buying up all available land in a Georgia farming town. However, two parcels of land have escaped his reach, and he's determined to get them. The Scotts, an African-American family, own one of the lots that Henry is after; the matriarch of the family, Rose (Beah Richards), used to work as a servant for the family of Henry's wife, Julie Ann (Jane Fonda), so Henry sends Julie Ann to talk with her. However, not only doesn't Rose agree to sell, she gets so upset that she dies of a heart attack, and soon her headstrong son Reeve (Robert Hooks) is the owner of the land. Reeve refuses all of Henry's offers to sell out, and he even stands up to a racist lynch mob that tries to ransack his farm; when Henry attempts to prove that Reeve holds no legal deed to the property, Vivian Thurlow (Diahann Carroll), the town's black schoolmarm, is able to provide the documentation that the Scotts do indeed own their land. Meanwhile, Henry is also trying to buy some property farmed by Rod McDowell (John Phillip Law) and his wife Lou (Faye Dunnaway), a poor white couple who are Henry's cousins. The McDowell farm adjoins that owned by the Scotts, so Reeve and Rod agree to join forces against Henry, which leads to violent reprisals against them. While set in Georgia, Hurry Sundown was actually shot on location in Louisiana; it was the first film shot in the South with an integrated cast and crew, leading the producers to demand protection from State Troopers after members of the company received death threats. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, (more)
All hell breaks loose in a Texas town when an escaped convict heads home in Arthur Penn's Southern gothic melodrama. Appointed by local kingpin Val Rogers (E. G. Marshall), benevolent Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) manages to keep the peace in Tarl, but the situation starts to fester one Saturday when news filters in that wild child Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) has jumped prison. Bubber's impending arrival arouses hostility among Tarl's citizens, such as Edwin Stewart (Robert Duvall), who believes that Bubber will come after him to settle an old score, and Damon Puller (Richard Bradford), who, between grope sessions with Edwin's wife Emily (Janice Rule), uses Bubber as an excuse to terrorize black residents. As the atmosphere heats up, Calder wants to keep Bubber alive, and he convinces Bubber's wife Anna (Jane Fonda) and her lover, Val's son Jake (James Fox), to find Bubber and coax him into surrender. Val's fear that Bubber will kill his son, however, sparks a long confrontation that leaves rational law and order pummeled into the ground by the town's ignorant cruelty. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
- Starring:
- Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, (more)
Adapted by Horton Foote from his own play The Travelling Lady, Baby the Rain Must Fall stars Steve McQueen as a troube-prone country singer and Lee Remick as his estranged wife. Released on parole after serving time for knifing a man, McQueen returns to Remick and their young daughter Kimberly Block. When he proves incapable of supporting his family, McQueen's violent nature erupts once more, with catastrophic results. Don Murray costars as a compassionate sheriff who tries to keep McQueen from straying off course. Though it seems to go on forever when seen today, Baby the Rain Must Fall was praised effusively by the critics in 1965 as a welcome change of pace for action star Steve McQueen; The film would make an interesting companion feature for the strikingly similar Horton Foote project Tender Mercies (1983). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lee Remick, Steve McQueen, (more)
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel was translated to film in 1962 by Horton Foote and the producer/director team of Robert Mulligan and Alan J. Pakula. Set a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the story focuses on scrupulously honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus Finch, magnificently embodied by Gregory Peck. Finch puts his career on the line when he agrees to represent Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man accused of rape. The trial and the events surrounding it are seen through the eyes of Finch's six-year-old daughter Scout (Mary Badham). While Robinson's trial gives the film its momentum, there are plenty of anecdotal occurrences before and after the court date: Scout's ever-strengthening bond with older brother Jem (Philip Alford), her friendship with precocious young Dill Harris (a character based on Lee's childhood chum Truman Capote and played by John Megna), her father's no-nonsense reactions to such life-and-death crises as a rampaging mad dog, and especially Scout's reactions to, and relationship with, Boo Radley (Robert Duvall in his movie debut), the reclusive "village idiot" who turns out to be her salvation when she is attacked by a venomous bigot. To Kill a Mockingbird won Academy Awards for Best Actor (Peck), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, (more)
- 1955
Much of this gripping crime drama takes place in a remote New England farm house owned by the brother of a bank robber. The crook is mortally wounded during his last heist and suddenly shows up seeking shelter. The brother reluctantly harbors the fugitive and his henchmen. Time passes and the henchmen are anxious to move on; unfortunately, their leader is healing. He is also still in love with his brother's wife with whom he had an affair. More trouble ensues when it is revealed that the woman's son was fathered by the crook, not her husband. Meanwhile, a farmhand manages to escape. He tries to alert the cops and this causes the criminals to flee. To help them through the woods the robber takes the boy to guide him. The boy is devastated when his heretofore "decent" uncle shoots his father. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, (more)
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