With Saturday being both Yom Kippur, and raining so hard no one wanted to go out, I made use of the time. While Monsieur observed the Holiday, I watched the TV movie adaptation of Thomas Tryon's "Harvest Home," which, while faithful to the book in many ways, did not do justice to it. There were so many things wrong with this production, I will make no blatant attempt at analysis. I will simply enumerate.
1. The Title Was Changed. This Was Wrong!--Tryon's novel is called "Harvest Home," which is creepy and effective. The hack adaptors change it here to "The Dark Secret Of Harvest Home." In fact, I wanted to provide a better image of the film--and there are some-- but no single one does more to show what goes wrong with the whole thing, than this. So I chose it.
2. The Hero's (David Ackroyd) Name Is Changed from Ned To Nick. Why?
3. When the hero gifts the Widow with a sewing machine, Tryon makes it clear it was a pink one. Here it is white. No one pays attention to details here.
4. Grace Everdeen--In the novel, it is made clear she died in 1958, two Harvest Homes ago. Here, since the film is set in 1978, her date of death is 1971--only one Harvest Home ago. Again, why?????????
5. Bette Davis--This is probably the last genuine bit of acting she did before her health issues did her in. I can tell you, I never pictured her in this role when I read the book. Maybe because of Uta Hagen's patrician brilliance in the film version of Tryon's "The Other" (better both as a book and film!!!!!!) I was hoping Hagen would have been used. She would have been better. Just as, were it remade today, MERYL would be perfect
6. Michael O Keefe As Worthy Pettinger--Wow, was he young! I had forgotten! Next to Davis, he is the only actor who approaches anything even resembling a New England accent, for which I give both he and Davis credit. HE is one of the few who do a credible acting job!
7. Missy Penrose--Tracey Gold, as the story's most fascinating character, is not given the amount of time she was in the book, and when she screams in hysteria, pictured above, while the scream is dramatically genuine, the hack director of this piece, Leo Penn, is as incompetent as his adaptors, James and Jennifer Miller. None of them read the book. If they had, they would have made more of the gifted Laurie Prange, as Sophie Hooke, whose suicide is not made clear--either why or how--whereas it is clear as crystal, in the book. And she hanged herself! Penn shoots Missy's scream so that she looks like a fat, ugly kid, instead of a juvenile psychic!!!!!!!!!!!! And the scene with Missy and the sheep is not as impacting , for the next reason I will state, and it takes place,as witnessed by NED, inside the church! At least, in the book! Added to which, here Missy is Missy McCutcheon, child of deceased Harvest Lord, Loren McCutcheon. The Penroses don't count in this town, as they do, in the book!
8. The Whole Thing Had To Be SANITIZED!--So what was the point of doing it on TV, then? The men could not even talk about "Justin's rooster!" That Tamar Penrose was some piece of work; the town postmistress and slut, but her big scene by the lake with NED had to be compromised, and, at the climactic moment, it is she, not Beth, who is supposed to behead the Harvest Lord, during the ceremony!!!!!!!!!! No one pays any attention to details!!!!!!!!!
9. The Women Were Such Bitches--If you thought the book was misogynistic, wait till you see this film! Beth and Kate turn out to be the Guy Woodhouses of this story, turning on both Worthy and NED. Rosanna Arquette, as Kate, does the former, with all the vengeful righteousness of a self-proclaimed teenage bitch, and, as for Joanna Miles, as Beth, slap her across the face! But, then, Linda Marsh isn't any better as Maggie Dodd, and the worst is that Grayce Grant as Mrs. Pettinger. When Worthy storms into the church, cursing both the Corn and the Mother, she bursts into tears, not because she cares for her son, but their image in the community. What a bitch! Stealing her son's savings, and smacking his face! He should have smacked her back! His father's a wimp--maybe he was rendered that way by the women--and, then, when the Pettingers are shunned, instead of ignoring it, this bitch mother pleads, "It isn't our fault! He (Worthy) should suffer, not us!" I am telling you, when Kindling Night climaxed with Worthy's deceased corpse being thrown on the scarecrow pile, I was hoping someone would grab Mrs. Pettinger, and throw her on with him! That is what I would have done! Why didn't the Pettingers just move away, as they do in the book?
10. Still, Grant, O'Keefe, Rene Auberjonois, Tracey Gold, Lina Raymond and Norman Lloyd provide enough acting skills to breathe life into their characters. As does Stephen Joyce, as Robert Dodd. Unfortunately, the whole thing is shot so cheaply--obviously in California--with no sense of visual atmosphere that it simply looks flat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11. Harvest Home Itself--This sequence was the worst! The women wear white robes that make them look like members of the KKK!!!!!!!!! Because the whole thing had to be sanitized, Beth's and Justin's big sex scene is nil; though there is one moment where Beth throws her hair and face back, almost orgiastically, that generates some shock! And John Calvin as Justin! Perfect for the part, but also a young gay man's date--big, dumb, hung, and full of cum! Clearly, his career must have gone from here to porn, with him now holed up in some seedy Hollywood motel, lifting weights, like the Symbolic Older Man in "Hollywoodland--" which, by now, he has become! But you have got to see the Harvest Home dance--it makes Richard Cunha's 1959 "She Demons" look like it has the artistry of Jerome Robbins about it. A bunch of KKK women moving about in all sorts of non-unified movement is what you get, making the whole thing look as amateurish as community theater!!!!!!!!!!!!
12. The Men Are So Damn Dumb!--Even Robert Dodd, when he finally warns NED about what happened to him when he tried to find out the secret, goes on accepting things as they are! He should have smacked his wife Maggie across the face, demanded a divorce, and that he be placed in a home! It would have been better than Cornwall Coombe, let me tell you! Of course, the same thing happens to NED, but this is done with as little impact or imagination as possible!!!!!!!!! As for his tongue being cut out, only if you had read the book, would you know that! His little lip smacks at the end won't mean a thing to those who have no idea!
13. Besides all I have already said, what this needed was something to liven it all up; maybe by retelling the story of Grace Everdeen, and how she disrupted Harvest Home. Veronica Cartwright could have played the part, and she could have walked into the middle of the ceremony, hurling husked cobs, and shouting, "Dildos!"
Better that, or roasting Jiffy Pop on the stove, than this corn holed shit
No comments:
Post a Comment