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Sanctuary (1961 film)

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Sanctuary
Sanctuary (1961 film).jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Tony Richardson
Written by
Based on Sanctuary and Requiem for a Nun
by William Faulkner
Produced by Richard D. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Starring
Cinematography Ellsworth Fredericks
Edited by Robert L. Simpson
Music by Alex North
Production
company
Distributed by 20th Century-Fox
Release date
  • April 18, 1961 (1961-04-18)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.9 million [1]

Sanctuary is a 1961 American drama film directed by Tony Richardson. The film, based on the William Faulkner novels Sanctuary (1931) and Requiem for a Nun (1951), is about a black maid who kills her white employer's baby and is sentenced to death. [2]

Contents

Plot

In 1928 in the county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, black woman Nancy Mannigoe is condemned to death for the willful murder of the infant son of her white employer Mrs. Gowan Stevens, the former Temple Drake. On the eve of the scheduled execution, Temple tries to save Nancy by telling her father, the governor, of the events preceding the murder in flashback sequences beginning six years earlier, when Temple was a college girl dating Gowan Stevens.

One night, Gowan becomes drunk and takes Temple on a wild drive, crashing the car in the Mississippi backwoods. They take refuge at a house run by a bootlegger named Candy Man, who rapes her. However, the next day, she willingly submits to him and begins to fall in love with him, living with him in a New Orleans brothel. Although Candy is verbally and physically abusive, Temple is devoted to him. His black maid Nancy repeatedly tries to warn Temple of the evil surrounding her, to no avail.

Candy is killed in a fiery crash while being pursued by police, and with nowhere to turn, Temple reports herself as a hostage and is returned home. She reluctantly marries Gowan and assumes a life of privilege, and the couple have two sons. While on a tour of a prison for narcotics offenders, Temple spots Nancy and frees her so that Nancy can be her maid.

One night, Candy reappears and seduces Temple, who cannot resist him. He convinces her to abandon her life and husband and run away with him. Nancy pleads with Temple to rethink her decision and stay, but Temple is determined to take the baby and flee with Candy. Just before Temple is about to leave, she discovers that the baby is dead. Nancy admits to having smothered the baby in a desperate attempt to prevent Temple from leaving.

Though shocked by his daughter's confession, the governor is unable to grant a pardon for Nancy. The next morning, Temple visits Nancy in her cell and they beg for forgiveness from each other. Temple realizes that it is only through Nancy's sacrifice that she has been able to find salvation.

Cast

Production

Tony Richardson had directed a stage adaptation of Requiem for a Nun in 1957 at the Royal Court. The play was well received. Richardson took it to Broadway in 1959 but it was less successful.

Producer Richard D. Zanuck, son of Twentieth Century-Fox head and coproducer Darryl F. Zanuck, sought to combine the William Faulkner novels Sanctuary (1931) and its sequel Requiem for a Nun (1951) into one screenplay as a more commercially viable option than basing the film on one of the books alone. [3] He acquired the film rights to both novels and also spent $75,000 for the rights to the 1933 film The Story of Temple Drake , which was necessary in order to obtain the rights to the original novel. [4]

The Zanucks approached Tony Richardson to direct. Doris Lessing wrote a script. Richardson then discovered that James Poe had been contracted to write a script. [5] Poe used an outline and prologue prepared by Zanuck, who was unable to contact Faulkner. [4]

The character of Candy Man is an amalgamation of characters from both source novels: Popeye, Red and Red's brother Pete (Red's brother). [4]

Director Tony Richardson was drawn to the film project because of the depiction of the 1920s and 1930s United States in the original script. However, as he disliked the typical editing process for American films of the time, he was unhappy with the completed film. [6]

Filming started 28 July 1960.

Reception

Critical

Variety wrote "major liberties have been taken with the novel and its subsequent appendage, “Requiem For a Nun,” to make the frank original often shockingly incisive and appalling in its thorough, penetrating examination of the South’s (and some of humanity’s) dirty underwear, suitable for the screen. The deletions are understandable and often mandatory, hut too much has gone out of “Sanctuary.” Not enough of the original flavor and vitality has been retained. Film emerges essentially a dubious “entertainment” in the lighter sense of the word." [7]

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote:

William Faulkner's novel "Sanctuary," and his sequel to it, "Requiem for a Nun," which together provide, quite a lurid introspection of a jazz:-age Southern girl, have been con1bined, cut down and altered to such a dumbfounding degree ... that it is hard to recognize the heroine. Indeed, it is hard to recognize her as a credible human being. The saucy young matron ... is more like the superficial subject of true-confessions yarn. And the picture itself is melodrama of the most mechanical and meretricious sort. What has happened, simply, is that the writer of the script, James Poe, has attempted to extract the basic incidents of the two far-from-simple Faulkner yarns without including the essential sordid details that explain and justify the heroine. He has arbitrarily made her a loose woman, a degenerate of a sort, without specifying why she is ... The consequence is a picture that no more reflects or comprehends the evil in the Faulkner stories or the social corruption suggested in them than did the first screen handling of "Sanctuary" in 1933, under the title of "The Story of Temple Drake." [8]

Richardson criticised the film to the press saying "it's very bad" and criticising the studio system. [9]

See also

Works cited

References

  1. ↑ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 253. ISBN   978-0-8108-4244-1.
  2. ↑ "Sanctuary (1961)". Turner Classic Move Database . Archived from the original on November 2, 2012.
  3. ↑ Degenfelder 1976, pp. 553–554.
  4. 1 2 3 Degenfelder 1976, p. 554.
  5. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (February 22, 1961). "The Screen: 'Sanctuary':Adaptation of Faulkner Novels Has Premiere". The New York Times . Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  6. ↑ Phillips 1973, p. 271.
  7. ↑ "Sanctuary". Variety. February 22, 1961. p. 6.
  8. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (February 22, 1961). "The Screen: 'Sanctuary'". The New York Times . p. 31.
  9. ↑ "'It's Bad' Says Tony Richardson Of 'Sanctuary, Which He Directed: Majors Cant Handle Certain Themes 100% Outside Studio". Variety. May 17, 1961. p. 5, 61.
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