Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983 film)
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| Something Wicked This Way Comes | |
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 Something Wicked This Way Comes movie poster |
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| Directed by | Jack Clayton |
| Produced by | Peter Douglas |
| Written by | Ray Bradbury, John Mortimer (uncredited) |
| Starring | Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Cinematography | Stephen H. Burum |
| Editing by | Barry Mark Gordon Art J. Nelson |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Pictures |
| Release date(s) | April 29, 1983 |
| Running time | 95 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $19,000,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 movie based on the Ray Bradbury novel, starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by Jack Clayton for Walt Disney Pictures, from a screenplay written by Bradbury himself, the movie suffered from offscreen conflicts of vision. Although the 1980s Disney company was trying to grow beyond "kiddie fare" and make more complex and mature PG-rated movies, they struggled against the creepy and sometimes gruesome nature of the chosen story.
Bradbury recommended Clayton to be the director, having known him since they both worked on the movie Moby Dick in 1953-1954, and again on an unproduced adaptation of Something Wicked This Way Comes at Paramount in 1977. But the two became estranged when Clayton had writer John Mortimer do an uncredited revision of Bradbury's screenplay.[1]
After a bad preview showing of the film, Bradbury wrote narration and a new ending, and Disney spent an additional US$5 million on refilming, re-editing, and rescoring the picture. He later called it "not a great film, no, but a decently nice one."[2]
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[edit] Synopsis
In a small town, two young boys named Will and Jim encounter a strange and sinister carnival whose lead members Mr. Dark, Cooger, and the Dust Witch lure the townsfolk to their doom by promising to fulfill their secret desires. As Will, Jim, and Will's father, Charles Halloway, are about to find out, wishes often go awry with the carnival.
[edit] Differences between the book and the film
- Near the beginning of the film, a man with a missing leg and a single crutch looks into the Mirror Maze and regains his leg. No such event occurs in the book.
- In both versions, the lightning-rod salesman Tom Fury appears near the beginning of the story and mysteriously disappears shortly before the opening of the carnival. However, in the book, he is revealed to have been transformed into a dwarf with no memory of his former life, whereas in the film he is only held captive by the carnival and later brings about the death of the Dust Witch.
- The Dust Witch, described as a blind hag in the book, is a beautiful temptress in the film.
- Mr. Dark, also known as the Illustrated Man for the tattoos covering almost his entire body in the book, has a noticeable lack of tattoos, except for one of a moving snake he shows to the boys.
- When Will and Jim are hiding in the gutter from the carnival members, they are almost exposed when a dog barks over the gutter after dropping its treat inside. The book originally had a child dropping a wad of bubblegum in the gutter and calling his mom to look at what he found in the gutter.
- Instead of being regressed on the carousel to a crying little girl, Miss Foley consciously becomes a young and pretty woman simply by looking in the mirror at her home; the price she pays here is loss of her eyesight.
- When the Dust Witch attempts to stop Charles' heart in the book, Charles prevents her from stopping it completely by scaring her off with a laugh. Charles makes no action to stop the Witch in the film, but the sleep she initates turns out to be not permanent, and he wakes up later when she is gone.
- The Dust Witch in the book dies when Charles fires a bullet with a smile carved on it towards her as part of a bullet catch trick. In the film, this bullet catch trick never takes place, and the Witch is instead killed when the lightning-rod salesman, aided by a lightning storm, impales her with one of his electroducted rods.
- In the book, Mr. Dark is killed when, in child form, Charles embraces him to smother him with love. In the film, Dark is killed when he is trapped on the carousel spinning forward and ages to a skeleton.
[edit] Cast
- Jason Robards as Charles Halloway
- Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark
- Diane Ladd as Mrs. Nightshade
- Royal Dano as Tom Fury
- Pam Grier as the Dust Witch
- Mary Grace Canfield as Miss Foley
[edit] Trivia
- Tiny Toons Adventures has Buster; Babs and Plucky Duck episode which is a cartoon parody of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Plucky plays the fool and Buster and Babs have to rescue him from the evil ringmaster-who gets his comeuppance in the end.
- In the original version of Epcot's Journey Into Imagination ride, the words Something Wicked are printed on the spine of one of the colossal books in the Literature scenes, a reference to the Disney movie.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Weller, Sam (2005). The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury. New York: William Morrow, 306-309. ISBN 0-06-054581-X.
- ^ Bradbury, Ray (2005). Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars. New York: William Morrow, 10. ISBN 0-06-058568-4.
- ^ Journey Into Imagination Fact Sheet
[edit] External links
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