Tomorrow (1972 film)

Tomorrow
Directed by Joseph Anthony
Produced by Gilbert Pearlman
Paul Roebling
Written by Story:
William Faulkner
Screenplay & Play:
Horton Foote
Starring Robert Duvall
Olga Bellin
Music by Irwin Stahl
Cinematography Allan Green
Edited by Reva Schlesinger
Distributed by Filmgroup Productions
Release dates
 9 April 1972 (USA)
Running time
 103 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Tomorrow is a 1972 film directed by Joseph Anthony. The screenplay was written by Horton Foote, adapted from a play he wrote which was based on a 1940 short story by William Faulkner. The PG film was filmed in Alcorn County, Mississippi and the Bounds and Oakland Community of Itawamba County, Mississippi. Though released in 1972, it saw limited runs in the U.S. until re-released about ten years later.

The opening courthouse scenes of Tomorrow were shot at the historic Jacinto Courthouse in Alcorn County, Mississippi. The courthouse built in 1854, has been refurbished, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The majority of the movie was filmed in the Bounds Community of Itawamba County, at the sawmill on the Chester Russell farm. Chester Russell was the grandfather of Tammy Wynette (Virginia Wynette Pugh) whose father died when she was nine months old. Wynette lived most of her young years with her grandparents on their farm, until she married in 1960. The sawmill building where much of the movie was shot, was built just for the filming of the movie. Chester Russell was one of the jury and can be seen when the jury is deliberating in the opening courhouse scenes of the movie.[1]

Lead actor Robert Duvall calls Tomorrow one of his personal favorites of all the films he's done.[2]

Plot

An isolated and lonely farmer in rural Mississippi takes in a pregnant drifter who has been abandoned by the father of her child.

Main cast

Actor Role
Robert Duvall Jackson Fentry
Olga Bellin Sarah Eubanks
Sudie Bond Mrs. Hulie
Peter Masterson Douglas
Johnny Mask Jackson
William Hawley Papa Fentry

Critical reception

Vincent Canby of The New York Times overall did not care for the film but thought that it was well-intentioned:

“ [T]he Horton Foote screenplay is less an adaptation than an enlargement, in the playwright's dumbest, television-fake literary style of the 1950's. Tomorrow is not one of Faulkner's most interesting works... Mr. Foote's attempts at pretty po' fo'k dialogue come very close to the ludicrous... Even if the movie's intentions are decent, as reflected in the accurate look of the production, filmed in Mississippi, the effect is mostly patronizing.[3] ”

Trivia

The American indie rock band Grandaddy sampled the film for their song Fentry.

References

  1. ↑ Tomorrow (1972) - Filming locations
  2. ↑ Tomorrow (1972) - IMDb
  3. ↑ Canby, Vincent (1972-04-10). "Movie Review - Tomorrow - The Screen: 'Tomorrow':Adapted Faulkner Tale Directed by Anthony - NYTimes.com". Movies.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2012-05-07.

External links