Fever in the blood
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Fever in the blood |
| Original title | Splendor in the Grass |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1961 |
| length | 119 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Elia Kazan |
| script | William Inge |
| production | Elia Kazan |
| music | Dave Amram |
| camera | Boris Kaufman |
| cut | Gene Milford |
| occupation | |
| |
Fever in the Blood is a 1961 American film directed by Elia Kazan . Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty star in this Oscar- winning drama about the breakdown of love in puritan Kansas in the 1920s.
action
The film begins in a small town in Kansas in 1928 and records the prudish and contradicting bourgeois moral image of the American Midwest at the time. Wilma Dean "Deanie" Loomis grows up well protected, but in simple circumstances. The teenager falls in love with Bud Stamper, the son of the richest family in town. Deanie's mother is particularly concerned about her daughter's virginity, while Bud's father Ace wants a daughter-in-law from better circles. He advises Bud that in order to be sexually satisfied he should seek out other girls with whom he does not have to enter into serious relationships. At the same time, Bud is his father's bearer of hope as his successor in the company. Bud is scheduled to begin studying at Yale and then join the father's business. For Ace Stamper, this has an existential meaning, as he has already been immensely disappointed by Bud's older sister Ginny, a flapper girl. Ginny is constantly changing partners, drinking, smoking and having had an abortion .
Despite mounting pressure from Bud's father, Deanie and Bud initially remain lovers. Bud even wants to marry Deanie, to whom he is becoming increasingly sexually attracted. However, his father ensures that the marriage plans are postponed until Bud's planned college graduation. Young people eventually break down because of the dichotomy between their families' demands and their own strong feelings for one another. Bud breaks down and, after a hospital stay, begins a superficial relationship with Juanita, one of Deanie's very revealing schoolmates. Here begins the key scene, which also contains the reference to the English film title, Splendor in the Grass , the Ode Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth . When Deanie hears the poem, which is very reminiscent of their broken love affair, she can no longer bear the situation, falls crying from her school class, which she no longer visits, and falls into depression. In a scene with her mother in the bathroom, in excessively hot water, Deanie's deep despair over the fact that she can no longer see Bud emerges. In her room, she cuts off her long hair and takes the easy-going lifestyle of Ginny as a model to win back Bud.
To forget Bud, she goes to dance with another man named “Toots”, but meets Bud there and confesses her love to him and wants to give herself to him. He is surprised by her behavior and refuses to try. For him she is pure love, not an adventure. Desperate that she has now completely lost Bud, she wants to let herself drift down a waterfall with suicidal intent, but is rescued before the worst can happen. She was taken to a sanatorium and from then on no longer had any contact with Bud. In order to pay for the sanatorium, Deanie's parents have to sell their excessively rising stock prices, which they initially regret very much. They had already planned the money waiting on the exchange for Deanie's college and a new car. In fact, Deanie's family is lucky with the sale of the securities, as the stock market crash is imminent.
Meanwhile, Bud goes to Yale, ignores his father's letters, smokes, drinks and refuses to seriously study. He should then be expelled from the university. Ace Stamper will now lose the beginning of the world economic crisis of its assets and then commits suicide. Bud's family is impoverished overnight. For him, his childhood dream of becoming a farmer is the only remaining option. Bud meets the Italian immigrant daughter Angelina. You get married and have a child. Together they run the Stumper family's poor farm and make ends meet. After two and a half years in the sanatorium, Deanie returns to her small hometown completely healed. Although her mother originally opposed it, she visits Bud on his farm. Both still have a deep affection for one another, but they quickly realize that their lives have taken different directions. They part in the purity. Deanie also got engaged to the doctor Johnny Masterson, who was just like her a patient in the sanatorium.
background
Splendor in the Grass was the film debut of Warren Beatty . The film immediately marked the young actor's breakthrough. With this film, Natalie Wood transformed from a popular teen star to a demanding actress. When casting the youthful heroes of the film, Dennis Hopper , Jane Fonda and Lee Remick were initially discussed.
In the original version of the film there is a scene when Natalie Wood, having an argument with her mother, jumps naked out of the bathroom and runs after her. In the hallway there was a close up of the actress's bare legs as she stomps on the floor angrily. The scene was criticized by the censors and the Catholic Legion Of Decency and subsequently removed from the film by Kazan. You can only see Natalie Wood jumping out of the bathtub. In the bathtub scene you can see Natalie Wood's left wrist, which she broke as a child and which had grown crooked because the bracelet she usually wore had to be removed for this scene.
Reviews
"The screenplay for the excellently played film was written by the playwright William Inge, whose strength was the realistic portrayal of the provincial middle class in his country."
Awards
The film won the Photoplay Award in 1961. In 1962, three Golden Globe nominations followed. In the “Best Drama” category, Fever in the Blood was defeated by the war film The Guns of Navarone . Warren Beatty had to admit defeat in the category “Best Actor” in a drama Maximilian Schell and the court film The Judgment of Nuremberg and Natalie Wood in the female category Geraldine Page and the literary film adaptation Sommer und Rauch . Beatty was honored with the Golden Globe Award for Best Young Actor .
Natalie Wood received her second Oscar nomination in 1962 for her portrayal of Nicholas Rays ... because they don't know what they are doing (1955) , but had against Sophia Loren in the film drama And yet they are left behind. Screenwriter William Inge, seen in two scenes as a pastor in the film, received the Oscar for his original screenplay.
Web links
- Splendor in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ fever in the blood. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 24, 2017 .