The Iceman Cometh (1973)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Iceman Cometh |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1973 |
| length | 239 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | John Frankenheimer |
| script | Thomas Quinn Curtiss |
| production | Ely Landau |
| camera | Ralph Woolsey |
| cut | Harold F. Kress |
| occupation | |
| |
The Iceman Cometh is a nearly four hour long American drama from 1973 directed by John Frankenheimer . It is based on the play " The Ice Cream Man Comes " (1939) by the Nobel Prize Laureate (1936) Eugene O'Neill . The main roles are Lee Marvin , Robert Ryan and Fredric March in his last film role.
action
The story, set in 1912, is limited to one location, old Harry Hope's somewhat shabby and run-down bar. Here, in 'The Last Chance Saloon', a number of very different and often failed people have always been stranded. Harry's Bar offers them the last refuge in a failed life. The dozen men and three women, all of them prostitutes, can drink here undisturbed and, in the face of broken dreams, indulge in their illusions while intoxicated. As every year, Theodore Hickman is expected on Harry's birthday, whom everyone just calls "Hickey" - he is a vigorous specimen of a man whose visit is always associated with a particularly heavy binge.
When the dominant hickey appears, everything is suddenly very different. The powerful drinker of yore has become a staunch abstainer. Hickey is almost inspired by the idea of releasing his various bar acquaintances from their illusions in order to free them at the same time from their feelings of guilt. His good intentions, however, have catastrophic effects: bit by bit, he destroys the illusions disguised as hope and thus pulls the rug from under his former drinking buddies. With this, some of his friends lose the last will to live that is only maintained by excessive alcohol consumption. Hickey works most of all on the former anarchist Larry Slade, an avowed cynic who only looks down on others with pity and who has long since lost interest in his own life.
In view of Hickey's remarks, bar visitors can no longer find any consolation even in drunkenness. When it finally comes out that Hickey has his wife on her conscience in order to rob her of her illusions and to free herself from feelings of guilt, they call Hickey mad - because this is the only way to get back to their dreams, their illusions and their joy indulge in drinking; the last bit of hold that life has left them. But Hickey's remarks actually made a difference to one individual. Ironically, the greatest cynic of all, Larry Slade, is now facing his responsibility and is in a state of limbo between resignation and the will to change.
Production notes
The Iceman Cometh was made in the spring of 1973 at the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Studios in Hollywood. The film adaptation cost, depending on the source, only between 800,000 and 1.1 million dollars, because everyone involved agreed to participate in the project for a fraction of the usual fee. Even the most expensive star in the film, Lee Marvin, played for significantly less pay than usual. Like the other leading actors, he is said to have only received around 25,000 dollars in salary, which, according to Marvin in an interview in 1973, would be around 750,000 dollars less than he would otherwise ask.
The Iceman Cometh premiered on November 10, 1973 in the United States. In Germany this film was never released in cinemas (probably for purely commercial reasons) and was never shown on German-language television.
The buildings were designed by Jack Martin Smith , the costumes by Dorothy Jeakins . Lynn Stalmaster took care of the cast . Robert Ryan , the actor in Slade, did not live to see the premiere: he died on July 11, 1973.
Lee Marvin, in the film mostly subscribed to rough, sturdy and villainous characters, was considered a surprise cast at the premiere and received mixed comments in the film reviews. One had mostly expected Jason Robards as hickey, as he had a long stage experience with the portrayal of the hickey and had embodied this character in a television version from 1960.
Actress Evans Evans , who embodies Cora here, was the wife of director Frankenheimer.
Awards
Robert Ryan, who has always subscribed to tough men, brutal villains and life-denying cynics (as exemplified in The Damned of the Seas ), posthumously won the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor, as well as the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor and a special award from the National Society of Film Critics for his interpretation of Larry Slade.
backgrounds
Since 1961 there had been plans to film The Iceman Cometh alongside other O'Neill plays . As a result, there were considerations to cast the Hickey with Marlon Brando or alternatively with Gene Hackman . Tom Pedi , who plays the pimp Rocky Pioggi here, had already played this part in the New York performance of 1946/47 and in a television version from 1960. Sorrell Booke , who played Hugo Kalmar in the film, also played him in the television version from 1960, which was also broadcast on German television in December 1962.
useful information
The Iceman Cometh is the first of several ambitious film adaptations of famous stage designs from 1973 that producer Ely Landau had produced with the American Film Theater . The screen adaptations The Homecoming (after Harold Pinter ), A Delicate Balance (after Edward Albee ), Rhinoceros (after Eugène Ionesco ), Luther (after John Osborne ), Butley (after Simon Gray ) and Lost in the Stars ( after Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill ). None of these films made it to German cinemas.
Reviews
The reviews were mostly benevolent to Frankenheimer's O'Neill adaptation. Here are four examples:
"Brilliant performances and a virtuoso directing performance ... a definitive film version."
"The play is bound to be a great experience, and that fact is captured in this film."
"Remarkably successful film from Eugene O'Neill's play (...) Marvin's Hickey is just enough, but Ryan dominates an outstanding supporting cast."
“Truly a success. Not just a worthy production of a great play, it has its own meaning. "
"A great film of a great piece."
Web links
- The Iceman Cometh in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Iceman Cometh on allemovie.com
- The Iceman Cometh on rottentomatoes.com
Individual evidence
- ^ The Iceman Cometh at the American Film Institute
- ^ Marvin statement in the Los Angeles Times of July 7, 1973
- ^ The Iceman Cometh at the American Film Institute
- ^ The Iceman Cometh on Broadway
- ↑ Iceman 'film DoesJustice to the play , nytimes.com , accessed on April 22, 2020