Gone to Earth (film)
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| Gone to Earth | |
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 Still from Gone to Earth |
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| Directed by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Produced by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Written by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Starring | Jennifer Jones David Farrar Cyril Cusack Esmond Knight |
| Music by | Brian Easdale |
| Cinematography | Christopher Challis |
| Editing by | Reginald Mills |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
| Release date(s) | November 6, 1950 UK |
| Running time | 110 min. |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
- For the Stevie Nicks album, see The Wild Heart (album).
Gone to Earth (1950) is a film by the British-based director-writer team of Powell & Pressburger.
The film was based on the 1917 novel of the same name by author Mary Webb (a novel partly inspired by the Diary of Francis Kilvert). The novel was all but ignored when it first appeared, but became widely known in the 1930s, as the neo-romantic revival gathered pace, even inspiring an even more famous and wickedly funny parody, Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm.
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[edit] Story
Hazel Woodus (Jennifer Jones) is a child of nature in the Shropshire countryside in 1897. She loves and understands all the wild animals more than the people around her. Whenever she has problems she turns to the book of spells and charms left to her by her gypsy mother.
Local squire, Jack Reddin (David Farrar) sees Hazel and wants her. But she has already promised herself to the Baptist Minister, Edward Marston (Cyril Cusack). A struggle for her body and soul ensues.
[edit] Production
It was filmed on location, in Technicolour, around Much Wenlock in Shropshire, England. Many local people were recruited as extras.
A co-production with David O. Selznick. Selznick flooded the production with memos, most of which were studiously ignored. Powell summed up the relationship this way, "We decided to go ahead with David O. (Selznick) the way hedgehogs make love: verrry carefully!"
[edit] Subsequent history
Although he had been involved throughout the filming, executive producer David O. Selznick disliked the finished film and took The Archers, Powell and Pressburger's production company, to court to get it changed. He lost the court case, but discovered that he did have the right to have the film changed for its American release. Consequently he had the film re-edited and some extra scenes shot in Hollywood to make the version known as The Wild Heart (1952). Selznick's changes are mainly adding: a prologue; scenes explaining things, often literally, by putting labels or inscriptions on them; more close-ups of Jennifer Jones. The most infamous of these are the scenes at the end when she is supposedly carrying a tame fox - in the additional scenes, Jones is carrying what is obviously a stuffed toy fox. He also deleted a few scenes that he felt weren't dramatic enough. Sadly some of these were major plot points so the story doesn't make as much sense as in the original film. In his autobiographies, Powell claimed that Selznick only left about 35 minutes of the original film. In fact, about two-thirds remains intact.
The original version was fully restored by the British Film Archive in 1985. A New Statesman review claimed the restored film to be "One of the great British regional films" and, according to Powell's cinematographer, Christopher Challis, "one of the most beautiful films ever to be shot of the English countryside".[1]
[edit] References
- ^ New Statesman review. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
[edit] External links
- Gone to Earth at the Internet Movie Database
- Gone to Earth at the British Film Institute's Screenonline. Full synopsis and film stills (and clips viewable from UK libraries).
- Reviews and articles at the Powell & Pressburger Pages
- Location guide
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