Horton Foote, who died in 2009 at 92, had a brilliant career writing for the stage and screen. He won a Pulitzer for drama,
The Young Man from Atlanta, and two Oscars, one for adaptation,
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), another for original screenplay,
Tender Mercies (1983). Last night Movies!, 113 on Cablevision in NYC, ran a film I’d no idea he’d written, one that had eluded me despite my esteem for its stars, Steve McQueen and Lee Remick. Adapted from one of his own plays,
The Travelling Lady, shot in black and white by Ernest Laszlo, directed by Robert Mulligan,
Baby, the Rain Must Fall is the story of a Texas parolee trying to make it as a singer/musician. Trouble is, the obligatory appearances an artist on the way up must make in small venues provide a breeding ground for the negative parts of his nature. Abused as a child, told he is no good by his mom, he occasionally succumbs to his demons. It's a miracle he hasn't killed anyone. Except for the scenes where he is lip-synching and pretending to play the guitar, which are painful to watch and thoroughly unconvincing, McQueen is fine. I’m not sure if the singing voice is his own. I assume it was dubbed. It is not Glenn Yarborough, whose version of the title track, written by Elmer Bernstein and Ernie Sheldon, hit #12 on the Billboard Chart. It is not used in the film, which is by no means a great work but a sincere character study the likes of which Hollywood has all but abandoned. It had an impact on me. I was up at 3:30 AM, pondering some of the bad impulses to which I’ve succumbed through the years, asking myself: What was I thinking? I, unlike the main character, was not abused, although I did witness much marital hostility. My foul actions were never justified. There are millions who have suffered infinitely more than I. The overwhelming majority don’t commit crimes, unlike McQueen’s character. I believe my kind acts have dwarfed the meanness of which I am guilty, but there have been times I feared I was close to the edge, and the thought that others have probably felt similarly does not offer much consolation. Criminals, especially humanity’s monsters, are defined by their worst moments. I sometimes define myself by those and feel as if the nice person I’ve been masquerading as is the biggest phony going. I also fear that pooh-poohing them, rationalizing them as common rather than being appalled by them, increases the likelihood of re-occurrence. Fortunately, all are in the distance past -- except those that occur solely in the mind.
Let's lighten it up. My thanks to the kind folks who stopped to browse and those who bought and donated books despite the awful smell of the mulch Luis laid out in the garden that surrounds the building where I set up shop most days. With shrubbery and flowers now planted along its length, it looks infinitely better than it did. It will take a few days for the odor to dissipate.
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
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