Sometimes A Great Notion is a
1970The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 11 - The film The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr premieres in New York City...
AmericanThe cinema of the United States has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
drama filmA drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, crime and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves,...
directed by
Paul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and auto racing enthusiast...
. The screenplay by
John GayJohn Gay is an American screenwriter.Born in Whittier, California, Gay began his career writing episodes for television anthology series such as Lux Video Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, and Goodyear Television Playhouse. He made his film screenwriting debut in 1956 with Run Silent Run Deep...
is based on the 1964
novel of the same titleSometimes a Great Notion is Ken Kesey's second novel, published in 1964. Although One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is more famous, many critics consider Sometimes a Great Notion his magnum opus...
by
Ken KeseyKenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s...
, the first of his books to be adapted for the screen.
The economic stability of Wakonda, Oregon is threatened when the local logging union calls a strike against a large lumber conglomerate. When independent logger Hank Stamper and his father Henry are urged to support the strikers, they refuse, and the townspeople consider them traitors.
Sometimes A Great Notion is a
1970The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 11 - The film The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr premieres in New York City...
AmericanThe cinema of the United States has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
drama filmA drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, crime and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves,...
directed by
Paul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and auto racing enthusiast...
. The screenplay by
John GayJohn Gay is an American screenwriter.Born in Whittier, California, Gay began his career writing episodes for television anthology series such as Lux Video Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, and Goodyear Television Playhouse. He made his film screenwriting debut in 1956 with Run Silent Run Deep...
is based on the 1964
novel of the same titleSometimes a Great Notion is Ken Kesey's second novel, published in 1964. Although One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is more famous, many critics consider Sometimes a Great Notion his magnum opus...
by
Ken KeseyKenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s...
, the first of his books to be adapted for the screen.
Plot
The economic stability of Wakonda, Oregon is threatened when the local logging union calls a strike against a large lumber conglomerate. When independent logger Hank Stamper and his father Henry are urged to support the strikers, they refuse, and the townspeople consider them traitors. Hank struggles to keep the small family business alive and consequently widens the rift between himself and his complacent wife Viv, who wants him to put an end to the territorial struggle but is resigned to his doing things as he sees fit. Also complicating matters is Leland Stamper, Henry's youngest son and Hank's half-brother, who returns home with a college education and experience in urban living. A heavy drinker, Lee eventually reveals he attempted suicide after his mother killed herself and has been suffering from deep depression ever since. Despite the fact he is uncomfortable living with a family he barely knows, Lee joins forces with them when they are forced to battle both the locals, who have burned their equipment, and the elements, which threaten their efforts to transport their logs downriver.
Production
Although both
Sam PeckinpahDavid Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved his status following the release of his 1969 Western epic The Wild Bunch...
and
Budd BoetticherOscar "Budd" Boetticher, Jr. was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott...
had expressed interest in bringing Ken Kesey's novel to the screen, Richard A. Colla was signed to direct the film in May 1970. Five weeks after principal photography began, Colla left the project due to "artistic differences over photographic concept," as well as a required throat operation. At the same time, leading man
Paul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and auto racing enthusiast...
broke his ankle, and the production shut down on July 29. As co-executive producer, Newman considered replacing Colla with
George Roy HillGeorge Roy Hill was an American film director. He is most noted for directing such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, which both starred the acting duo Paul Newman and Robert Redford...
, who declined the offer, so when filming resumed two weeks later, Newman was directing as well as acting.
The fictional community of Wakonda, Oregon was filmed in various locations in
Lincoln County, OregonLincoln County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. In 2000, its population was 44,479. It is named for Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States. The seat of the county is Newport.-Economy:...
along the
Oregon CoastThe Oregon Coast is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon. The Oregon Coast forms the western border of the state, and stretches approximately from the Columbia River in the north to the Oregon–California state border in the south...
. These included
KernvilleKernville is an unincorporated community in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States. It is located near the intersection of U.S. Route 101 and Oregon Route 229, where the Siletz River enters Siletz Bay. There are two communities, known as "old" and "new" Kernville, in close proximity. Old Kernville...
and other locations along the
Siletz RiverThe Siletz River is a river, approximately 70 mi long, on the Pacific coast of Oregon in the United States. It drains 202 square miles...
, as well as
Yaquina BayYaquina Bay is a small bay partially within Newport, Oregon, United States, located where the Yaquina River flows into the Pacific Ocean. It is traversed by the Yaquina Bay Bridge...
, the
Yaquina RiverThe Yaquina River is a river, approximately 50 mi long, on the Pacific coast of Oregon in the United States. It drains an area of the Central Oregon Coast Range west of the Willamette Valley near Newport....
, and the city of
NewportNewport is a city in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States. It was incorporated in 1882, though the name dates back to the establishment of a post office in 1868...
, where several scenes were filmed in
Mo's Shanty Fish HouseMo's Restaurants is an American restaurant chain located on the Oregon Coast and headquartered in Newport, Oregon. Mo's are named after their original owner Mahave "Mo" Niemi, who was once described as "the stuff of legend in Newport"....
.
The film's theme song, "All His Children," with lyrics by
AlanAlan Bergman is an American lyricist and songwriter.Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UCLA. His involvement in the entertainment industry began in the early 1950s as a director of children's television shows...
and
Marilyn BergmanMarilyn Bergman is a composer, songwriter and author.She was born Marilyn Keith in Brooklyn, New York and studied psychology and English at New York University. She and her husband Alan Bergman, whom she married in 1958, were born in the same hospital and raised in the same Brooklyn neighborhood,...
and music by
Henry ManciniHenry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger. He is remembered particularly for being a composer of film and television scores. Mancini also won a record number of Grammy awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995...
, is performed by
Charley PrideCharley Frank Pride is an American country music singer.Pride's smooth baritone voice was featured on thirty-six number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. His greatest success came in the early-to-mid 1970s, when he was the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley...
.
The film was the first program to be broadcast by HBO. When it aired on commercial television in 1977, it was retitled
Never Give an Inch, a reference to the Stamper family philosophy.
Cast
- Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and auto racing enthusiast...
..... Hank Stamper
- Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor, best known for his roles as plain-speaking idealists. Fonda's subtle, naturalistic acting style preceded by many years the popularization of method acting....
..... Henry Stamper
- Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder , Days of Wine and Roses , and The Omen .-Early life:...
..... Viv Stamper
- Michael Sarrazin
Michael Sarrazin is a Canadian actor who found fame opposite Jane Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? .Sarrazin was born Jacques Michel Andre Sarrazin in Québec City, Québec. He served as a supporting actor in Sometimes a Great Notion...
..... Leland Stamper
- Richard Jaeckel
Richard Hanley Jaeckel was an American actor of film and television.Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a variety of characters in his fifty years and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors...
..... Joe Ben Stamper
- Cliff Potts
Cliff Potts is an American television and film actor most noted for supporting roles and guest appearances in more than sixty episodic television series between 1967 and 1999....
..... Andy Stamper
- Roy Jenson
Roy Jenson was a Canadian-born actor.Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he moved to Los Angeles with his family as a child. He joined the U.S. Navy and then graduated from UCLA...
..... Howie Elwood
- Joe Maross
Joe Maross is an American actor who appeared in movies and made guest appearances on many television series from the 1950's to the 1980's. He served in World War II and was station in Hawaii....
..... Floyd Evenwrite
Critical reception
Vincent CanbyVincent Canby was an American film critic.Canby was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Katharine Anne and Lloyd Canby. He became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there...
of the
New York Times called it "an extremely interesting, if impure (happily impure, I might add) example of a genre of action film that flourished in the 1930s in movies about tuna fishermen, bush pilots, high-wire repairmen and just about any physical pursuit you can think of . . . As in
Howard HawksHoward Winchester Hawks was an influential American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
's
Only Angels Have WingsOnly Angels Have Wings is a movie directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. It is generally regarded as being among Hawks' finest films, particularly in its portrayal of the professionalism of the pilots, its atmosphere, and the flying sequences.It inspired the 1983 television...
, these films are, at their best, considerably less simple-minded than they sound—being expressions of lives lived almost entirely in terms of rugged, essentially individualistic professionalism . . . Mr. Newman . . . has been remarkably successful both in creating vivid, quite complicated characters and in communicating the sense of beautiful idiocy that is the strength of the two older Stampers. As he showed in
Rachel, RachelRachel, Rachel is a 1968 American drama film produced and directed by Paul Newman. The screenplay by Stewart Stern is based on the 1966 novel A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence.-Plot:...
, Mr. Newman knows how to direct actors . . . [His] handling of the logging and action sequences . . . is also surprisingly effective, not because of any contemporary fanciness but because of what looks like a straight-forward confidence in the subject. My only real objection to the film, I think, is a certain impatience with the screenplay, which lumberingly sets up almost a very physical and emotional crisis that can (and, indeed) must erupt before this kind of movie can be said to have decently met its obligations."
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter.He is known for his film review column and for two television programs Sneak Previews and Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel...
of the
Chicago Sun-TimesThe Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is owned by the Sun-Times Media Group, which filed for bankruptcy protection on March 31, 2009.-History:...
rated the film three out of four stars and described Newman as "a director of sympathy and a sort of lyrical restraint. He rarely pushes scenes to their obvious conclusions, he avoids melodrama, and by the end of
Sometimes a Great Notion, we somehow come to know the Stamper family better than we expected to."
Awards and nominations
Richard Jaeckel was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorPerformance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
but lost to
Ben JohnsonBen "Son" Johnson, Jr. was an American motion picture actor who was mainly cast in Westerns. He was also a rodeo cowboy, stuntman, and rancher.-Personal life:...
for
The Last Picture ShowThe Last Picture Show is a 1971 film drama directed by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from a semi-autobiographical 1966 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry....
. Alan and Marilyn Bergman and Henry Mancini were nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Original SongThe Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
for "All His Children" but lost to
Isaac HayesIsaac Lee Hayes, Jr. was an American singer-songwriter, actor and musician. Hayes was one of the main creative forces behind southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served as both an in-house songwriter and producer with partner David Porter during the mid-1960s...
for
"Theme from Shaft""Theme from Shaft", written and recorded by Isaac Hayes in 1971, is the soul- and funk-styled theme song to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Shaft. The theme was released as a single two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label...
.
External links