Tomorrow (1972 film)

Tomorrow
Directed by	Joseph Anthony
Written by	Story: William Faulkner Screenplay & Play: Horton Foote
Produced by	Gilbert Pearlman Paul Roebling
Starring	Robert Duvall Olga Bellin
Cinematography	Allan Green
Edited by	Reva Schlesinger
Music by	Irwin Stahl
Distributed by	Filmgroup Productions
Release date	9 April 1972 (US)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Tomorrow is a 1972 American drama film directed by Joseph Anthony. The screenplay was written by Horton Foote, adapted from a play he wrote for Playhouse 90^[1] that was based on a 1940 short story by William Faulkner in the short story collection Knight's Gambit. The PG-rated film was filmed in the Mississippi counties of Alcorn and Itawamba. Although released in 1972, it saw limited runs in the U.S. until re-released about ten years later.

The opening courthouse scenes of Tomorrow were shot at the historic Jacinto Courthouse in Alcorn County, Mississippi. The courthouse, built in 1854, has been refurbished and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The majority of the film was shot in the Bounds Crossroads community of Itawamba County, at the sawmill on the farm of Chester Russell, the grandfather of singer Tammy Wynette (Virginia Wynette Pugh), who lived most of her young years there with her grandparents until she married in 1960. The sawmill building, where much of the film was shot, was built just for the film. Chester Russell played one of the jurors and can be seen when the jury is deliberating in the opening courthouse scenes. Some of the film props were also leased from James Franks Antique Museum of Tupelo, Mississippi.^[2] Lead Robert Duvall, the only known surviving actor from the film, has called Tomorrow one of his personal favorites.^[3]

Plot[]

An isolated and lonely farmer in rural Mississippi takes in a pregnant drifter who has been abandoned by the father of her child. Told in flashback, twenty years later, the farmer is on a jury and the film explores why he is the lone holdout in the murder trial. In a steady and methodic fashion it is revealed the young man is the son of Olga Bellin, the pregnant drifter, with whom Duvall had had an intense personal involvement.

Main cast[]

Release[]

The film opened at the 68th Street Playhouse in New York City and only played 32 playdates around the United States.^[4] It was re-released in June 1978 at The Public Theater in New York City.^[4]

Critical reception[]

The film was praised by Rex Reed, Gene Shalit, Archer Winsten and Jeffrey Lyons, with Reed stating that he believed it was the best depiction of Faulkner ever screened.^[4] Vincent Canby of The New York Times overall did not care for the film but acknowledged it was well-intentioned:

[T]he Horton Foote screenplay is less an adaptation than an enlargement, in the playwright's dumbest, television-fake literary style of the 1950s. Tomorrow is not one of Faulkner's most interesting works... Mr. Foote's attempts at pretty po' fo'k dialogue come very close to the ludicrous... Even if the movie's intentions are decent, as reflected in the accurate look of the production, filmed in Mississippi, the effect is mostly patronizing.^[5]

In the annual Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, the film was rated 3½ stars, noting that "Bellin is excellent. Duvall astonishingly good in best-ever screen presentation of the author's work".^[6]

Trivia[]

The American indie rock band Grandaddy sampled the film for their song "Fentry".^{[citation needed]}

See also[]

• List of American films of 1972

References[]

External links[]

• Tomorrow at IMDb
• Tomorrow at Rotten Tomatoes
• Tomorrow at AllMovie
• Tomorrow at AFI Catalog

This 1970s drama film–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

• v
• t