Cannery Row *** (1982, Nick Nolte, Debra Winger, Audra Lindley) – Classic Movie Review 10,491

Writer-director David S Ward’s 1982 drama Cannery Row stars Nick Nolte and Debra Winger as baseball player turned marine biologist Doc and feisty floozy Suzy DeSoto. The movie is set in the 1940s, in Cannery Row, Monterey, California, that is the section of town where the now closed fish canneries are located.

Nolte and Winger are the main assets of this stylish movie version of John Steinbeck’s novellas Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. The two talented stars fight out their war-of-love engagingly, while in the background the colourful 40s waterfront down and out low-life play matchmaker. Frank McRae particularly enjoys himself as Hazel, and Audra Lindley as Fauna Flood and M Emmet Walsh as Mack are also invaluable.

The film is held back by Ward’s artificial style and halting pace, but the performances, the cinematography by Sven Nykvist and the strong score by Jack Nitzsche make it worthwhile.

John Huston provides the voice of the Narrator.

In June 2020 came news that Cannery Row is available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive.

Winger and Nolte re-united for Everybody Wins (1990).

Steinbeck‘s novel Sweet Thursday was adapted into the Broadway musical Pipe Dream in 1955 by Rodgers and Hammerstein and proved a rare box-office flop for them. It was revived in 2012 in a successful semi-staged production by the New York group Encores! and led to an acclaimed cast recording.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,491

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