Home from the Hill **** (1960, Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Hamilton, George Peppard, Everett Sloane) – Classic Movie Review 7443

Vincente Minnelli’s 1960 film Home from the Hill is a satisfying chunk of American Southern romantic drama with Robert Mitchum and Eleanor Parker.

Director Vincente Minnelli’s 1960 American Metrocolor CinemaScope drama film Home from the Hill is a satisfying chunk of American Southern romantic melodrama about the influential Hunnicutt family in Texas.

In particular it is all about wealthy womanising landowner Captain Wade Hunnicutt (Robert Mitchum)’s conflicts with his wife Hannah (Eleanor Parker), his loyal employee Rafe Copley and illegitimate son Theron Hunnicutt (George Peppard and George Hamilton in their big movie breaks).

Home from the Hill tells a powerful, sprawling yarn, based on the 1958 novel by William Humphrey, with the help of strong acting (particularly from Everett Sloane as Albert Halstead), a glossy MGM production and florid direction from Minnelli.

Although Mitchum and Parker impress in powerful performances as the warring couple, it is the two young discoveries who steal the spotlight. MGM took the hint and put Peppard and Hamilton under contract.

The adapted screenplay is by those fine husband-and-wife writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr, who had written The Long, Hot Summer and went on to pen Hud, Norma Rae and Stanley & Iris. They tried to capture Southern speech, made changes in Humphrey’s story to beef up the conflicts, created the character of Wade’s illegitimate son and altered his wife’s character into a bitter but still desirable woman. Minnelli said it was ‘one of the few film scripts in which I didn’t change a word.’

Also in the cast are Luana Patten Luana Patten as ‘Libby’ Halstead, Constance Ford, Ray Teal, Anne Seymour, Ken Renard, Hilda Haynes, Charlie Biggs, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Dan Sheridan, Orville Sherman and Dub Taylor.

It runs a hefty 150 minutes.

The title comes from the last line of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short poem Requiem.

The film was a hit, earning $5,075,000, but it lost $122,000 because of its high production cost.

Hamilton recalled: ‘What Vincente Minnelli later told me he saw in me was that I had the quality of a privileged but sensitive mama’s boy.’

It was planned to star Clark Gable and Bette Davis.

It is set in Clarksville, Texas, where the opening scene was filmed. Filming also took place in Oxford, Mississippi near the University of Mississippi campus, and Paris, Texas and its surrounding area. Hunting scenes were filmed near Lake Crook, and other scenes were filmed south of Cuthand, Texas in Red River County.

The cast are Robert Mitchum as Captain Wade Hunnicutt, Eleanor Parker as Hannah Hunnicutt, George Peppard as Raphael ‘Rafe’ Copley, George Hamilton as Theron Hunnicutt, Everett Sloane as Albert Halstead, Luana Patten as Elizabeth ‘Libby’ Halstead, Anne Seymour as Sarah Halstead, Constance Ford as Opal Bixby, Ken Renard as butler Chauncey, Ray Teal as Dr Reuben Carson, Hilda Haynes, Charlie Biggs, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams, Dan Sheridan, Orville Sherman and Dub Taylor.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7443

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