Norwood ** (1970, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Joe Namath, Carol Lynley, Pat Hingle, Dom DeLuise) – Classic Movie Review 10,120

Director Jack Haley Jr’s 1970 comedy drama Norwood is an inoffensive but uninspired vehicle for amiable singer Glen Campbell (reteamed with Kim Darby as their reward for appearing in producer Hal B Wallis’s 1969 True Grit) as a Vietnam War marine veteran unfortunately called Norwood Pratt, who, after coming back to Texas, takes off as a singing performer on the New York radio airwaves.

Along the way Norwood Pratt meets jilted Rita Lee Chipman (Kim Darby) and offers to marry her when she finds she is having a baby by Wayne Walker (Sammy Jackson).

Marguerite Roberts’s screenplay is again based on a novel by Charles Portis, the author of True Grit. Roberts also wrote the True Grit screenplay. She liked to write roles for tough men: ‘I was weaned on stories about gunfighters and I know all the lingo.’

Director Jack Haley Jr casts his father Jack Haley, remembered as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939), as Mr Reese.

Campbell sings Norwood (Me and My Guitar), I’ll Paint You a Song, The Repo Man, Everything a Man Could Ever Need and Down Home (all written by Mac Davis) and Ol’ Norwood’s Comin’ Home and Marie (both written by Mitchell Torok and Ramona Redd)

Glen Campbell died on 8 August 2017, age 81, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Charles Portis, the True Grit novelist, died on 17 February 2020 at 86.

Also in the cast are Joe Namath, Carol Lynley, Pat Hingle, Dom DeLuise, Sammy Jackson, Jack Haley, Tisha Sterling, Gil Lamb, Cass Daley, Leigh French, Billy Curtis, Davis Huddleston, Edith Atwater and Joe Oakey.

Norwood is directed by Jack Haley Jr, runs 96 minutes, is made by Wallis-Hazen, is released by Paramount Pictures (1970) (US) and Paramount British Pictures (1970) (UK), is written by Marguerite Roberts, based on the book The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy, is shot in 35 mm and Technicolor by Robert B Hauser, is produced by Hal B Wallis, is scored by Al de Lory, with production designs by Walter H Tyler.

Both Marguerite Roberts and her writer husband John Sanford refused to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee and were blacklisted by Hollywood for more than a decade.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,120

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