| Gone to Earth | |
|---|---|
 theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Written by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Based on | Gone to Earth byMary Webb |
| Produced by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Starring | Jennifer Jones David Farrar Cyril Cusack |
| Cinematography | Christopher Challis |
| Edited by | Reginald Mills |
| Music by | Brian Easdale |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films (UK) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £285,000[1] |
| Box office | £110,000 (UK)[2] |
Gone to Earth is a 1950 BritishTechnicolor film created by the director-writer team ofMichael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It starsJennifer Jones,David Farrar,Cyril Cusack andEsmond Knight. The film was significantly changed for the American market byDavid O. Selznick and retitledThe Wild Heart in 1952.
Gone to Earth is based on the 1917novel of the same name by authorMary Webb.[3] The novel was largely ignored when it first appeared, but it became better known in the 1930s during theneo-romantic revival.
Hazel Woodus is a child of nature in theShropshire countryside in 1897. She loves and understands all of the wild animals more than she does the people around her. Whenever she has problems, she consults the book of spells and charms left to her by hergypsy mother.
Local squire Jack Reddin sees Hazel and wants her, but she has already promised herself to theBaptist minister Edward Marston. A struggle for her body and soul ensues.
Filming onGone to Earth, which was shot inTechnicolor, began on 1 August 1949.[4] Studio filming took place atShepperton Studios inShepperton, Surrey, while most of the film was shot on location at many sites aroundMuch Wenlock inShropshire. Many locals were recruited as extras, such as the choir from a local Methodist church that appears in the film.[5]
The film was coproduced with American producerDavid O. Selznick, who had a penchant for dictating long and rambling notes to his directors[6] while under the influence ofamphetamines and flooded the production with memos, most of which were ignored.
| The Wild Heart | |
|---|---|
 1952 poster | |
| Directed by | Rouben Mamoulian(add'l scenes, uncredited)[7] |
| Written by | Rouben Mamoulian(add'l scenes, uncredited)[7] |
| Produced by | David O. Selznick(uncredited) |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 82 minutes |
Although he had been involved throughout the filming, Selznick disliked the finished film, and sued The Archers, Powell and Pressburger's production company, in order to change it. He lost the court case but discovered that he had the right to change the film for its American release.
Selznick had the film reedited and some extra scenes shot in Hollywood under directorRouben Mamoulian to create the version known asThe Wild Heart (1952).[7] Selznick's changes were mostly additions to the film: a prologue, explanatory scenes (often literally, with labels or inscriptions on items) and more closeups of his wife, Jennifer Jones. The most infamous of the alterations are the scenes at the end when Jones is supposedly carrying a tame fox—in the additional scenes, the fox is obviously a stuffed toy.
Selznick also deleted several scenes that he felt had lacked dramatic impact, some of which were major plot points. In his autobiographies, Powell claimed that Selznick only left about 35 minutes of the original film and that everything else in the American version was shot by Mamoulian.
The original version ofGone to Earth was fully restored by theBritish Film Institute'sNational Archive in 1985. ANew Statesman review called the restored film "one of the great British regional films" and, according to Powell's cinematographerChristopher Challis, "one of the most beautiful films ever to be shot of the English countryside."[8]
Both versions of the film are now available in the U.S. on Blu-ray disc fromKino Lorber Studio Classics (under license fromThe Walt Disney Company and current copyright holderABC).
The film is extensively referenced inJonathan Coe's novelThe Rain Before It Falls (2007), in which two of the characters are identified as extras who appear in the foreground in one of the film's early scenes (around 8:25).