| Our Town | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Directed by | Sam Wood |
| Screenplay by | Harry Chandlee Frank Craven Thornton Wilder |
| Based on | Our Town(1938 play) byThornton Wilder |
| Produced by | Sol Lesser |
| Starring | William Holden Martha Scott Fay Bainter |
| Cinematography | Bert Glennon |
| Edited by | Sherman Todd |
| Music by | Aaron Copland |
Production company | Sol Lesser Productions |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1 million (approx)[1] |
Our Town is a 1940 Americandramaromance film adaptation of the 1938play of the same name byThornton Wilder, starringMartha Scott as Emily Webb, andWilliam Holden as George Gibbs. The cast also includedFay Bainter,Beulah Bondi,Thomas Mitchell,Guy Kibbee andFrank Craven. It was adapted byHarry Chandlee, Craven and Wilder, and directed bySam Wood.
The film was a faithful reproduction of the play except for two significant changes: the film used scenery, whereas the play had not; the events of the third act, which in the play revolve around the death of one of the main characters, were turned into a dream from which she awakens, allowing her to resume a normal life. ProducerSol Lesser worked with Wilder in creating these changes. Wilder wrote Lesser that "Emily should live.... In a movie you see the peopleso close to that a distant relation is established. In the theater they are halfway abstractions in an allegory; in the movie they are very concrete.... [I]t’s even disproportionately cruel that she die. Let her live...."[2]
A radio adaptation of the film onLux Radio Theater on May 6, 1940, used the altered film ending.
The U.S. copyright of the film was not renewed after its first term expired in 1968.[citation needed]
The residents of the small town of Grover's Corners in New Hampshire live peacefully and in harmony. Dr. Gibbs, his wife Julie, and their two children George and Rebecca are the neighbors of the Webbs, who have a lovely daughter, Emily, and a younger son, Wally. George and Emily fall in love, and after three years of courting they get married. Time goes by and Emily becomes very sick after the birth of her second child. While she is dying, she meets all the people who have left this world in the years before. Emily, who remains in a kind of in-between world, remembers her previous life, but, in the end, she decides to live, and she wakes up from her dream.
Aaron Copland accepted the invitation to compose the musical score for the screen version of life in the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. He explained, "For the film version, they were counting on the music to translate the transcendental aspects of the story. I tried for clean and clear sounds and in general used straight-forward harmonies and rhythms that would project the serenity and sense of security of the story." Copland arranged about ten minutes from the film score for a suite. It is dedicated toLeonard Bernstein.[5]
| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards[6] | Outstanding Production | Sol Lesser | Nominated |
| Best Actress | Martha Scott | Nominated | |
| Best Original Score | Aaron Copland | Nominated | |
| Best Scoring | Nominated | ||
| Best Sound Recording | Thomas T. Moulton | Nominated | |
| Best Art Direction, Black-and-White | Lewis J. Rachmil | Nominated | |
| National Board of Review Awards[7] | Top Ten Films | 4th Place | |
| Operas | |
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| Ballets | |
| Orchestral works | |
| Concertos | |
| Incidental and film music | |
| Vocal music | |
| Piano music | |
| Namesakes | |
| Related articles | |
Authority control databases: National |
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