The Hill

"It's my right to cross any man's fence when I'm hunting." -- Robert Mitchum, Home from the Hill Robert Mitchum made an early transition to character roles when he starred in Home from the Hill, a high-pitched 1960 melodrama from director Vincente Minnelli. It hardly marked the end of his days as a leading man -- he still played a rebellious trouble-maker, only this time as a powerful Texas landowner -- but for the first time on screen he would have two grown sons, played by newcomers George Hamilton and George Peppard in roles that marked them both for stardom. MGM had picked up the rights to William Humphrey's debut novel as a vehicle for Clark Gable, but when the King proved unavailable, they seized on Mitchum as an inspired second choice. The star had just bought a farm in Maryland and was happy to spend his winter shooting in the warmer climes of Hollywood, Mississippi and Texas. He was a bit surprised, however, to find that Minnelli, best known for such sophisticated musicals as An American in Paris (1951) and Gigi (1958), had been assigned to the film. When they arrived at the film's location in Humphrey's hometown of Paris, Texas, Mitchum even quipped to the press that "Minnelli shoots all his pictures in Paris." But though Minnelli was still best-known at the time for his musicals, Home from the Hill represents another genre in which he would win critical acclaim, particularly in later years -- the melodrama. Like his first picture with Mitchum, Undercurrent (1946), and Some Came Running (1958), the film demonstrated his ability to mine the emotional resonance in tales of tangled family lives. The saga of Capt. Wade Hunnicutt (Mitchum), who finds himself drawn to an unacknowledged illegitimate son (Peppard) after years of estrangement from his wife (Eleanor Parker) and their child (Hamilton), provided him another opportunity for depicting repressed passions that burst forth in often startling acts of violence and betrayal. Helping greatly with this was the script by husband-and-wife team Harriet Frank, Jr. and Irving Ravetch. The two had already scored a hit with another tale of twisted family life in the South, The Long, Hot Summer (1958), and had a special talent for capturing the cadence of Southern speech. They also made some astute changes in Humphrey's original story -- creating the role of Mitchum's illegitimate son and making his wife a still desirable if bitter woman instead of the aging crone from the book -- that played up the story's conflicts. Minnelli would later call it "One of the few film scripts in which I didn't change a word." Location shooting started in another landmark of the literary South, William Faulkner's home base in Oxford, Mississippi. From the start, the two younger actors were star struck in Mitchum's presence and turned to him for advice. Peppard, who had studied at the Actor's Studio in New York, was rather shocked, however, when he asked Mitchum if he had studied the Stanislavsky Method, and the star replied, "No, but I've studied the Smirnoff Method." Peppard's highly emotional approach to his work created problems on the first day of shooting. When he couldn't muster the appropriate emotional reaction for a cemetery scene, claiming he needed more time, the actor was told by Minnelli that they were losing the light, and he would have to deliver fast. Peppard told Mitchum he was going to walk off the production, only to have Mitchum warn him, "It'll be a very expensive hike. I'm sure the studio can sue you. I'm certain it will be your last job. Even though you think Minnelli is wrong, do it his way." Once the production moved back to Hollywood, where electricians rather than nature controlled the light, Peppard had the luxury of more time to prepare for his on-camera performance. He also learned that Minnelli had a few things to teach him about acting. When he complained that his lines in the scene in which he and Hamilton compare notes on their childhood were too self-pitying, Minnelli advised that he play them in a simple straightforward manner. It was one of his most effective scenes in the film. One of the film's highlights was the hunt for a wild boar during which Hamilton's character tries to prove himself as manly as his father. The scene was actually shot in two different locations, with two different animals. The chase itself was filmed in the sulfurous swamps outside Paris, but because of budget problems, the production had to move back to Hollywood for the hunt's grand finale. Minnelli had the original boar flown in from Texas, only to find it dead the morning of shooting. The wild creature actually had a delicate constitution and had died from the shock of being transported. Instead, they had to use a large pig with tusks attached. Minnelli skillfully shot around him for the first part of the scene, in which the boar holds off Hamilton's hunting dogs. He only showed it at the end, when a healthy dose of tranquilizers created the illusion that Hamilton had killed the beast. Home from the Hill opened to strong reviews, even winning a slot at the Cannes Film Festival. But although critics praised Mitchum's work, most of the initial reviews said Peppard overshadowed him in what would turn out to be the best performance of the young actor's career. At year's end, however, the film, along with the The Sundowners (also 1960), would become the only one to win Mitchum a major acting award. He was named Best Actor by the National Board of Review (one of the industry's oldest awards-granting organizations), with Peppard receiving their Best Supporting Actor nod. Sadly, neither would receive an Oscar® nomination. In Mitchum's case, it's possible the voters couldn't choose between his two strong performances that year. Producer: Edmund Grainger, Sol C. Siegel Director: Vincente Minnelli Screenplay: Irving Ravetch& Harriet Frank, Jr. Based on the novel by William Humphrey Cinematography: Milton R. Krasner Art Direction: Preston Ames, George W. Davis Music: Bronislau Kaper Principal Cast: Robert Mitchum (Capt. Wade Hunnicutt), Eleanor Parker (Hannah Hunnicutt), George Peppard (Raphael "Rafe" Copley), George Hamilton (Theron Hunnicutt), Everett Sloane (Albert Halstead), Luana Patten (Elizabeth "Libby" Halstead), Anne Seymour (Sarah Halstead), Constance Ford (Opal Bixby), Denver Pyle (Mr. Bradley), Dub Taylor (Bob Skaggs), Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (Hugh Macauley). C-150m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning. by Frank Miller

Ossie Davis, the distinguished African-American character actor, director and civil rights activist, died of natural causes on February 4 in Miami Beach, where he was filming a movie. He was 87. He was born Raiford Chatman Davis on December 18, 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia. His parents called him "R.C." When his mother registered his birth, the county clerk misunderstood her and thought she said "Ossie" instead of "R.C.," and the name stuck. He graduated high school in 1936 and was offered two scholarships: one to Savannah State College in Georgia and the other to the famed Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, but he could not afford the tuition and turned them down. He eventually saved enough money to hitchhike to Washington, D.C., where he lived with relatives while attending Howard University and studied drama. As much as he enjoyed studying dramatics, Davis had a hunger to practice the trade professionally and in 1939, he left Howard University and headed to Harlem to work in the Rose McClendon Players, a highly respected, all-black theater ensemble in its day. Davis' good looks and deep voice were impressive from the beginning, and he quickly joined the company and remained for three years. With the onset of World War II, Davis spent nearly four years in service, mainly as a surgical technician in an all-black Army hospital in Liberia, serving both wounded troops and local inhabitants before being transferred to Special Services to write and produce stage shows for the troops. Back in New York in 1946, Davis debuted on Broadway in Jeb, a play about a returning black soldier who runs afoul of the Ku Klux Klan in the deep south. His co-star was Ruby Dee, an attractive leading lady who was one of the leading lights of black theater and film. Their initial romance soon developed into a lasting bond, and the two were married on December 9, 1948. With Hollywood making much more socially conscious, adult films, particularly those that tackled themes of race (Lonely Are The Brave, Pinky, Lost Boundaries all 1949), it wasn't long before Hollywood came calling for Davis. His first film, with which he co-starred with his wife Dee, was a tense Joseph L. Mankiewicz's prison drama with strong racial overtones No Way Out (1950). He followed that up with a role as a cab driver in Henry Hathaway's Fourteen Hours (1951). Yet for the most part, Davis and Dee were primarily stage actors, and made few film appearances throughout the decade. However, in should be noted that much of Davis time in the '50s was spent in social causes. Among them, a vocal protest against the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and an alignment with singer and black activist Paul Robeson. Davis remained loyal to Robeson even after he was denounced by other black political, sports and show business figures for his openly communist and pro-Soviet sympathies. Such affiliation led them to suspicions in the anti-Communist witch hunts of the early '50s, but Davis, nor his wife Dee, were never openly accused of any wrongdoing. If there was ever a decade that Ossie Davis was destined for greatness, it was undoubtly the '60s. He began with a hit Broadway show, A Raisin in the Sun in 1960, and followed that up a year later with his debut as a playwright - the satire, Purlie Victorious. In it, Davis starred as Purlie, a roustabout preacher who returns to southern Georgia with a plan to buy his former master's plantation barn and turn it into a racially integrated church. Although not an initial success, the play would be adapted into a Tony-award winning musical, Purlie years later. Yet just as important as his stage success, was the fact that Davis' film roles became much more rich and varied: a liberal priest in John Huston's The Cardinal (1963); an unflinching tough performance as a black soldier who won't break against a sadistic sergeant's racial taunts in Sidney Lumet's searing war drama The Hill (1965); and a shrewd, evil butler who turns the tables on his employer in Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969). In 1970, he tried his hand at film directing, and scored a hit with Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), a sharp urban action comedy with Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques as two black cops trying to stop a con artist from stealing Harlem's poor. It's generally considered the first major crossover film for the black market that was a hit with white audiences. Elsewhere, he found roles in some popular television mini-series such as King, and Roots: The Next Generation (both 1978), but for the most part, was committed to the theater. Happily, along came Spike Lee, who revived his film career when he cast him in School Daze (1988). Davis followed that up with two more Lee films: Do the Right Thing (1989), and Jungle Fever (1991), which also co-starred his wife Dee. From there, Davis found himself in demand for senior character parts in many films throughtout the '90s: Grumpy Old Men (1993), The Client (1994), I'm Not Rappaport (1996), and HBO's remake of 12 Angry Men (1997). Davis and Dee celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1998 with the publication of a dual autobiography, In This Life Together, and in 2004, they were among the artists selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. Davis had been in Miami filming an independent movie called Retirement with co-stars George Segal, Rip Torn and Peter Falk. In addition to his widow Dee, Davis is survived by three children, Nora Day, Hasna Muhammad and Guy Davis; and seven grandchildren. by Michael T. Toole