I Walk the Line
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
John Frankenheimer
Gregory Peck
Tuesday Weld
Estelle Parsons
Ralph Meeker
Lonny Chapman
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Synopsis
Pursuing a speeding pickup truck, Henry Tawes, middle-aged sheriff in the small town of Sutton, Tennessee, encounters adolescents Buddy and Alma McCain. Alma later appears in his office, claiming to have been stranded in town by another brother, Clay. When Tawes drives her home, she seduces him. As the sheriff is bored by his simple wife, Ellen-Haney, and Alma's moonshiner father, Carl, desires legal protection, a passionate affair ensues. The arrival of Federal agent Bascomb, however, complicates the arrangement, forcing the sheriff to demand destruction of the McCains' still. Meanwhile, sheriff's deputy Hunnicutt becomes suspicious of his supervisor. While investigating the McCains he attacks Alma and is killed by her family. Hoping to start a new life with Alma in California, the lawman disposes of the deputy's corpse in the reservoir. Upon returning, he discovers the McCains departed. Tawes successfully pursues the family, only to discover Alma unwilling to join him. Slashing Tawes with a baling hook, she leaves her wounded lover on the highway.
Director
John Frankenheimer
Cast
Gregory Peck
Tuesday Weld
Estelle Parsons
Ralph Meeker
Lonny Chapman
Charles Durning
Jeff Dalton
Freddie Mccloud
Jane Rose
J. C. Evans
Margaret Ann Morris
Bill Littleton
Leo Yates
Dodo Denney
Crew
Anthony Bavero
Henry Berman
Albert Brenner
Louis Brown
Johnny Cash
Harold D. Cohen
Robert Johnson
Harold F. Kress
Ben Lane
Edward Lewis
Edward Lewis
Marvin March
Tom Overton
Phil Parslow
Jack Petty
Arthur Piantadosi
Howard Pine
Frank Prehoda
Alvin Sargent
David M. Walsh
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Articles
I Walk the Line
I Walk the Line, which was partially filmed on location in Tennessee, has a literary pedigree just like Lolita. It's based on the 1968 novel An Exile by Madison Jones, a Nashville native and writer-in-residence at Auburn University. No less than Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren said Jones was "among the best of his generation." Adapting the novel to the screen was Alvin Sargent who later wrote Ordinary People (1980), Nuts (1987) and Bobby Deerfield (1977).
The first thing to be changed was the title. The film was originally titled September Country but was changed to I Walk the Line based on Johnny Cash's 1956 hit song. In fact, Cash re-recorded the title song and ended up with enough material for a soundtrack album. One of the songs from the film, "Flesh and Blood," even became a number one country hit in 1971.
Director John Frankenheimer originally wanted Gene Hackman to play sheriff Tawes but Columbia pictures insisted he use Peck since the actor was under contract to them and was appearing in two other Columbia films in release at the time. The director commented in the book John Frankenheimer: A Conversation that it wasn't a typical role for Peck. "The audience just wouldn't accept him in that part. And the sadness was that we had a bunch of very good actors in the movie: Tuesday Weld as the bootlegger's daughter Peck falls for, Ralph Meeker as the deputy, Estelle Parsons. I cast my wife's grandfather, who was eighty-two years old, to play Peck's father. His name was J.C. Evans, and the part called for him to be seventy years old. He told my wife, "If john wants me to play this old man, they're going to have to make me up to look old." He was quite wonderful. Will Geer dubbed his part eventually."
In terms of his own feelings about I Walk the Line, Frankenheimer stated, "It captured a certain part of the country very, very well. And I think we captured those mountain people very well, with their family loyalties and their inbreeding and their own kind of morality. They didn't think making moonshine was immoral, they just knew it was illegal."
Director: John Frankenheimer
Producer: Harold D. Cohen, Edward Lewis
Screenplay: Alvin Sargent, based on the novel by Madison Jones
Cinematography: David M. Walsh
Editor: Henry Berman
Art Direction: Albert Brenner
Music: Johnny Cash
Cast: Gregory Peck (Sheriff Henry Tawes), Tuesday Weld (Alma McCain), Estelle Parsons (Ellen Haney), Ralph Meeker (Carl McCain), Lonny Chapman (Bascomb), Charles Durning (Hunnicutt).
C-95m. Letterboxed.
by Lang Thompson
I Walk the Line
Quotes
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Notes
Location scenes filmed in Tennessee and northern California. The working title of this film is An Exile.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States Winter January 1, 1970
Director John Frankenheimer died July 6, 2002 of a stroke at the age of 72.
Released in United States Winter January 1, 1970