Peer Gynt
Cast & Crew
David Bradley
Charlton Heston
Betty Hanisee
Mrs. Herbert Hyde
Lucielle Powell
Charles Paetow
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In Norway in 1871, Peer Gynt's mother Aase chastises her ne'er-do-well son for failling to provide for the family. She warns him that his sweetheart, Ingrid Haegstad, is about to marry Mads Moen, a shy villager at whom Peer sneers. Although Peer promises to bring honor to his mother, he continues to tease her, shun work and mistreat women. Later, at Ingrid's wedding, he terrorizes the other villagers but is stopped in his tracks by the arrival of a beautiful newcomer, Solveig. Solveig, however, spurns his rough attentions, and in response, he abducts Ingrid, carries her into the mountains and seduces her. Afterward, she begs him to marry her, but he pushes her away and runs to the forest, where three cowherd girls ply him with fruit and kisses. Deep in the forest, Peer meets the Woman in Green, who tells him she is the daughter of the Dovre-King, or the Boyg, a troll who rules the mountains. At first they play together, but she soon leads him to her father's castle, where he is imprisoned, tied to a stake and threatened by masked figures. As Peer is attacked, the Boyg taunts him but Peer eventually escapes. He builds himself a hut in the mountains, where Solveig soon arrives to inform him that she has run away from her family in order to live with him. Just as they settle into domestic happiness, however, the Woman in Green returns, now an old hag with a disfigured child, who she claims is Peter's son. She informs him that only when he banishes Solveig will she return to her beautiful form, and when he refuses to do so, she warns him that she will plague them forever. To protect Solveig, Peer leaves, asking her to wait for him. He returns to his mother's cottage just in time to comfort her before she dies, after which he leaves for the seacoast. Within five years, Peer, now known as Sir Peter Gynt, has earned a fortune as a trader and lives in Morocco. One night, three competitors ply him with drinks until he signs a contract turning over all his assets to them, rendering him bankrupt once again. When he wakes the next day, he travels through the desert, stopping to seduce a famed dancer named Anitra. After charming her into falling in love with him, however, he leaves. Years later, Peer, now a ship captain in the North Sea, battles a storm that capsizes the ship, and saves himself at the cost of another man's life. He returns once again to his hometown in Norway, where he witnesses his own funeral. Feeling doomed by this vision, he wanders the hill, and when a thin man asks him where he can find Peer Gynt in order to save him, Peer scornfully instructs him to search in South America. Soon after, a button molder approaches and informs Peer that, because of his evil ways, he must melt Peet down into raw materials, like a button. Now desperate for his life, Peer argues that he has not been complete failure as a man, but cannot convince the button molder until he hears Solveig, now an old woman, singing. The button molder, realizing that Solveig's vision of Peer can redeem him, agrees to give him one more chance to "set his home in order."
Director
David Bradley
Cast
Charlton Heston
Betty Hanisee
Mrs. Herbert Hyde
Lucielle Powell
Charles Paetow
Alan Eckhart
Katherine Elfstrom
Morris Wilson
George B. Moll
Betty Barton
Audrey Wedlock
Sarah Merrill
Alan Heston
Roy Eggert Jr.
David Bradley
Warren Mackenzie
Rose Andrews
Thomas A. Blair
Katherine Bradley
Anty Ball
Alice Badgerow
Farncis X. Bushman
Robert Cooper
Rod Maynard
Jane Willanovsky
Crew
Thomas A. Blair
David Bradley
David Bradley
David Bradley
Elizabeth Cole
Robert Cooper
Roy Eggert
Roy Eggert Jr.
Katherine Elfstrom
Sally Hyde
John Jerrad
Rod Maynard
Philip Mcconnell
George B. Moll
Richard Roth
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The film's opening title card reads: "Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt." Although Peer Gynt was published in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1867, it was not produced on the stage until February 1876, when it opened in Christiania, Norway. A written foreword to the film reads: "The third version of Peer Gynt was made in 1941, as an independent experiment, welding Ibsen's drama visually, and building the action of the play around the pulse and mood of Grieg's music. A cast of non-professionals with little theatre acting experience was employed. Locations in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin, including the shores of Lake Michigan and a Norweigan-style village, were utilized to achieve a remarkably authentic atmosphere. The produciton bears evidence of influences from films such as Disney's Fantasia and Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream, in its fusion of drama and music. Peer Gynt was Charlton Heston's first screen role; he was then 17. Both he and producer/director David Bradley went on to make other films together, notably Julius Caesar, made in 1950. Shortly after, both embarked on separate Hollywood careers. Revised and re-edited with added new material."
Although both Audrey Wedlock and Sarah Merrill are listed in the onscreen credits as "Woman in Green," Wedlock plays the character as a young woman and Merrill plays her after her transformation in to a hag. The film was produced as an independent experiment by then-twenty-one-year-old Northwestern University student David Bradley. Bradley shot the film entirely in black and white, except for the section in the kindgom of "The Boyg," which is tinted first green, then blue, and finally red when "Peer" is under attack. According to an August 1941 Chicago Tribune article, the cast and crew went without pay, and the film was shot entirely on location in Starved Rock, Wisconsin Dells, Waukegan and Gary Dunes, WI, as well as in Northern Illinois and Lake Michigan. According to a 1942 International Photographer article, stock footage of "exotic locations" was used.
In 1941, upon being drafted in the Army, Bradley had to hurriedly wrap post-production. Although the film had its premiere in its rough version in August 1941, it was not until 1965 that Bradley was able re-edit the film the way he desired and add new material, including the voice of silent movie star Francis X. Bushman as "The Boyg." The credits for the 1965 version, which was released by The Willow Corporation, also include Katherine Bradley, Anty Ball, Alice Badgerow, Robert Cooper, Rod Maynard and Jane Willanovsky, but it has not been determined if these actors appeared in the 1941 version without credit, or appeared for the first time as part of the new footage added to the 1965 version. The 1965 version also names Thomas A. Blair and Roy Eggert, Jr. as associate producers.
