The Sound and the Fury

A great source novel, a fine director, a terrific cast and two very good writers so what could possibly have gone wrong? Something obviously did for at best Martin Ritt's film of William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" never rises above camp which is fine by me just so long as you don't expect anything more than a trashy piece of Southern Gothic.

This was a Jerry Wald production and was aimed at an adult audience or maybe just an adult American audience who took these shenanigans for granted, (its Deep South setting has always been a source of fascination). It's a family saga, (naturally), and set on some kind of plantation, (naturally), though perhaps the most interesting aspect is that the black servants are much more forward thinking than their white employers.

A miscast Yul Brynner, (with wig), is the head of the household; Joanne Woodward, (too old for the part she is playing), is the rebelious young girl whose mother, (Margaret Leighton), abandoned her as a baby but who has now returned to the fold; Ethel Waters is the 'Mammy' character, Jack Warden is the 'idiot' uncle, Francoise Rosay is Brynner's mother and Stuart Whitman, the carny with an eye on Woodward. With such a disparate cast you could say they are a very strange family. On the plus side it certainly looks good; Charles G Clarke shot it in Cinemascope and it is certainly lush. It might have been better if it had been even trashier; as it is it's somewhat po-faced. If you must have Faulkner go with "The Tarnished Angels" or even "The Long Hot Summer".