Author Davis Grubb illustrated moments from the book, and on Laughton's request sent some 100 sketches in all showing what a scene looked like in his mind.
What else? Mitchum was first choice for producer Paul Gregory and Laughton, though at one point Olivier became interested - luckily United Artists wanted to stick with Mitchum.
Credited writer James Agee was drunk the entire time he 'worked' on an unfilmable screenplay which Laughton essentially rewrote without credit. (They hadn't realised that the same thing had happened on Agee's The African Queen - John Huston and Paul Viertel had rewritten it uncredited.)
Lilian Gish is absolutely wonderful in this; in fact she only occurred to Laughton because he had been screening D.W. Griffith films in preparation (films he shared also with DP Stanley Cortez).
The result is a strange and fascinating film, a horror movie fairy tale, which absolutely flopped critically and commercially.
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| According to Mitchum, "It was a midget riding a miniature horse, and Charles shot that on a stage." (Projections 7, 1997) |
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