Raintree County (film)
| Raintree County | |
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Theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Edward Dmytryk |
| Produced by | David Lewis |
| Screenplay by | Millard Kaufman |
| Based on |
Raintree County 1948 novel by Ross Lockridge, Jr. |
| Starring |
Montgomery Clift Elizabeth Taylor Eva Marie Saint Lee Marvin Rod Taylor |
| Music by | Johnny Green |
| Cinematography | Robert Surtees |
| Edited by | John D. Dunning |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) |
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Release date
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Running time
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182 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5,474,000 |
| Box office | $9,080,000 |
Raintree County is a 1957 American Technicolor melodramatic film set during the American Civil War, directed by Edward Dmytryk. It stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, and Lee Marvin.
It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Ross Lockridge, Jr.
In 1859, idealist John Wickliff Shawnessey (Montgomery Clift), a resident of Raintree County, Indiana, is distracted from his high school sweetheart Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint) by Susanna Drake (Elizabeth Taylor), a rich New Orleans girl. He has a brief and passionate affair with Susanna while she is visiting. Following her return to the South, she comes back to Indiana to tell Shawnessey she is pregnant with his child. John marries her out of honor and duty, leaving Nell heartbroken.
They move south to live with Susanna's family. He learns that Susanna's mother went insane and died in a suspicious fire, along with Susanna's father and a female slave implied as being the father's concubine. Susanna suspects that the slave may have been her biological mother. Gradually Susanna appears to be suffering from mental illness. She tells John that she faked pregnancy to trick him into marriage.
An abolitionist in the South, Shawnessey cannot fit in and they return to Freehaven in Raintree County before the outbreak of the Civil War. John works as a teacher and they have a child, Jimmy, born at the outbreak of the war. In the war's third year, Susanna develops severe paranoia and delusions. She flees Indiana with Jimmy and seeks refuge among her extended family in Georgia.
Shawnessey is determined to find her and recover his son. He enlists in the Union Army in hopes of encountering his wife and child. After fighting in terrible battles, he finds Jimmy at an old plantation and learns that Susanna has been placed in an insane asylum. He is wounded while carrying Jimmy back to Northern lines, and is discharged from the Union Army. Johnny searches for Susanna, finding her kept in terrible conditions at the asylum. He brings her back with him to Raintree County.
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