The Sea of Grass (film)
| The Sea of Grass | |
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| Directed by | Elia Kazan |
| Written by |
Conrad Richter Vincent Lawrence |
| Starring |
Katharine Hepburn Spencer Tracy Melvyn Douglas Robert Walker Phyllis Thaxter |
| Music by | Herbert Stothart |
| Cinematography | Harry Stradling |
| Edited by | Robert Kern |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,349,000 |
| Box office | $4,689,000 |
The Sea of Grass is a 1947 Western drama film set in the American Southwest. It was directed by Elia Kazan and based on the 1936 novel of the same name by Conrad Richter. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Melvyn Douglas.
Kazan was reportedly displeased with the resulting film and discouraged people from seeing it.
The film opens in St. Louis, Missouri, on Lutie Cameron's (Katharine Hepburn) wedding day. She has had a short courtship with a cattle rancher of New Mexico. As she dresses, she receives a telegram from her fiancé Col. Brewton (Spencer Tracy) telling her to board the train for New Mexico to marry him in the small town of Salt Fork. The first person she meets in town is Brice Chamberlain (Melvyn Douglas), who warns her of likely unhappiness with Brewton, locally considered a tyrant. He takes her to the courthouse, where she sees Brewton testifying against a settler who had tried to stake a claim to part of the government-owned land where Brewton runs his cattle.
Back at the ranch, Brewton takes her out to see the vast prairie. He explains how he had fought with Indians to run his cattle there and to make it fit for ranching. He runs his cattle on government-owned land, and opposes homesteaders because he believes the Great Plains do not get enough rain to sustain farming. Lutie struggles to understand Brewton's attraction to the forbidding prairie, but she tries to make the most of her new home.
She convinces Brewton to allow a family of settlers onto the ranch, because she had befriended one of them. Brewton warns her that the settlers will not last more than six months, due to some unforeseeable, but certain, circumstance. When Lutie visits the settlers as they build their sod house, she is surprised to see Chamberlain. He is visiting the settlers because he had helped them file their claim on the land. He rides with Lutie on her way back home and confesses his attraction to her. Lutie confesses her struggles to adapt to her new home and her husband's emotional distance. Lutie gives birth to a daughter, Sara Beth.
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