Long Days Journey Into Night (Olivier)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C     Film: B+

 

 

There have been a few adaptations of Eugene O’Neill’s startling play Long Days Journey Into Night, including the famous film portrayal starring Katharine Hepburn under the direction of Sidney Lumet.  There have also been a few TV versions, which were in 1973, 1987, and 1996.  The 1987 version starred Jack Lemmon and the 1996 version aired on PBS to gain recognition, but the subject of this review is the 1973 version starring the great Laurence Olivier in the title of James Tyrone Sr.

 

This version is said to be one of the most compelling versions, which BFS video has seen fit for DVD release in this 2-disc version, which runs 160 minutes.  That still makes it one of the shorter versions as well, but it holds all the glue of the original play and then some. The story is about the great American family at its worst with James Tyrone Sr. as an aging actor, but his attitude has caused those around him to decline.  His wife has been a morphine addict since the birth of their youngest son.  His eldest son is an alcoholic unable to find steady work therefore he has been forced to take up his father’s profession.  Their son Edmund was away with the navy, but has returned home sick.  The biggest problem within each character and as a family is the fact that each person is self-centered and has no interesting in helping neither themselves nor one another. No one in the family really knows what they want or what they want to do, therefore the family falls apart from the inside out.

 

The strongest part about this version of the play is its structure and the performances.  Olivier rarely did TV performances, but this one was an exception for which he won an Emmy.  Also starring is Constance Cummings as Mary, James wife, Denis Quilley as James Jr., and Ronald Pickup as Edmund.  These four lives crash together one warm summer night in 1912 as a storm outside is approaching.  Peter Wood, a solid TV director who had done a TV version of Hamlet just three years prior to this, directed the film.  Perhaps the only hurting fact with this version is that it has a TV feel and could have been made into a fine film version. 

 

BFS has issued a rather decent version for a somewhat forgotten adaptation.  The film stretches across both discs and there are a few supplements including such as trivia, and a DVD-Rom feature that allows access to other plays by O’Neill including Beyond the Horizon, Marco Millions, and The Emperor Jones.  The full-frame picture has its drawbacks, but look nothing short of good considering this was shot on older analog tape, which has survived somewhat good through the years.  There is a softness present throughout, but nothing overly bad and makes for watching still good enough.  The audio is a strange 2.0 monophonic presentation that delivers ok, but gives very little depth or dimension to the performance.

 

Fans of Olivier of the play will certainly appreciate this version being available on a format like DVD; despite some of its limitations at least we have a better version than VHS or waiting for a TV station to run this.

 

 

-   Nate Goss