The Trip to Bountiful

This is a wonderful example of why television in the 1950's was known as the golden age. Lillian Gish gives a wonderful performance in the role Geraldine Page later won an Oscar for. She is an older lady looking to return to her hometown of Bountiful so she can regain her dignity and her happiness there. It is probably her best performance on film, except for The Night of the Hunter. Film also features John Beal as her weak son and an early Eileen Heckart performance as her annoying and selfish daughter-in-law. Both give fine performances. Also there is the beautiful young Eva Marie Saint in one of her many live television performances as the young war bride who Gish befriends on the bus trip to Bountiful. This was written for television by Horton Foote and it is a truly moving and beautiful hour.

Done in 1953; directed by Vincent J. Donehue; written by Horton Foote from his play. With Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish, and Eva Marie Saint. 60 min. Also filmed as The Trip to Bountiful (1985).

Lillian Gish plays an older woman, living with her domineering daughter in law and weak son in a small apartment. The daughter in law only want Lillian's pension check and for her to do the cooking and cleaning. Lillian runs away and fulfills her dream of visiting Bountiful, the small town where she raised her son.

An interesting look at a complete live television program. The showing at the New York Museum of Modern Art also included the Goodyear commercials, also mostly broadcast live. Lillian Gish is on screen most of the show and it is interesting to see her revert to some mannerisms reminiscent of silent movie acting.

I just wanted to express my disagreement with labeling "The Trip to Bountiful" as TV movie. It was a 60 minute live broadcast, so it is certainly not a "TV movie" in the sense of later productions of greater running time, typically 90 to 120 minutes, and shot on film. In the film community, TV movies are actually called MOW's. This was because of an ABC weekly show called "Movie of the Week" which ran 90 minutes. The programs that we now know as TV movies began with a remake of "The Killers" by Universal television. The cast included Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, Clu Gulager and Ronald Reagan. The picture, directed by Don Siegel, was deemed as excessively violent for television and ended up as a theatrical release. So the year 1964 is considered the inaugural year and TV movies soon became a programming staple for the networks.

Try, try, try to get your hands on this amazing tape of Lilian Gish in Horton Foote's beautiful and simple teleplay. It's a gem of golden-age live television, of American theatre (legendary Gish performed the role on stage as well) and of American Southern Literature. The story is sweet but not saccharine and its moving without being melodramatic. Someone is bound to comment that its "too slow" but I'll tell you now that the piece is just slow enough! Mrs. Carrie Watts desire to go back to Bountiful one more time before she dies is a poignent comment on the changing landscape of America and on the small tragedies that come with aging. Foote is a screenwriter and playwright of the highest calibre. What a treasure!