General Admission: $13.50 | Belcourt Members: $9
*Or free with purchase of a ticket to WILD RIVER (Sat, May 30 | Mon, Jun 1) or a Ticket 5-Pack to Milestones of the Last Quarter Century
Sat, Jun 6 at 10:00am: Post-screening discussion with Allison Inman, Belcourt education and engagement director and director of the film, and T. Minton, Belcourt archivist and public historian | BUY TICKETS
Part of Milestones of the Last Quarter Century
In the 57-minute documentary MUD ON THE STARS: STORIES FROM ELIA KAZAN’S WILD RIVER, residents of Bradley County, Tennessee, celebrate the 50th anniversary of Elia Kazan’s film that put them on the big screen. In 1959, Kazan and crew spent months living among the locals, giving movie roles to dozens and revving the local economy. In exchange he got the gritty realism that makes his movies unique. WILD RIVER was the first major motion picture to be shot in its entirety in Tennessee, and tales from production are legendary in the region. From the debate about who really owned the movie’s blue tick hound dog to the story of Montgomery Clift’s struggles with alcohol on set, this documentary recounts the making of WILD RIVER from the hometown point of view.
The documentary includes cast members like Judy Harris Spurgeon, who played Lee Remick’s 5-year-old daughter, and many others who have passed away since its production in 2011, including Frances Cheatham, who played the child’s nanny; and Walter Goode, longtime mayor of Charleston, Tennessee, who was an extra in the film at age 12. MUD ON THE STARS explores local opinions of the TVA and racial attitudes on and off set. It focuses on the work of David Swafford, a second-shift welder whose off-time is spent writing a book about WILD RIVER — in a series of spiral-bound notebooks.
MUD ON THE STARS, named after William Bradford Huie’s novel that the film was partially based upon, was produced by Life Care Media Center and the Cleveland Bradley Chamber of Commerce. The documentary was made primarily for the people of Bradley County to commemorate the 50th anniversary of WILD RIVER. Belcourt education and engagement director Allison Inman, a former Life Care Centers of America employee, was hired to direct the film.
“As a native Alabamian who grew up in the shadow of the Tennessee Valley Authority and Wilson Dam, I believe the ideal extra for WILD RIVER (1960), Elia Kazan’s masterpiece, isn’t the Richard Schickel audio commentary included on the Fox Blu-Ray but a 58-minute documentary by Allison Inman that you may never get to see unless you happen to live in Tennessee — a loving portrait of the impact of the filming on the residents of Bradley and Hamilton counties called MUD ON THE STARS: STORIES FROM ELIA KAZAN’S WILD RIVER (2011). Considering how respectful and observant Kazan was about local matters, especially when they were Southern, part of the pleasure to be found here is getting to know the guy who furnished Montgomery Clift with his liquor and the transplanted worker from Cleveland who’s still working on a book about the shoot.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, CinemaScope
