*11:45 pm The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)

[elleng]

11:45 pm
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)
2h 3m | Drama | TV-PG
A deaf mute changes the lives of all he meets.
Director:
Robert Ellis Miller
Cast:
Alan Arkin, Chuck McCann, Peter Mamakos



The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the debut novel by the American author Carson McCullers; she was 23 at the time of publication. It is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia.

TCM

[Jeebo]

1. That movie was filmed in my hometown.

There are some kids I went to high school with who are extras in the movie. That is Selma, but it's called Jefferson in the movie. Yes, Selma is my hometown. I was in the ninth grade in Albert G. Parrish High School in Selma when the Selma-to-Montgomery march happened. I haven't lived there since 1971, but my parents and an older brother are buried there. I went down there in June 2018 to my 50th high school reunion.

Oh, and your cast list should have included Sondra Locke, because she's the central character of the movie.

-- Ron

[csziggy]

2. My mother's grandfather lived in Selma

As did all his children other than my grandmother, who moved to Marion with my grandfather. We used to visit Mom's aunts and uncles, many of whom lived in a big house on River Street. We stopped going after the Selma-Montgomery March but I remember driving over that bridge. We'd drive into Selma that way, then take the first left and drive 4-6 blocks to get to the old family home.

During the Depression, when my grandfather could not get work, Mom's family lived with cousins in the house used as the rooming house in the movie. When "The Heart..." was shown at my college, Mom made a special trip so she could see it. Apparently their time in Selma was not something she wanted to remember since Mom never told me much about her stay there or about the family that took them in.

[Jeebo]

3. Thanks for the reminiscences.

Going west on Highway 80 from Montgomery, coming into Selma and crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge, that first left (or right) at the first street after crossing the bridge is Water Avenue, not River Street. I think it's still called Water Avenue, anyway. I noticed when I went to my 50th high school reunion in 2018 that they did change the name of Jeff Davis Avenue to R. L. Chestnut Avenue, after the Selma civil rights attorney who was one of the important figures in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. I hear that now there is a move to rename the Edmund Pettus bridge for John Lewis.

I didn't watch the movie this time around because I've seen it umpteen times already, but I think it's really interesting that your mother's family actually lived for a while in one of the houses in that movie. Is that house still there? Thanks for sharing.

-- Ron

[csziggy]

4. Oh - my bad

In my defense I haven't been to Selma or to that old house for almost 60 years.

I have no idea if the house in the movie is still there - or even where it was in Selma. I don't think Mom ever visited it when the family went to Alabama. Mostly, we'd go visit the aunts and uncles. A couple still lived in the old family home, but most just came for family get togethers .

Isn't the internet wonderful? According to imdb.com (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063050/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt), the house is at 620 Mabry Street, Selma, Alabama. Checking Google Street View, the house is still there and in better shape than it was in the movie!

I didn't realize that they also used the Perry County Courthouse in Marion, Alabama, and the Live Oak Cemetery in Selma - which I think is the New Live Oak Cemetery where most of that Kynerd family are buried.