Roseanna McCoy

Roseanna McCoy is a 1949 American drama film directed by Irving Reis. The screenplay by John Collier, based on the 1947 novel of the same title by Alberta Hannum, is a romanticized and semi-fictionalized account of the Hatfield–McCoy feud. The film stars Farley Granger and Joan Evans.

Plot

Set in the late 19th century, the story focuses on the forbidden romance between the title character and Johnse Hatfield, whose families have been feuding for many years. The two meet when she is stung by a hornet while picking flowers for a picnic table at the local fair and he comes to her aid. When she discovers his identity, she angrily accuses his clan of having shot and injured her mother in the distant past. Johnse protests that Mounts, who was responsible for the accident, was innocent by reason of insanity, but Roseanna wants no part of him.

Later that evening, Johnse takes Roseanna aside and kisses her, unaware they are being observed by her brother Little Randall. She is enchanted by his advances and, when shopkeeper Thad Wilkins proposes marriage to her several days later, she rejects him. Johnse takes her from her home in

• Farley Granger as Johnse Hatfield
• Joan Evans as Roseanna McCoy
• Charles Bickford as Devil Anse Hatfield
• Raymond Massey as Old Randolph McCoy
• Richard Basehart as Mounts Hatfield
• Marshall Thompson as Tolbert McCoy
• Lloyd Gough as Phamer McCoy
• Peter Miles as Little Randall McCoy
• Arthur Franz as Thad Wilkins
• Hope Emerson as Levisa Hatfield
• Gigi Perreau as Allifair McCoy
• Aline MacMahon as Sarie McCoy
• Frank Ferguson as Ellison Hatfield
• Elisabeth Fraser as Bess McCoy

Production

Samuel Goldwyn originally had commissioned screenwriter John Collier to develop the project for Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell, but when O'Donnell married William Wyler's older brother, the producer - still resenting the fact Wyler had left Samuel Goldwyn Productions to form his own production company - felt betrayed and replaced her with newcomer Joan Evans. Unbeknownst to him, the girl's parents had added two years to her age and she was only fourteen when filming began.^[3]

Granger was pleased with the initial draft of the script, which had enhanced the story with undercurrents of

After two months of chaotic filming, the production shut down. The cast and crew was reassembled several weeks later and discovered Reis had been replaced by Nicholas Ray without explanation. On the first night of shooting, it began to rain, and it continued to rain for the next two weeks, making exterior filming impossible. Everyone returned to Hollywood, and a week later they were called back when the weather finally cleared. Ultimately, there was little Ray could do to salvage the film, and Reis alone received screen credit as director.^[8]

Critical reception

The reviewer for The New York Times observed, "There is much feudin', fussin' and lovin' in this pictorially handsome recreation of the fabulous enmity between the Hatfields and the McCoys, but the characters lack the stature of true persons. The famous mountain families have been satirized and distorted in jokes and comic strips for so many years now that it is difficult to take them seriously. This is a handicap the picture does not entirely overcome . . . Roseanna McCoy, as adapted by John Collier, does not have as much heart or narrative integrity as did the Alberta Hannum novel on which the film is based. There was a Romeo and Juliet quality to the written romance that does not come through on the screen. The director has pointed all his action toward the inevitable gun clash between the clans . . . It is a lively, noisy battle, but somehow its effect is anticlimatic [sic] and, in this spectator's opinion, heightens the feeling that Roseanna McCoy is not a valid dramatic achievement. That the producer strove to recreate an authentic picture of early American superstitions and ignorance is quite evident, but, like the Dodgers, the opposition apparently was too much for him this time."^[9]

References