Reading the reviews of Cold Sassy Tree it seems that everyone was disappointed and said the film was markedly inferior to the book. Having ever read the book
I can only go by what I see.
Faye Dunaway produced as well as star in Cold Sassy Tree and got a representative of old Hollywood in Richard Widmark as a co-star. The story takes
place in pre-World War I American south where the town's leading citizen mercantile owner Richard Widmark scandalizes the town by marrying Faye Dunaway who was just about getting to the age that an unmarried female would be considered spinsters. Widmark's two daughters with husband and
kids of their own are outraged.
In that small southern town where everyone knows everyone's business gossip
is a cottage industry so the tongues wag incessantly.
All this is seen through the eyes of one of Widmark's grandsons Neil Patrick
Harris who narrates the film as well.
Cold Sassy Tree is a nice portrayal of southern white life at the turn of the last
century. Note no black people are anywhere. I'm thinking the town was a
segregated one as many were in the south back in the day.
Widmark, Dunaway and the rest of the cast are perfectly suited for the roles
that they are cast in. And Widmark leaves the family and the town something to remember him by in the end.
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