Death Takes a Holiday
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| Death Takes a Holiday | |
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| Directed by | Mitchell Leisen |
| Produced by | E. Lloyd Sheldon Emanuel Cohen |
| Written by | Maxwell Anderson Gladys Lehman (screenplay) Alberto Casella (play) Walter Ferris (translation) |
| Starring | Frederic March Evelyn Venable Guy Standing |
| Cinematography | Charles Lang |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 30 March 1934 |
| Running time | 79 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Death Takes a Holiday (1934) is a romantic fantasy film produced by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Mitchell Leisen, with a screenplay by Maxwell Anderson and Gladys Lehman which was based on a play by Alberto Casella, and adapted by Walter Ferris. Fredric March starred as Death, with Evelyn Venable and Guy Standing. It opened at the Paramount Theatre in New York on February 23, 1934.
Death Takes a Holiday was a commercial success, and drew mainly positive comments from reviewers. Time described the film as "thoughtful, [and] delicately morbid" while Mordaunt Hall for the New York Times wrote that "it is an impressive picture, each scene of which calls for close attention". Richard Watts, Jr for the New York Herald Tribune described March's performance as one of the film's "chief virtues".
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[edit] Plot summary
Death (March), takes on human form as "Prince Sirki" to discover why people fear him. As he is drawn further into the mortal world, he becomes fascinated by the people he meets, particularly the beautiful young Grazia (Venable), the only person he meets who seems to have no fear of him. The aged Duke Lambert (Standing), nearing the end of his life, is the first to recognize Death for who he is.
Later, throughout the world, people begin to notice that there is no death - even as war rages, there are no casualties, and even plants and flowers do not wither and die as they should. The duke begs Death to resume his duties, but he is torn because he and Grazia have fallen in love.
[edit] Remakes and adaptations
It aired as the drama of the week on Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theatre on March 22, 1937 and starred Fredric March as Death and his wife, actress Florence Eldridge, as Grazia. (Listen to it online here.) [1].
Universal Studios acquired the rights to the film and made a 1971 television production featuring Yvette Mimieux, Monte Markham, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas and Bert Convy. Loy related in her biography that the production was marred by a decline in filming production standards; she described a frustrated Douglas storming off the set and returning to his home in New York when a tour guide interrupted the filming of one of his dramatic scenes to point out Rock Hudson's dressing room.
The film was remade by Universal again in 1998 as Meet Joe Black starring Brad Pitt, Claire Forlani and Anthony Hopkins.
It was adapted into a Broadway musical by renowned theatrical composer Maury Yeston that was recently workshopped starring Elena Shaddow as Grazia.
[edit] References
- ^ Lux Radio Theatre Episode List. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.
- Loy, Myrna and Kotsilibis-Davies, James - Being and Becoming, Alfred A. Kopf, Inc. 1987, ISBN 1-55611-101-0
- Quirk, Lawrence J. - The Films of Fredric March, The Citadel Press, 1971, ISBN 0-8065-0413-7
