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| THE SEA OF GRASS (1947) |
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture
B&W, 131 minutes
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CAST
Lutie Cameron: Katharine Hepburn
Colonel James Brewton: Spencer Tracy
Brice Chamberlain: Melvyn Douglas
Sara Beth Brewton: Phyllis Thaxter
Brock Brewton: Robert Walker
Jeff: Edgar Buchanan
Doc Reid: Harry Carey
Selena Hall: Ruth Nelson
Banty: William "Bill" Phillips
Sam Hall: James Bell
Judge White: Robert Barrat
George Cameron: Charles Trowbridge
Major Harney: Russell Hicks
Floyd McCurtin: Robert Armstrong
Andy Boggs: Trevor Bardette
Crane: Morris Ankrum
Nurse: Nora Cecil
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CREDITS
Director: Elia Kazan
Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Scenarists: Marguerite Roberts, Vincent Lawrence
Based on the Novel by: Conrad Richter
Photographer: Harry Stradling
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons
Associate Art Director: Paul Groesse
Set Decorator: Edwin B. Willis
Editor: Robert J. Kern
Sound Recorder: Douglas Shearer
Musical Score: Herbert Stothart
Costumer: Walter Plunkett
Makeup Artist: Jack Dawn
Assistant Director: Sid Sidman
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SYNOPSIS
Cattle tycoon Colonel James Brewton owns the magnificent St. Augustine plains of New Mexico Territory, known as the "Sea of Grass." Homesteaders pour into these fertile grazing ranges after Colonel Brewton loses a court decision to keep them out. Unhappy over Jim's obsession with his sea of grass, his wife Lutie leaves him and goes to Denver, where she has an affair with her husband's bitterest enemy, Brice Chamberlain, the lawyer who championed the homesteaders' cause. Lucie returns to Jim and within months a son is born.
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CRITIQUES
"In The Sea of Grass, Mr. Tracy is grim, purposeful, and, I'm afraid, occasionally ludicrous, while Miss Hepburn is as pert as a sparrow. As the lawyer responsible for Miss Hepburn's trouble, Melvyn Douglas, is as gloomy as if he were the wronged husband, instead of being the worm in the domestic apple. The picture is much too long, but there are a lot of good shots of Western scenery, and I suppose the general confusion of the plot isn't any worse than usual."
- John McCarten, The New Yorker, 1947
"A big clinker that Elia Kazan would probably just as soon forget. Spencer Tracy plays a grim Southwestern cow-country baron who tries unsuccessfully to keep homesteaders off the land he considers his own. His wife (Katharine Hepburn) finds his antipathy for the homesteaders almost as trying as his mooning over his 'sea of grass'; she has a brief fling with the homesteaders' dour lawyer (Melvyn Douglas) and presents her husband with a chubby boy. Tracy throws her out but keeps the child, who grows up to be Robert Walker. It takes a wild burst of melodramatics to bring Tracy and Hepburn together again, and they wind up preparing to spend the twilight of their lives peering at the grass. The scriptwriters (Marguerite Roberts and Vincent Lawrence) should have been run out of Hollywood, or maybe the guilty party is whoever bought the novel (by Conrad Richter)."
- Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
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HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
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NTSC Standard:
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
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Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy
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Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy
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Katharine Hepburn
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Melvyn Douglas, Katharine Hepburn
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On the set: Elia Kazan, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy
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On the set: Katharine Hepburn, Elia Kazan
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