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Monday, September 6, 2021

THE QUIET ONE (1948)

Before work on THE AFRICAN QUEEN/’51 and THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER/’55, James Agee, still best known for film criticism ('Pop’ mode @ TIME; deep think for THE NATION), got his first movie credit writing the wall-to-wall narration (read by Gary Merrill) for this largely dialogue-free (near) documentary about an emotionally paralyzed, disaffected Harlem youth (broken home, falling behind at school, barely cared for by Grandmother) sent upstate to the Wiltwyck Rehabilitation School, less classroom than camp (with shrinks) for kids.  And if much of the film’s originality has been lost thru repetition, it retains it’s hold thru an abstracted presentation of the boy’s city life (helped rather than hurt by technical limitations) and from Agee’s sophisticated/suggestive voice-over writing (far less dated than similar tries over the next 40+ years); trusting our emotional involvement to fill in missing pieces.  With time-capsule elements of the period in place (look, location, psychological techniques), but not pushed on us; much as Agee’s script sidesteps to keep expected uplift to a bare minimum. Progress, yes; happy ending, not so much.

LINK: Decent print available here:   https://archive.org/details/the_quiet_one

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Double Oscar nominated.  For Best Documentary, and the following year for Best Writing/Story/Script without Agee even mentioned!  Oscar® strikes again.

DOUBLE-BILL: New York indie films like THE LITTLE FUGITIVE/’53 grew out of works like this.

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