Trivia / The Dead (1987)

• Billing Displacement: Anjelica Huston is the bigger name, so she gets billed first, even though Gretta is just in a supporting role (though she does become more significant towards the end). The protagonist of the short story and film is Gabriel.
• California Doubling: John Huston's frail health kept him from flying out to Ireland, so most of the film was shot at the California Institute of the Arts. The final scene was filmed in Joshua Tree National Park. Huston's son Danny traveled to Ireland with a second unit to shoot location exteriors in Dublin and Wicklow.
• Cast the Expert:
  • To play Mr Bartell D'Arcy, a renowned Irish tenor, they cast Frank Patterson - who was known as 'Ireland's Golden Tenor'.
  • And of course for Aunt Julia, whose singing moves everyone to near tears in the short story, they cast veteran actress and singer Cathleen Delany.
• Creator Breakdown: Anjelica Huston was badly effected both by the pressures of filming and watching her father's health decline - and she developed Epstein-Barr syndrome as a result.
• Fake Irish: Although virtually an all Irish cast, Anjelica Huston (American) as Gretta is an only example. And it would not be the last time either; she plays an Irish woman in her own directorial debut Agnes Browne.
• One-Book Author: Tony Huston, despite getting an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, never had another script produced again.
• Playing Against Type: Director example. John Huston was known as a very versatile director - The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon (1941), In This Our Life and Annie (1982) are all his - but this Slice of Life dealing with the nature of death was noted by Pauline Kael to be unusual for him.
  "Yet he went into dramatic areas that he'd never gone into before - funny, warm family scenes that might be thought completely out of his range. Huston never before blended his actors so intuitively, so musically."
• Production Posse:
  • Anjelica Huston had been directed by her father in Casino Royale (1967), A Walk With Love & Death, Sinful Davey and Prizzi's Honor. He had also written Mr North, which she starred in.
  • John Huston had also collaborated with composer Alex North on The Misfits, Prizzi's Honor, Wise Blood, and Under the Volcano.
• Real-Life Relative: John Huston works with his daughter Anjelica as an actress, and his son Tony as a screenwriter.
• Reality Subtext: A film dealing with the nature of impending death and how the living are still affected by the dead - made while its director was in failing health and would die four months before its release.
• Referenced by...: Dream Theater's song "6:00" from the album Awake samples bits from the film ("I know all about the honor of god, Mary Jane.").
• What Could Have Been:
  • A Dubliners adaptation was planned in the 1950s as a portmanteau film, directed by Luchino Visconti and written by Suso Cecci. It ended up cancelled.
  • Another adaptation was planned in the 70s with Joseph Levy directing, and Trevor Howard and Robert Shaw starring.

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