Rachel, Rachel (1968)

Director:

Paul Newman

Writers:

Margaret Laurence (novel)
Stewart Stern (writer)

Release Date:

26 August 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Who was she? Sometimes she was a child skipping rope. Sometimes she was a woman with a passionate hunger. And one day the woman and the child came together...

Plot:

Rachel is a 35 year old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out...

Plot Keywords:

Teacher | School | Understanding | Feminist | Male Female Relationship

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Joanne Woodward	...	Rachel Cameron
James Olson	...	Nick Kazlik
Kate Harrington	...	Mrs. Cameron
Estelle Parsons	...	Calla Mackie
Donald Moffat	...	Niall Cameron
Terry Kiser	...	Preacher
Frank Corsaro	...	Hector Jonas
Bernard Barrow	...	Leighton Siddley
Geraldine Fitzgerald	...	Rev. Wood
Nell Potts	...	Rachel as a child
Shawn Campbell	...	James
Violet Dunn	...	Verla
Beatrice Pons
Dortha Duckworth		(as Dorothea Duckworth)
Simm Landres

Also Known As:

A Jest of God (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | UK:X (original rating) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Bethel, Connecticut, USA

Company:

Kayos Productions

Trivia:

First USA cinema feature of 'Donald Moffatt'.

Quotes:

Nurse: The operation was a success. You're out of danger.
Rachel Cameron: How can I be out of danger if I'm not dead?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Stella (1990)

A gentle, rich1y emotional, melancholy but, amazingly, never depressing experience…

In a variation on her "Long Hot Summer" role, Woodward plays a sexually repressed schoolteacher in a small New England town who realizes that life is passing her by… She is thirty-five, a virgin, and dominated by her mother… During the summer, she has an affair with an old schoolmate… It proves disappointing, but she now knows that she can be loving, and determines to leave town and do something about her life—a move that seems only tentatively hopeful…

Woodward gives her finest performance as the confused, frequently beaten but ultimately indestructible woman… She has an extraordinary ability to look natural or simple and still reveal an inner radiance…

There are many touching moments: her timidness at the religious meeting; her awkward experiences with men; her late-night discussion with a likable male friend; and, most unforgettable, her face causing change from joyous expectancy to merely suppressed hysteria to a painful outburst of tears when she discovers that, contrary to her hopes, she is not pregnant...

Newman shows a natural cinematic sense in his perceptive depictions of small town life, the frenzied activity of a revival meeting and the anxieties of a first sexual experience; and in his clever, rarely impressive juxtaposition of Rachel's present with her fantasies and childhood memories… He gets excellent performances from Estelle Parsons as another lonely teacher and James Olson as the cynical big-city man who lets Rachel down…

Both Newman and Woodward won Golden Globe Awards… Woodward won the coveted New York Film Critics' Award, and was nominated for an Oscar…