Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Richard Gere | ... | Bill | |
Brooke Adams | ... | Abby | |
Sam Shepard | ... | The Farmer | |
Linda Manz | ... | Linda | |
Robert J. Wilke | ... | The Farm Foreman (as Robert Wilke) | |
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Jackie Shultis | ... | Linda's Friend |
Stuart Margolin | ... | Mill Foreman | |
Timothy Scott | ... | Harvest Hand (as Tim Scott) | |
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Gene Bell | ... | Dancer |
Doug Kershaw | ... | Fiddler | |
Richard Libertini | ... | Vaudeville Leader | |
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Frenchie Lemond | ... | Vaudeville Wrestler |
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Sahbra Markus | ... | Vaudeville Dancer |
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Bob Wilson | ... | Accountant |
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Muriel Jolliffe | ... | Headmistress |
Bill and Abby, a young couple who to the outside world pretend to be brother and sister are living and working in Chicago at the beginning of the century. They want to escape the poverty and hard labor of the city and travel south. Together with the girl Linda (who acts as the narrator in the movie) they find employment on a farm in the Texas panhandle. When the harvest is over the young, rich and handsome farmer invites them to stay because he has fallen in love with Abby. When Bill and Abby discover that the farmer is seriously ill and has only got a year left to live they decide that Abby will accept his wedding proposal in order to make some benefit out of the situation. When the expected death fails to come, jealousy and impatience are slowly setting in and accidents become eventually inevitable. Written by Theo de Grood <tdg@xs4all.nl>
"Days of Heaven" is a beautiful film with fantastic panoramic cinematography. It's hard to say what it is about this film that captivated me from the start. I didn't expect to enjoy it when I read about the plot. Farm workers? How could that be interesting... But oh, the haunting, heavenly silence of the fields undulating in the wind, a silence not sundered by any garish music. Everything about this film is tangible, real, alive. The dialogue is sparse, believable, the bond between Bill and Abby is one of quiet passion that needs no dramatic proclamations to fuel it. And Sam Shepard's farmer is touching. I don't use that word very often, but I'll venture it here. I have watched this film now several times, and it is a delight each time when the farmer first sees Abby. This perhaps the strongest and most believable love triangle ever put to film, and in my opinion, the most compelling.