Screening

About Raintree County

Year Released:

1957

Genres:

Drama

Metadata:

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

Indiana University Libraries presents director Edward Dmytryk's 1957 interpretation of Ross Lockridge, Jr.'s novel, Raintree County. The screening is linked to a Lilly Library exhibition titled, “Raintree County: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Ross Lockridge, Jr.,” which chronicles the life and work of renowned Indiana author and the world of his iconographic novel.

The exhibition showcases the development of his work as it evolved and was inspired by real-life Henry County Indiana and the extended Lockridge family experiences and activities. Features of the exhibition include the original art for the controversial geoglyph depicted on the novel’s first dust-jacket, this screening of the MGM film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Eva Marie Saint, and select personal items from the Lockridge family archives. More information can be found here.

The film stars Elizabeth Taylor as a rich Southern belle named Susanna Drake Shawnessy who is used to getting her own way, and Montgomery Clift, as a young pacifist from Indiana who she falls in love with. Despite the fact that he is engaged to Nell (played by Eva Marie Saint), Susanna Drake is willing to employ whatever means are necessary to win the young man's affections. Their relational dramas lead into the Civil War and the characters fight to maintain their sanity. During the filming, Montgomery Clift was involved in a serious automobile accident which left him mentally and physically scarred, which unavoidably translates onscreen. (Digital presentation)