The Quiet One (film)
The Quiet One | |
---|---|
Directed by | Sidney Meyers |
Written by | Helen Levitt Janice Loeb Sidney Meyers James Agee (commentary) |
Produced by | Janice Loeb |
Starring | Gary Merrill Donald Thompson Clarence Cooper Sadie Stockton Estelle Evans Paul Baucum |
Cinematography | Richard Bagley Helen Levitt Janice Loeb |
Music by | Ulysses Kay |
Distributed by | Arthur Mayer & Joseph Burstyn |
Release date | 1948 |
Running time | 65 minutes |
Country | United States |
The Quiet One is a 1948 American documentary film directed by Sidney Meyers. The documentary chronicles the rehabilitation of a young, emotionally disturbed African-American boy; it contains a commentary written by James Agee, and narrated by Gary Merrill.[1] In his 1949 review, Bosley Crowther characterized the film succinctly:[1]
Out of the tortured experiences of a 10-year-old Harlem Negro boy, cruelly rejected by his loved ones but rescued by the people of the Wiltwyck School, a new group of local film-makers has fashioned a genuine masterpiece in the way of a documentary drama.
The still photographer Helen Levitt was one of the film's cinematographers and writers, along with the painter Janice Loeb. The neoclassical composer Ulysses Kay wrote the score for the film. The film's principal cinematographer, Richard Bagley, also photographed the critically acclaimed New York semidocumentary feature On the Bowery.
The film's three writers - Meyers, Loeb, and Levitt - were nominated for the Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Academy Award during the 22nd Academy Awards. The award, however, went to Robert Pirosh for Battleground. The film itself was also nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award the year before during the 21st Academy Awards for 1948. Likewise, it did not win this award as it went to The Secret Land (produced by Orville O. Dull).
The National Board of Review named The Quiet One the second best film of 1949.
References and external links
- ^ a b Crowther, Bosley (1949). "'The Quiet One,' Documentary of a Rejected Boy, Arrives at the Little Carnegie," The New York Times February 14, 1949. Online version retrieved Jan. 12, 2008.
- The Quiet One at IMDb
- The Quiet One is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
- 1948 films
- American films
- English-language films
- American documentary films
- Films directed by Sidney Meyers
- Documentary films about children with disability
- Documentary films about African Americans
- 1948 documentary films
- Black-and-white documentary films
- American black-and-white films
- Biographical documentary film stubs