The Crucible
Produced by 20th Century Fox, released Nov. 26, 1996, gross of $10 million, color 35mm negative, 1.85:1 screen ratio, Dolby Stereo sound, 123 mins., Laserdisc released 1997.
Production:
- Directed by Nicholas Hytner (also directed The Madness of King George, 1994
- Produced by Mitchell Levin, David V. Picker, Diana Pokorny, Robert A. Miller (son of playright Arthur Miller; Robert also wrote the script for the 1961 film The Misfits, the last movie of Marilyn Monroe, his father's wife 1956-61, and who sold the Crucible script to Fox in 1991)
- Screenplay written by Arthur Miller (also wrote 1953 play)
- Cinematography by Andrew Dunn (alsoThe Madness of King George, 1994)
- Music by George Fenton (alsoThe Madness of King George, 1994)
- Production Design by Lilly Kilvert (also designed Legends of the Fall, 1994)
- Costume Design by Bob Crowley
- Film Editing by Tariq Anwar (alsoThe Madness of King George, 1994)
- Set Decoration by Gretchen Rau (also A River Runs Through It, 1992)
Cast:
- Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor
- Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor
- Winona Ryder as Abigail Williams
- Paul Scofield as Judge John Danforth
- Bruce Davison as Reverend Parris
- Rob Campbell as Reverend Hale
- Jeffrey Jones as Thomas Putnam
- Peter Vaughan as Giles Corey
- Karron Graves as Mary Warren
- Charlayne Woodard as Tituba
- Frances Conroy as Ann Putman
- Elizabeth Lawrence as Rebecca Nurse
- George Gaynes as Judge Samuel Sewall
- Mary Pat Gleason as Martha Corey
- Robert Breuler as Judge Hathorne
- Rachael Bella as Betty Parris
- Ashley Peldon as Ruth Putman
- Tom McDermott as Francis Nurse
- John Griesemer as Ezekiel Cheever
- Michael Gaston as Marshal Herrick
- William Preston as George Jacobs
- Ruth Maleczech as Goody Osborne
- Sheila Pinkham as Goody Good
- Peter Maloney as Dr. Griggs
- Kali Rocha as Mercy Lewis
- Taylor Stanley as Joanna Preston
- Lian-Marie Holmes as Deliverance Fuller
- Charlotte Melen as Margaret Kenney
- Carmella Mulvihill as Hannah Brown
- Simone Marean as Rachel Buxton
- Amee Gray as Lydia Sheldon
- Mary Reardon as Esther Wilkens
- Alexander Streitas as Joseph Proctor
- Michael McKinstry as Daniel Proctor
- Dorothy Brodesser as Mrs. Griggs
- Dossy Peabody as Goody Sibber
- Mara Clark as Goody Barrow
- Jessie Kilguss as Debra Flint
- Jane Pulkkinen as Goody Bellows
- Katrina Nevin as Dorcas Bellows
- Will Lyman as Isaiah Goodkind
- Anna V. Boksenbaum as Sarah Pope
Notes:
This film is based on the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller in 1953 in response to the McCarthyism of that era. Miller used the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials to symbolize the hysteria of a popular fear (witchcraft in the Puritan era, anticommunism in the modern era) and the willingness of a few to oppose the tyranny of the many. The film was photographed on location for 55 days from September to November in 1995 on Hog Island MA, a half mile off the shore north of Boston in Essex Bay, where Fox leased the 680-acre Crane Wildlife Refuge from the oldest nonprofit land trust in the U.S., the Trustees of Reservations. Daniel Day-Lewis, who had played Newland Archer in the 1993 film Age of Innocence (opposite Winona Ryder who played May Welland), studied the accent and people on the island to develop his character. On Nov. 13, 1996, Lewis, age 39, married Arthur Miller's filmmaker daughter, Rebecca, age 33, even though the previous year he fathered a son Gabriel-Kane, born April 9, 1995, to French actress Isabelle Adjani.
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