The Iceman Cometh

The Iceman Cometh (1973)

They drank and they dreamed...tomorrow they would conquer the world...then along came Hickey.

Set in 1912, inside a dive bar named The Last Chance Saloon, its destitute patrons eagerly await the arrival of Hickey, who arrives annually and props everyone up with free drinks and spirited stories of his travels. However, when Hickey does show up this year, it is with a message of temperance and an exhortation to give up hopeless dreams and face reality.

Date of release
1973-11-10
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (34)
Runtime
3h 59m
Genres
Drama
Director
John Frankenheimer

Casting

Interesting facts

The Iceman Cometh is a 1973 American drama film directed by John Frankenheimer, based on the 1946 play by Eugene O'Neill. The film was produced by Ely Landau for the American Film Theatre, which from 1973 to 1975 presented 13 film adaptations of noted plays. The principal cast stars Lee Marvin, Fredric March, Robert Ryan, Jeff Bridges, and Bradford Dillman, with supporting roles played by Sorrell Booke, Martyn Green, Moses Gunn, Clifton James, Tom Pedi, and George Voskovec.

Production

Ely Landau had begun developing adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play had been in development since the early 1960s. After the success of 1962's Long Day's Journey into Night, directed by Sidney Lumet, Landau announced a film directed by Lumet and starring Rod Steiger. However, both dropped out before production began.

John Frankenheimer came aboard in 1972. Much like Lumet, Frankenheimer called upon his experience directing live television broadcasts when conducting rehearsals, and shot the entire film in-sequence.

Rather than write a new screenplay for the film, Frankenheimer intended to do a direct adaptation of the stage text, without major revisions or alterations. O'Neill historian and theatre critic Thomas Quinn Curtiss was hired as a "text editor" (rather than a screenwriter), with Edward Anhalt as a "story consultant." Nonetheless, in order to fit the typically four-hour-play into a cinematic runtime, dialogue was trimmed for time, and the character…

According to Frankenheimer, he and Curtiss initially trimmed 75 minutes from the text, but these were re-incorporated into the script during rehearsals.

Both Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman were approached to play Hickey.

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