The Comedians

The Comedians (1967)

They lie, they cheat, they destroy… they even try to love

American and British tourists get caught up in political unrest in Haiti.

Date of release
1967-10-31
TMDB
6.1 / 10 (48)
Runtime
2h 32m
Genres
Drama
Director
Peter Glenville

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $5.2M
  • Filmed in: Nice
  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 0. Including: National Board of Review: Top Ten Films

The Comedians is a 1967 American political drama film based on a book by Graham Greene. It was directed and produced by British filmmaker Peter Glenville. Graham Greene wrote the screenplay. The stars were Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, and Alec Guinness. Paul Ford and Lillian Gish had supporting roles as a presidential candidate and wife, as did James Earl Jones as an island doctor.

Production

Because political conditions in Haiti made filming there impossible, location shooting took place in Dahomey (now Benin). Filming also took place on the Côte d'Azur in France. A short promotional documentary titled The Comedians in Africa was released in 1967, which chronicled the difficulties encountered by the on-location crew and cast.

The film featured a group of black American actors who would become famous into the 1970s: Raymond St. Jacques, James Earl Jones, and Cicely Tyson. Of these stars, both Tyson and Jones would be nominated for Academy Awards for other performances. Other black stars in the film included Zakes Mokae, Roscoe Lee Browne, Gloria Foster, and Georg Stanford Brown.

This was the final film directed by Glenville. Three years earlier he had directed Burton in an award-winning production of Becket. Glenville previously directed the premier of Graham Greene's first play, The Living Room, at Wyndham's Theatre in April 1953.

Several of the characters were based on historic people. The newspaper columnist Petit Pierre, for instance, was based on Aubelin Jolicoeur.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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