Production
The film was in development for eight years; producer-director Wyler brought the project to Allied Artists from Paramount; Allied agreed to a $1.5 million budget for what was Wyler's first film in color, though after the film's shooting location was moved from southern Indiana to a combination of a Republic studio and a San Fernando Valley estate, it ending up costing over $3 million. The film went over budget to the point that Allied sold the foreign distribution rights to MGM to raise more funds.
Cooper expressed initial reservations to Jessamyn West about the character, noting that in his previous roles "'action seems to come natural to me,' the father should be shown joining the fight. 'There comes a time in a picture of mine when the people watching expect me to do something,' he said. West responded he would do something: 'Refrain. You will furnish your public with the refreshing picture of a strong man refraining.'" Cooper followed West's advice.
Dorothy McGuire was cast as Cooper's wife after Wyler's choice, Katharine Hepburn, declined. It was Perkins' second film, after his debut in the 1953 film The Actress; his Broadway success with Tea and Sympathy in the meantime tempted him to remain on the stage, though ultimately he decided to do the film.
Read more about this topic: Friendly Persuasion (film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
“... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)