Production
This was the first film directed by Ulu Grosbard, who had been nominated for the Tony Award for his direction of the 1964 Broadway production of Frank D. Gilroy's play. Joining him were original cast members Jack Albertson and Martin Sheen as John and Timmy Cleary; Patricia Neal replaced Irene Dailey in the role of Nettie.
The film was a significant comeback for Neal, who was recovering from a debilitating stroke she had suffered three years earlier and hadn't appeared on screen since In Harm's Way in 1965. During filming, the actress was beset with memory problems and physical limitations she struggled to overcome, and in her autobiography As I Am, she described the experience as a career milestone that convinced her she still was a good actress. She also discussed her effort to memorize a five-page monologue she was required to do in one take and her pride at doing so successfully.
The film was shot on location in New York City and Spring Lake, New Jersey.
The soundtrack includes "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" and "Albatross," both performed by Judy Collins.
Read more about this topic: The Subject Was Roses (film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“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)