Long Day's Journey Into Night

Film adaptations

The play was made into a 1962 film starring Katharine Hepburn as Mary, Ralph Richardson as James, Jason Robards as Jamie, Dean Stockwell as Edmund, and Jeanne Barr as Cathleen. The movie was directed by Sidney Lumet. At that year's Cannes Film Festival Richardson, Robards and Stockwell all received Best Actor awards, and Hepburn was named Best Actress. Hepburn also earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1973, the ITV Sunday Night Theatre program on British television presented a videotaped television version of the 1971 production at the National Theatre directed by Peter Wood and starring Laurence Olivier, Constance Cummings, Denis Quilley, and Ronald Pickup. Olivier won a Best Actor Emmy Award for this performance.

A 1982 TV film directed by William Woodman was produced by ABC featuring an all-African American cast of Earle Hyman (James), Ruby Dee (Mary), Thommie Blackwell (Jamie), and Peter Francis James (Edmund).

A 1987 TV film directed by Jonathan Miller starred Kevin Spacey as Jamie, Peter Gallagher as Edmund, Jack Lemmon as James Tyrone, Bethel Leslie as Mary, and Jodie Lynne McClintock as Cathleen. Lemmon was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in Mini-Series or Made-for-TV Movie the following year.

A 1996 film adaptation was directed by Canadian director David Wellington and starred William Hutt as James, Martha Henry as Mary, Peter Donaldson as Jamie, Tom McCamus as Edmund and Martha Burns as Cathleen. The same cast had previously performed the play at Canada's Stratford Festival; Wellington essentially filmed the stage production without significant changes. The film swept the acting awards at the 17th Genie Awards, winning awards for Hutt, Henry, Donaldson and Burns. This version later was aired by PBS on its Great Performances series in 1999.[15]


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