''Dante's Inferno'' is a 1935 American
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
film starring
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...
and loosely based on
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...
's ''
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature a ...
''. The film remains primarily remembered for a 10-minute depiction of
hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
realised by director
Harry Lachman
Harry B. Lachman (June 29, 1886 – March 19, 1975) was an American artist, set designer, and film director.
He was born in La Salle, Illinois on June 29, 1886. Lachman was educated at the University of Michigan before becoming a magazine and b ...
, himself an established
post-impressionist
Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
. This was
Fox Film Corporation
The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film C ...
's last film before the company merged with
Twentieth Century Pictures
Twentieth Century Pictures, Inc. was an independent Hollywood motion picture production company created in 1933 by Joseph Schenck (the former president of United Artists) and Darryl F. Zanuck from Warner Bros. Financial backing came from Sche ...
to create
20th Century-Fox Film Corporation.
Plot
Jim Carter, a former
stoker, takes over a
fairground
Fairground most typically refers to a permanent space that hosts fairs.
Fairground, Fairgrounds, Fair Ground or Fair Grounds may also refer to:
Places
Canada
* Fairground, Ontario, a community
United States
* Fairground, St. Louis, a neighbo ...
show, run by 'Pop' McWade, which depicts scenes from Dante's Inferno. He marries Pop's niece Betty and they have a son, Alexander. Meanwhile, the show becomes a great success, with Carter making it larger and more lurid. An inspector declares the fair unsafe but Carter bribes him into silence. There is a partial collapse at the fair which injures Pop. Recovering in hospital, he admonishes Carter and we see a lengthy vision of the Inferno. Undeterred, Carter establishes a new venture with an unsafe floating casino, only for disaster to strike again at sea.
Cast
*
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...
as Jim Carter
*
Claire Trevor
Claire Trevor ( Wemlinger; March 8, 1910April 8, 2000) was an American actress. She appeared in 65 feature films from 1933 to 1982, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in ''Key Largo'' (1948), and received nomina ...
as Betty McWade
*
Henry B. Walthall
Henry Brazeale Walthall (March 16, 1878 – June 17, 1936) was an American stage and film actor. He appeared as the Little Colonel in D. W. Griffith's ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915).
Early life
Henry B. Walthall was born March 16, 1878 on a ...
as Pop McWade
*
Alan Dinehart
Mason Alan Dinehart Sr. (born Harold Alan Dinehart; October 3, 1889 – July 18, 1944) was an American actor, director, writer, and stage manager.
Biography
Dinehart initially studied to be a priest, but he turned to the theater instead. ...
as Jonesy
*
Scotty Beckett as Alexander Carter
*
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918May 14, 1987) was an American actress, dancer and producer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars, appearing in 61 films over 37 years. The press coined th ...
(credited as Rita Cansino) as Dancer
*
Willard Robertson
Willard Robertson (January 1, 1886 – April 5, 1948) was an American actor and writer. He appeared in more than 140 films between 1924 and 1948. He was born in Runnels, Texas, and died in Hollywood, California.
Biography
Robertson first ...
as Building Inspector Harris
*
Morgan Wallace
Morgan Wallace (born Maier Weill, July 26, 1881 – December 12, 1953) was an American actor. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1914 and 1946, including W.C. Fields' '' It's a Gift'' (1934) Introduction by Arthur Knight where he p ...
as Chad Williford
*
Robert Gleckler
Robert Gleckler (January 11, 1887 – February 25, 1939) was an American film and stage actor who appeared in nearly 60 movies between 1927 until his death in 1939. He was cast for the role of Jonas Wilkerson, overseer of the slaves at Tara in ...
as Dean
*
Don Ameche
Don Ameche (; born Dominic Felix Amici; May 31, 1908 – December 6, 1993) was an American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. After playing in college shows, stock, and vaudeville, he became a major radio star in the early 1930s, which ...
as Man in Stoke-Hold (uncredited)
*
Jack Mower
Jack Mower (September 5, 1890 – January 6, 1965) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 520 films between 1914 and 1965. He was born in Honolulu and died in Hollywood.
After studying at Punahou College, in Honolulu, Mower moved ...
as Court Bailiff (uncredited)
*
George Irving as Judge (uncredited)
This was Spencer Tracy's last film for Fox before moving to
MGM.
Production
Development
The film uses a conventional story of greed and dishonesty to project an image of the ''Inferno'' conjured up in Dante's 14th-century
epic poem
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
. Director Lachman had established a substantial reputation as a painter before embarking on a
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywoo ...
career and he summoned his artistic vision to realise Dante's work in cinematographic form, drawing on the engravings of
Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French artist, as a printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravin ...
. The film's reputation pivots on the 10 minute vision of the Inferno and reception has been mixed.
Leslie Halliwell
Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...
described it as "one of the most unexpected, imaginative and striking pieces of cinema in Hollywood's history," while ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' held that it was, "a pushover for vigorous exploitation."
Release
The 1935 film was produced by Fox Film Corporation just before the May 31, 1935 merger that created Twentieth Century-Fox, and so it was released as a Twentieth Century-Fox film.
References
External links
*
*
*
*
1935 films
1930s fantasy drama films
American black-and-white films
Films based on Inferno (Dante)
Films directed by Harry Lachman
Films set in hell
Fox Film films
American fantasy drama films
Films produced by Sol M. Wurtzel
20th Century Fox films
1935 drama films
1930s English-language films
1930s American films
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