Something Wicked This Way Comes

Jonathan Pryce

As Something Wicked This Way Comes unspools, the first thing we see is a cursive signature that announces the film as Ray Bradbury's. Bradbury had published the novel on which the 1983 film was based in 1962. He had been tinkering with the tale since 1948 when, in its first guise, it was a screenplay. After the novel was published, many adaptations were tentatively planned with such disparate names attached as Kirk Douglas, Peter O' Toole, and Christopher Lee. Possible directors included Gene Kelly and Sam Peckinpah. Jack Clayton was poised to direct the film as his follow up to The Great Gatsby, but was felled by a stroke in 1977. After a lengthy recovery, filming began in 1981 with Jonathan Pryce, then little known outside the UK, as the nominal lead.

Pryce is one of the better things in the flick, giving the picture the saturnine malice it badly needs. He play a traveling carnival proprietor with diabolical powers. The story is framed as a boy's own story amidst 1900 Americana. Two pre-pubescent lads crawl out their window to get a gander at the new attraction, but soon they discern that evil is afoot. One of the lads' father has disappeared and single mother Diane Ladd has to pick up the slack. The other boy is saddled with Jason Robards as a father. Robards uneasily plays a librarian with guilt issues towards his son. Robards is great when he is having a shot of hooch or lighting his cigar, at ease in a Eugene O'Neill milieu, but at sea having to navigate the goo that surrounds Bradbury's concept of psychology. The father and son moments probably could not been redeemed even if a more suitable actor, say Henry Fonda, was cast.    

Something Wicked This Way Comes was a troubled production. Bradbury clashed with Clayton because the latter brought in an uncredited John Mortimer for rewrites. Disney was not happy with the film, after dismissing Clayton, the studio shot retakes through 1982 and 1983. The studio felt that Clayton's touch was too dark for them which makes me wonder if they had seen his work on The Innocents or Our Mother's House. That said, I don't feel Clayton was enough of a visual artist to salvage this project with or without studio interference. The town in this film, shot at Disney's Golden Oak Ranch, always looks like a well swept studio set. Clayton's style was chiefly realistic. In his adaptations of Henry James and Pinter this has benefits, but in projects that call for romantic flair ( like The Great Gatsby) or fantasy, like this one, Clayton cannot create a suitable setting for his tale.

To give him the benefit of a doubt, his conception of the film was largely altered. A CGI segment was discarded. Most of the remaining effects, even the matte painting, looks cheesy. A score by Georges Delerue was scrapped for one by the anodyne James Horner. The film's commercial failure is indicative of Disney's loss of direction for almost two decades after the death of Walt. Disney releases of this era like The Black Hole and Tron display a studio badly out of touch with its audience. It was only with the founding of Touchstone Pictures in 1984 that the mouse was able to roar again.

As with The Great Gatsby, the best performances are by the supporting players in Something Wicked This Way Comes. Royal Dano, Pam Grier, James Stacy, and Ellen Geer all do yeoman's work with nice little bits. I often wish Clayton took as much care with his mise-en-scene as he did with his players. Though, perhaps because of the space he gives his cast in ...Wicked, the film feels pokey and slow, even at just 95 minutes. Bradbury defended the film, his baby, saying it was "not a great film, but a decently nice one." Unfortunately, decency and niceness were not the right tone for this tale of the supernatural.