Days of Heaven (1978) on Netflix
Bill flees Chicago after a deadly quarrel at the steel mill, taking Abby and his sister Linda to the Texas wheat fields. He urges Abby to marry the farm's ailing, wealthy owner.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.7/1070,013 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chicago, 1916. A quarrel at the steel mill ends with Bill fleeing the city, and two people go with him: Abby, the woman he loves, and Linda, his young sister. They find work as harvest hands in the Texas Panhandle, telling people they meet that Bill and Abby are brother and sister rather than a couple. The wheat farm they land on belongs to a wealthy man whose health is failing, and Bill sees a chance in it: if Abby marries the farmer, his fortune could pass to them. She goes through with the marriage, and the two of them keep their real relationship quiet while the harvest goes on.
Cast
- Jackie Shultisas Linda's Friend
- Gene Bellas Dancer
- Doug Kershawas Fiddler
- Frenchie Lemondas Vaudeville Wrestler
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Days of Heaven (1978)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film's locust swarm was faked by dropping peanut shells from helicopters while extras were filmed walking backward as the shells fell; the footage was then run in reverse so the peanut-shell "locusts" appeared to rise from the field as people walked forward, with real captured locusts used only for close-ups.
- Malick had tried and failed to get Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino to star, and John Travolta auditioned for and won the lead role of Bill, only for ABC-TV to refuse to release him from his contract on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter.
- Almendros, who stood near the main camera giving instructions to the camera operators, was gradually losing his sight by the time shooting began; to evaluate his set-ups he had one of his assistants take Polaroids of the scene, then examined them through powerful glasses.
- Néstor Almendros had to leave before the end of the shoot on a previous commitment, so Haskell Wexler came in to finish and was credited only for “additional photography”; per Academy custom the award went solely to Almendros, who thanked Wexler in his acceptance speech.
- After two weeks of shooting, Malick was so disappointed with the dailies that he decided to toss the script, go “wide instead of deep” and shoot miles of film in the hope of solving the problems in the editing room.
- Malick came out of the film so exhausted that he moved to Paris; he worked a long time on another project for Paramount before abandoning it, and did not make another film for 20 years, until 1998's The Thin Red Line.
