Ragtime (1981) on Netflix
A ragtime pianist, Coalhouse Walker Jr., comes to New Rochelle looking for Sarah, the mother of his child. An upper-class family has taken her in.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.3/1011,690 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the early 1900s, the architect Stanford White unveils a nude statue above Madison Square Garden, modeled on the chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit. Her husband, the industrialist Harry Kendall Thaw, is convinced White corrupted her, and he shoots him dead in public. In New Rochelle, an upper-class family finds an abandoned African American baby in their garden. When the authorities plan to prosecute the child's mother, Sarah, for abandoning the infant, Mother intervenes and takes Sarah and the baby into the home over Father's objections. Coalhouse Walker Jr., a ragtime pianist, arrives in search of Sarah, says he is the baby's father and intends to marry her. Younger Brother, who witnessed the killing, follows Evelyn around the city. The street artist Tateh casts out his unfaithful wife and departs New York with their daughter.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ragtime (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Doctorow wrote a 1,000-page draft of the screenplay himself, which Altman envisioned filming in its entirety as two three-hour movies. De Laurentiis disagreed, and Altman and Doctorow were both dismissed from the project.
- Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen all expressed interest in playing Younger Brother, while Redd Foxx, Muhammad Ali and O. J. Simpson were considered to play Coalhouse Walker.
- James Cagney, who knew director Forman socially, was enticed back to the screen after a two-decade retirement to play New York Police Commissioner Rheinlander Waldo. The role was significantly expanded from the novel to give Cagney more screen time.
- Shepperton Studios in London built a meticulous reproduction of a six-and-a-half-acre stretch of Madison Avenue as it looked around 1900, along with the formal facade and lush interiors of the J. P. Morgan Library.
- To secure a street location, the production replaced Spanish signage on the storefronts with Hebrew writing, agreed to donate "$5,000 to a community-sponsored project" and set up a temporary "Ragtime Summer Camp" for over forty children who could not play on the street during filming.
- Mariclare Costello was cast as the anarchist Emma Goldman and filmed her scenes, but her entire part was ultimately cut from the film by De Laurentiis.
