The Dead (1987) on Netflix
In Dublin in 1904, Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta attend the Morkan sisters' annual Epiphany dinner party. Guests dance, sing, and talk, and a drunk Freddy Malins arrives.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.2/1010,172 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
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Plot summary
Epiphany 1904 brings guests through the snow to the Dublin townhouse of Kate and Julia Morkan, who host their annual party with their niece Mary Jane. Mary Jane's music students arrive with young bachelors, and the evening brings dancing, a piano performance by Mary Jane, a recited poem, and a song from Julia. Kate frets that Freddy Malins will come drunk, and he does. Molly Ivors, an Irish nationalist colleague, reproaches Gabriel Conroy for writing for an English paper and for not knowing Irish, and he declares himself sick of Ireland. Molly slips out to a union meeting before the meal, where talk moves from opera to morality and Gabriel's speech praises the household's hospitality to visitors.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Dead (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Huston's health made him uninsurable, so his friend, the director Karel Reisz, agreed to serve as a stand-by director in case Huston could not finish The Dead.
- Anjelica Huston developed Epstein-Barr syndrome during the making of The Dead, brought on by the pressures of filming and of watching her father's health deteriorate.
- Huston planned to shoot The Dead entirely in Dublin and at Ardmore Studios, but his declining health meant the interiors were filmed on a soundstage at the California Institute of the Arts while his son Danny Huston and cinematographer Fred Murphy led a second unit in Dublin.
- John Huston won Best Director posthumously at the 3rd Independent Spirit Awards, and his daughter Anjelica Huston won Best Supporting Female at the same ceremony.
- Tony Huston's screenplay stayed close to Joyce's story but made one big change: a new character, Mr. Grace, recites an English translation of the eighth-century Middle Irish poem "Donal Óg".
