Grace Quigley

[dreamer]

Hi Shaun,

a little consolution prize for not getting it at eBay.

You know - I was thiiis close a couple of times myself before I actually got it a couple of years ago.

Good luck for next time!

[dreamer]

SYNOPSIS

Grace Quigley, an old lady with original, if somewhat dotty, ideas, decides life is not worth living any more, and hires Seymour Flint, a professional hit man, to put her out of her misery. She had already tried suicide but botched it and lacks the nerve to give it another go. Grace feels that Seymour will solve her problem, having previously admired his swift dispatching of her corrupt and greedy landlord. Seymour, however, is reluctant to kill old people (it seems in some ways - and in some areas - he is a big sentimental slob) so Grace eventually takes him on a tour of nursing homes to convince him that a lot of these folks would welcome his tender angel-of-death mercies. Soon, with clients beseeching her to terminate their unhappy lives, Grace has a booming business going.

From Kate the Great, her work, films, Grace Quigley

The film critics then did not like the film - never really understood why - because it showed what our society is like and I think we can't be reminded enough to take care of the elder and our family, not taking them for granted. Sometime we are at the end of the road and then.............

[Shaun]

Ha thanks again Dreamer! I HAVE to see this movie now, if only for the scene of Kate lying on the floor in the back of a car with a gun! Oh, and to see her riding a motorcycle...in her 70s.

[dreamer]

According IMDb:

The original ending had Seymour Flint drowning in an attempt to save Grace's life when she walks into the ocean. After a negative reaction from a preview audience, the ending was changed to a happier one.

Happy they changed the ending. Although the original ending might have said something about what is right. As a viewer I grew fond of Seymour and would have cried my eyes out if he had drowned.

What do you guy's think?

[Shaun]

I think they went with the right ending. The subject is dark, but it's still a comedy. The original ending would have been too much of a downer.

[dreamer]

Again in better quality

[dreamer]

Words not needed !

[annie]

dreamer said:

According IMDb:

The original ending had Seymour Flint drowning in an attempt to save Grace's life when she walks into the ocean. After a negative reaction from a preview audience, the ending was changed to a happier one.

Happy they changed the ending. Although the original ending might have said something about what is right. As a viewer I grew fond of Seymour and would have cried my eyes out if he had drowned.

What do you guy's think?

oh jeeez NO - that would have made a dreadful ending!!! I love the way it ended - I mean the scene with which it ended. Kate is so cute laughing there .. and its funny too.
Actually I think this movie is way better than a lot of people give it credit - maybe it was just out to soon. The subject would be better suited in our times right now - well I like it - any I enjoy watching it. Some scenes are really funny like the .. "I think she's got a freebie" *hat popping up* - LOL

[Hepburner]

A couple of scans I got.
These pics were all done previously, but I have them in better quality

[Hepburner]

Just wanted to post a lil' something.
I finally saw this one.
I managed to get a hold of it on DVD from South America.

Fabulous movie. Oh how I laughed. Why is it that so many people claim Kate had little range? My God. She had one of the biggest ranges I can think of. Only Stanwyck really rivals her in that category.
Also, I've yet to see a film this delightfully odd by any other actress of Kate's day that was also GOOD!!!

[dreamer]

I found this while searching the net to see if Grace was a widow - :ggigles: and didn't catch the widow part - tsk tsk

Anyway - IT confirms that Grace was a widow - The background story (we know that he threw the script over the fence but that McQueen was in for a part was new to me) of the film is interesting I think. Do read guy's:

Critic's notebook: Hepburn's hidden finale
Critic's notebook
Kirk Honeycutt

July 2, 2003
In the obituaries and commentary surrounding the death this week of Katharine Hepburn, one film was overlooked despite the fact it was Hepburn's last movie in which she starred in a lead role. If "Grace Quigley," released briefly in 1985, earned any mention at all, it was lumped together with other boxoffice bombs from her career. Yet there exists another version of this film called "The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley" that only a handful of us have ever seen. Were this version to become available to a wider viewership, a drastic reappraisal of her last film would be in order.

For "The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley," like "Harold and Maude" 14 years earlier, is a dark, biting comedy. And the movie, which co-stars Nick Nolte, has another major distinction: As Arthur Knight, my late colleague and predecessor as film critic at The Hollywood Reporter, noted in his 1985 review of this "outlaw" version, "Ultimate Solution" represents something quite rare if not unique in Hollywood -- a writer's cut.

The story began when a cheeky writer-director named A. Martin Zweiback, who previously made an antiwar movie called "Cactus in the Snow," flung a 35-page treatment over the garden gate of George Cukor's house, where Hepburn was recovering from hip surgery. Hepburn read the treatment and liked it well enough not only to write a check, no strings attached, for Zweiback to write the script, but also to bring Steve McQueen into the process as a possible co-star.

Zweiback's script concerned an aging New York widow with little to live for who hires a hit man to kill her. Before he can perform this service, however, the two find themselves swamped with similar business from elderly people disgusted with mistreatment and neglect. Because of the tricky subject matter, it took 12 years to get the film made. By then, Nolte took over the role of the hit man and Hepburn brought aboard her "The Lion in Winter" director, Anthony Harvey, to direct. Zweiback agreed to step aside as director so long as he and his late wife, Adrienne, could produce. As it turned out, they were never allowed on the set.

The film premiered at the 1984 Festival de Cannes, where it received scathing reviews. Nevertheless, the film's producer, the Cannon Group, opened virtually the same version in New York to equally poor notices. By then, Zweiback persuaded Cannon head Menahem Golan to give him one day in an editing room to recut the film. The result, he felt, better conformed to the original concept to which Hepburn had committed. Later, Zweiback added a new soundtrack including music by the Pretenders. This was the "writer's cut" Knight saw at a university screening.

"The undercurrents of (Zweiback's) movie remain on the dark side, but at least while the film is on the screen the tone is light, ironic and often screamingly funny," Knight wrote. Other local critics including myself saw the Zweiback version. We gave it a thumbs up, calling the film "provocative," "urbane" and "unsettling." Yet the only city in which Cannon released this writer's cut was Los Angeles. Worse yet, for the video release, Cannon reverted to Harvey's discredited version.

"Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide" lists two reviews for this film. One, for the Harvey version, calls it an "abysmal misfire." The other, for the Zweiback version, terms the movie "a touching, funny, surreal comedy." The problem is, you and I can only see one version. Long ago, Zweiback paid $1,500 to Cannon for what may well be the only existing print of "The Ultimate Solution."

"MGM has the rights to 'Grace Quigley,' " Zweiback noted this week. "I would love to see a DVD come out with both versions. It could be used by every film school in the country. What would teach more about the effects of editing and music than this particular film?"

So the question is: In a world where new versions and director's cuts of old movies come out every month on DVD, is it possible to restore to movie lovers this lost film from the great career of Katharine Hepburn? Is it possible for us to see, once more, the writer's cut?

www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1925683

___________________________________________________________

Judy - could you possible add more info about this?!!

[Judy]

I know nothing more than this, dreamer - except to say that I believe that in Kate's version, she believed that Zweiback was sabotaging Harvey. I have a series of brief notes she wrote to a friend during the filming, where she indicates that there were violent differences of opinion about the movie - perhaps hers and Harvey's clashing with Zweiback's. And in one, she is critical of Zweiback's behavior indicating that Harvey was a victim of it.

[dreamer]

Thank you Judy. I wasn't aware of it. And thanks for mentioning the notes.

I really found it odd how this critic came up with some of the points as if there had been arguments but didn't go further into them. Furthermore did / do I find it suspicious that Zwieback had bought what may well be the only existing print of "The Ultimate Solution" back from Cannon. I believe that is not true - as you could in Germany get the version with a duration of 102 min.



Wish I had gotten my hands on it - but I have the UK version with 87 min.

I recently found a Cannon Site where you could see all the covers of their films - here are two more.



Sad that a write and a producer as Zwieback was in this project obviously couldn't behave as one should. Thank god for the good friendship Harvey and Kate had.

Have just looked Zwieback up on Imdb - Grace Quigley is his last project on their list. Should tell us something about the guy - right!

[charliesgirl7681]

I've never heard of this one. It sounds amazing. I love her on the motorcycle dress hiked up to her thighs in her late 70's. Gotta love her.