The Gardener's Son is a 1977 American historical crime drama television film directed by Richard Pearce and written by Cormac McCarthy. Set in the company town of Graniteville, South Carolina during the Reconstruction era, the story is based on a real historical 1876 murder and subsequent trial. The Gardener's Son dramatizes the tensions between the working-class McEvoy family and the wealthy Greggs, whose patriarch owned the town cotton mill. Brad Dourif stars as Robert McEvoy, a disgruntled amputee who in 1876 killed James Gregg (Kevin Conway). The plot presents the complex material and psychological conditions for the crime while leaving the ultimate question of motive ambiguous.
The public television station KCET produced the film as the twelfth entry in its anthology series Visions. Pearce, known as a documentarian, was new to filming a fictionalized story. He learned of the story of the McEvoys and Greggs in a footnote from a biography of William Gregg, an influential industrialist and father of James. Impressed by McCarthy's novel Child of God (1973), Pearce asked the author to write what would be his first screenplay. While developing the screenplay, McCarthy and Pearce spent several months researching the circumstances of the murder, the community's reaction to the crime, and the socioeconomic conditions in Graniteville during the period.
Though set in South Carolina, The Gardener's Son was mostly filmed around Burlington, North Carolina and partly in Virginia. It was shot on location at historical sites that had been scouted for their period accuracy, far from the visible encroachments of modern technology like powerlines. Other members of the cast included Nan Martin, Jerry Hardin, Anne O'Sullivan, Penny Allen, Ned Beatty, and Paul Benjamin, plus 34 nonprofessional actors from around North Carolina cast in bit parts. Charles Gross composed the spare, Appalachian-influenced score.
The Gardener's Son premiered on PBS stations on January 6, 1977, to positive reviews. It has remained out of print on home video for decades, seeing a small-scale DVD release in 2010. McCarthy's screenplay was published as a book by Ecco Press in 1996, containing scenes and lines cut from the film version. Because of its general unavailability, The Gardener's Son is commonly experienced only as a closet drama to be read, rather than a film to be watched. The film is remembered for its pivotal place in McCarthy's career as his first dramatic work, his first work of historical fiction, and his first time participating in a film production. Despite several further efforts at screenwriting, McCarthy would not get a second original screenplay made into a film until The Counselor (2013).
Plot
Dr. Perceval makes a house call to the Gregg estate in the company town of Graniteville, South Carolina. William Gregg, the owner of the town cotton mill, is declared dead following an illness. The doctor and Mrs. Gregg then visit the home of Patrick McEvoy, a gardener employed by the Greggs, to attend to his son Robert. Robert's leg had earlier been broken in an industrial accident, for which William's son James may be at fault. Seeing that the leg has become badly infected, Mrs. Gregg convinces Robert to assent to amputation. William Gregg is buried in a well-attended ceremony with an adulatory eulogy.
Robert, now equipped with a prosthetic leg and crutch, takes a job sweeping up at the mill. A group of impoverished people come by train to Graniteville seeking work but James, now the mill's owner, turns them away. Over supper, with Robert absent, the McEvoys discuss his perplexing, troubled nature. Mrs. Gregg and James visit the grave of an unnamed boy who died visiting Graniteville in 1855. James chides his mother for her paternalistic concern for the poor. Robert's 14-year-old sister Martha, who works spinning cotton, goes looking for Robert and finds James, who makes lewd remarks and offers to pay her a gold piece, prompting her to flee. Mr. Giles, an assistant at the mill, finds Patrick in his glasshouse and inquires after Robert, who has been absent from work. Patrick answers that he does not know his son's whereabouts.
Some time later, Martha writes a letter to Robert telling him "mama has took sick again" and that she and her father wish he would return home. Robert hops off a horse-drawn cart and drives away two black gravediggers when he discovers they are burying his mother, who he says "don't belong to the mill." Robert finds his father's glasshouse barren and learns he is no longer employed as a gardener. That night Robert drinks whiskey and commiserates with employees of the mill, including Pinky. The next morning, Robert wakes up in a barn. As Patrick starts his shift at the mill, he learns his son has returned. Robert confronts James in his office. After an argument ensues, James surmises that Robert is there begging for money and offers him a gold piece. Robert draws a pistol. James reaches for a desk drawer. Robert shoots him in the stomach and exits the mill. James stumbles outside and fires at Robert, missing. Robert returns fire, killing James. Patrick and other mill employees walk outside.
Robert stands trial, accused of murder. The prosecutor reads an opening statement before a majority-black jury. Mr. Giles and another witness testify. After trial, Robert's attorney O. C. Jordan speaks with a discouraged Patrick, telling him that he is confident Robert will go free, and that it would be unwise for Robert to testify as doing so would risk an unpopular sullying of the Gregg name. Jordan also reveals that the defense has agreed with Mrs. Gregg to avoid calling any female witnesses. A constable asks Patrick to return home to bury his wife, as neighbors can smell her corpse 4 houses away. Patrick breaks down and cries. Starks Sims, a boy who works for Mr. Giles, testifies that he witnessed Robert shoot James. W. J. Whipper, a black attorney for Robert's defense, cross-examines Starks; Whipper asks if Starks had ever read any notes written by James to any female employees of the mill. Starks replies that he had never done so because he is illiterate. That night, Patrick goes to ask Whipper to have Robert testify and Whipper responds that it would not be possible because of Robert's erratic nature, but reassures Patrick and counsels him about the limitations of the law.
At trial, Robert is sentenced to death. Martha goes to Mrs. Gregg, apparently to plead her brother's innocence, but then tells Mrs. Gregg that James "never done nothing" to her. Believing Martha is there to console her, Mrs. Gregg takes ease and asks her servant Daphne to bring tea. Martha says that the Greggs "must have failed him somewhere". Martha says she wonders what she would have said if asked to testify and speculates that she would have told about the gold piece, but downplays its significance. Enraged, Mrs. Gregg orders her to leave.
Robert poses in a studio for a portrait photograph taken, seated, from the waist up, taking care that his legs not be shown. The photographer asks if copies might be made to print for sale, with half of the proceeds to go to his family. Robert replies that he does not mind if people are ignorant enough to buy his image, but does not want his family to know where any proceeds are sent from. In the street, Martha encounters Robert, who says he was never meant to be hanged and should have gone to the penitentiary. Martha says she would have testified and told "any kind of lie" in his defense. Robert tells her to forget she had a brother and to find the best man she can and make him treat her right. Robert is executed by hanging. Dr. Perceval declares the time of death. Patrick takes his son's body in a coffin onto a cart and rides away.
Cast
Brad Dourif as Robert McEvoy Kevin Conway as James Gregg Nan Martin as Mrs. Gregg Jerry Hardin as Patrick McEvoy Anne O'Sullivan as Martha McEvoy Penny Allen as Mrs. McEvoy Ned Beatty as Pinky Paul Benjamin as W. J. Whipper
In addition to the professional cast, 34 bit parts were played by nonprofessional local residents from the around area in North Carolina where principal photography took place. Among the nonprofessional actors are:
Earl Wynn as Dr. Perceval Austin L. Skipwith as William Gregg Esther W. Tate as Daphne Helen Harmon as Maryellen McEvoy Dwight Hunsucker as Mr. Giles Lish Burchette as First Gravedigger Ellis Williams as Second Gravedigger Martha Nell Hardy as Old Woman Ty Stevens as First Man in Doggery Walter Spearman as Mill Worker Larry Lambeth as O. C. Jordan John Robbins as Constable Malcolm Black as Stark Sims William Seals as Virgil
Cormac McCarthy makes a brief, uncredited cameo appearance in a non-speaking role as a stockholding investor in the mill. His cameo occurs just before the scene of the killing. Dressed in a dark coat and top hat, he can be spotted within a crowd of fellow businessmen on a tour of the mill, distinguishable as the youngest-looking member of the group. Stacey Peebles—a scholar of McCarthy's works—likened his small role to Alfred Hitchcock's famous cameos in his own films, though rendered ironic by the fact that the obscure author would have been unrecognizable to the viewing audience.
Development Background on Visions series
The Gardener's Son was produced by KCET, a Los Angeles-based PBS affiliate station, as the twelfth installment in its Visions series of made-for-television drama films. The series sought out original teleplays by American writers with no prior experience in television. Many of the films were historical dramas, like The Gardener's Son. Visions often addressed serious social issues with "a deliberate pace far removed from the forced urgency of commercial television", and served as "a proving ground for drama on public television as well as for talented actors, directors and writers". Advertising materials pitched Visions as "Off-Broadway television".
Production of The Gardener's Son cost $200,000. Its budget reflected the average expenditure for entries in the Visions series, each made with much less money than the typical hour-long episode of major network era dramas. Funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Conception In the mid-1970s, Richard Pearce was known for his work as a cinematographer on documentary films such as Hearts and Minds (1974). Pearce had come across the story of while conducting research on a journalism grant from the Alicia Patterson Foundation. He was using the grant funds to research the lives of Southern textile workers in the late 19th century. He became interested in the 1876 murder of James Gregg by Robert McEvoy after reading about it in the footnote of a history book, later learning that the story had endured in local folklore. Pearce went to Graniteville and spoke with many descendants of the original textile workers who came to the town in the 1840s, who he said "still tell Robert McEvoy's story—stories, I should say, because there are now at least eight or nine different versions." Pearce pitched the story to Vision, and he was commissioned to direct and co-produce an episode. It would mark his first effort in fictional filmmaking.