The Spitfire Grill
Encyclopedia
The Spitfire Grill is a 1996 American
motion picture that tells a story of a woman who was just released from prison and goes to work in a small-town café known as The Spitfire Grill. A central theme is redemption.
The film was written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff
and stars Alison Elliott
, Ellen Burstyn
, Marcia Gay Harden
, Will Patton
, Kieran Mulroney
and Gailard Sartain
. The film won the Audience Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival
, prompting several distributors to enter into a bidding war in response to the positive buzz, but when the movie was finally released, audiences and critics as a whole responded less favorably than they had at Sundance.
When Hannah becomes bedridden due to a nasty fall, Percy and Shelby pitch in to save the Grill and win the approval of Hannah, who learns that she does need friends. Joe, an attractive young man in town, becomes smitten with Percy, and brings to town a scientist who thinks that the town's trees might cure cancer and arthritis. As the plot unfolds, Hannah holds a $100-per-entry essay contest to find a new owner for the grill. This creates a positive change in the town, but the plans are disrupted by Nahum's suspicions and the revelation that a local hermit is really Hannah's shell-shocked Vietnam veteran son. Percy sacrifices her own life to save Hannah's son and prompts a number of characters in the town to consider their own conduct more deeply.
Overall, the film deals with powerful themes of redemption, hatred, compassion, independence, the economic problems of small towns, the plight of Vietnam War
veterans and to some extent female empowerment. A "trick" of the film is that while it may be expected that the redemption will primarily be of Percy, in fact other characters and relationships, and indeed the town itself, are powerfully redeemed through the actions of Percy.
With the approval and support of the League's Board of Directors, Courts began searching for a screenplay that could be produced under the direction of Sacred Heart League's film production subsidiary, Gregory Productions, Inc. Courts and his colleagues read more than 200 prospective screenplays and found most of them lacking in Judeo-Christian
values and good story-telling. In the early 1990s, Courts was introduced to Warren Stitt, who eventually became the Executive Producer of "The Spitfire Grill." Stitt knew of the work of Lee David Zlotoff of MacGuyver fame, and an introduction was made. Courts agreed to field screenplay treatments from Zlotoff, and in late 1994 the story of the film was written by Zlotoff alone.
With private financing from Sacred Heart League, the film was shot in Peacham, Vermont in 35 days in April-May, 1995. After editing the film, it was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in the feature film competition, and was accepted for screening at the 1996 festival in Park City, Utah. Prior to screening at Sundance, Courts engaged composer James Horner
to compose the musical score
for the film.
With the three female stars in attendance at Sundance, Courts and his team enjoyed the support of an enthusiastic crowd during the festival screenings. During one sold-out festival screening, a representative of Castle Rock Entertainment
viewed the film and contacted her superiors in Los Angeles. A second print of the film was sent by courier to the Castle Rock headquarters for screening by its executives, who promptly offered $10 million for the film's rights, the largest sum ever paid outright for an independent feature film.
On the heels of being sold to Castle Rock Entertainment, the film went on to win the Audience Award at Sundance. The film was then distributed world-wide with only a modest return and lukewarm critical reaction.
Profits from the sale of the film were used to construct a kindergarten through eighth grade school for 450 children in Southaven, Mississippi, located 10 miles from the Sacred Heart League headquarters in Walls. The school's cafeteria is named "The Spitfire Grill."
In 2001, a musical adaptation
of the film with a brighter ending, written by Fred Alley
and James Valcq
premiered at George Street Playhouse
in New Brunswick, NJ, directed by David Saint and then moved to Playwrights Horizons
Theater in New York.
.
wrote, "Watching this plot unfold, I was remembering last week's "Heavy," which also premiered at Sundance; its cafe was run by an older woman (Shelley Winters), and had a veteran waitress (Deborah Harry) and a young waitress (Liv Tyler), and had a regular customer whose name was Leo, not Joe, although he was played by Joe Grifasi. Also echoing in the caverns of my memory were several other movies about stalwart women running cafes and striding above the local gossip: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Fried Green Tomatoes, Staying Together and of course Bagdad Cafe." Robert Roten of the Laramie Movie Scope chimed in by writing, "this light character study explodes into a full blown melodrama at the end using a bunch of tired old clichés, like misplaced money, your standard hermit in the woods and an almost laughably melodramatic drowning. Give us a break. With a more imaginative story, this could have been a great movie, but as it is, it's just a C+."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
motion picture that tells a story of a woman who was just released from prison and goes to work in a small-town café known as The Spitfire Grill. A central theme is redemption.
The film was written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff
Lee David Zlotoff
Lee David Zlotoff is a producer, director and screenwriter best known as the creator of the TV series MacGyver. He started as a screenwriter writing for Hill Street Blues in 1981. He then became a producer of Remington Steele in 1982....
and stars Alison Elliott
Alison Elliott
Alison A. Elliott is an American actress.Elliott was born in San Francisco, CA, the daughter of Barbara, a teacher of nursing, and Bob Elliott, a computer executive. She moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan when she was 4 years old, and then moved back to San Francisco when she was 8, where she...
, Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
, Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden is an American film and theatre actress. Harden's breakthrough role was in Miller's Crossing and then The First Wives Club which was followed by several roles which gained her wider fame including the hit comedy Flubber and Meet Joe Black...
, Will Patton
Will Patton
William Rankin "Will" Patton is an American actor.-Life and career:Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of three children. His father is Bill Patton, a playwright and acting/directing instructor who was a Lutheran minister and served as a chaplain at Duke University...
, Kieran Mulroney
Kieran Mulroney
Kieran Mulroney is an American actor known for his numerous television appearances. He is also a musician and screenwriter, along with his wife, Michele. He was born in Alexandria, Virginia, where he graduated from T. C. Williams High School. His brother is actor Dermot Mulroney.-Television:* NCIS...
and Gailard Sartain
Gailard Sartain
Gailard Sartain is an American comedic and serious actor, often playing characters with roots in the South. He is also an accomplished and successful painter and illustrator.-Early years and education:...
. The film won the Audience Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
, prompting several distributors to enter into a bidding war in response to the positive buzz, but when the movie was finally released, audiences and critics as a whole responded less favorably than they had at Sundance.
Plot
The story centers on a young woman named Percy (Alison Elliott) who served prison time. Upon her release, she arrives in a small town in Maine with hopes of beginning a new life. She works as a waitress in the Spitfire Grill, owned by Hannah (Ellen Burstyn), whose gruff exterior conceals a kind heart and precious little tolerance for the grill's regular customers, who cast their suspicions on Percy's mysterious past. No one is more suspicious than Nahum, Hannah's nephew, although his wife, Shelby, has a kinder curiosity.When Hannah becomes bedridden due to a nasty fall, Percy and Shelby pitch in to save the Grill and win the approval of Hannah, who learns that she does need friends. Joe, an attractive young man in town, becomes smitten with Percy, and brings to town a scientist who thinks that the town's trees might cure cancer and arthritis. As the plot unfolds, Hannah holds a $100-per-entry essay contest to find a new owner for the grill. This creates a positive change in the town, but the plans are disrupted by Nahum's suspicions and the revelation that a local hermit is really Hannah's shell-shocked Vietnam veteran son. Percy sacrifices her own life to save Hannah's son and prompts a number of characters in the town to consider their own conduct more deeply.
Overall, the film deals with powerful themes of redemption, hatred, compassion, independence, the economic problems of small towns, the plight of Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
veterans and to some extent female empowerment. A "trick" of the film is that while it may be expected that the redemption will primarily be of Percy, in fact other characters and relationships, and indeed the town itself, are powerfully redeemed through the actions of Percy.
Background
The idea for the film was conceived by Roger M. Courts, long-time Director and CEO of Sacred Heart League, Inc., a Roman Catholic nonprofit fund raising and communications organization based in Walls, Mississippi. In the late 1970s, he wished to make a film --- an alternative to the ministry of print that was a hallmark of Sacred Heart League, which published and distributed millions of pieces of literature.With the approval and support of the League's Board of Directors, Courts began searching for a screenplay that could be produced under the direction of Sacred Heart League's film production subsidiary, Gregory Productions, Inc. Courts and his colleagues read more than 200 prospective screenplays and found most of them lacking in Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
values and good story-telling. In the early 1990s, Courts was introduced to Warren Stitt, who eventually became the Executive Producer of "The Spitfire Grill." Stitt knew of the work of Lee David Zlotoff of MacGuyver fame, and an introduction was made. Courts agreed to field screenplay treatments from Zlotoff, and in late 1994 the story of the film was written by Zlotoff alone.
With private financing from Sacred Heart League, the film was shot in Peacham, Vermont in 35 days in April-May, 1995. After editing the film, it was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in the feature film competition, and was accepted for screening at the 1996 festival in Park City, Utah. Prior to screening at Sundance, Courts engaged composer James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
to compose the musical score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
for the film.
With the three female stars in attendance at Sundance, Courts and his team enjoyed the support of an enthusiastic crowd during the festival screenings. During one sold-out festival screening, a representative of Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment is a film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn. It is a subsidiary of Warner Bros...
viewed the film and contacted her superiors in Los Angeles. A second print of the film was sent by courier to the Castle Rock headquarters for screening by its executives, who promptly offered $10 million for the film's rights, the largest sum ever paid outright for an independent feature film.
On the heels of being sold to Castle Rock Entertainment, the film went on to win the Audience Award at Sundance. The film was then distributed world-wide with only a modest return and lukewarm critical reaction.
Profits from the sale of the film were used to construct a kindergarten through eighth grade school for 450 children in Southaven, Mississippi, located 10 miles from the Sacred Heart League headquarters in Walls. The school's cafeteria is named "The Spitfire Grill."
In 2001, a musical adaptation
The Spitfire Grill (musical)
The Spitfire Grill is an American musical with music and book by James Valcq and lyrics and book by Fred Alley, based on the film by Lee David Zlotoff. The Off-Broadway production by Playwrights Horizons began previews at the Duke Theatre on 42nd Street on September 7, 2001 and concluded its...
of the film with a brighter ending, written by Fred Alley
Fred Alley
Fred Alley was an American musical theatre lyricist and librettist who died unexpectedly just as his work gained national recognition. His collaboration on the musical The Spitfire Grill with composer James Valcq won the American Academy of Arts and Letters' prestigious Richard Rodgers Production...
and James Valcq
James Valcq
James Valcq is an American musical theatre composer, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Valcq is among the “new guard” of theatre composers championed by Playwrights Horizons and Ira Weitzman, who co-produced the 2001 Off-Broadway production of The Spitfire Grill for which Valcq composed the...
premiered at George Street Playhouse
George Street Playhouse
George Street Playhouse is a theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey, one of the state's preeminent professional theatres committed to the production of new and established plays....
in New Brunswick, NJ, directed by David Saint and then moved to Playwrights Horizons
Playwrights Horizons
Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work....
Theater in New York.
.
Cast & Crew
- Director - Lee David ZlotoffLee David ZlotoffLee David Zlotoff is a producer, director and screenwriter best known as the creator of the TV series MacGyver. He started as a screenwriter writing for Hill Street Blues in 1981. He then became a producer of Remington Steele in 1982....
- Writer - Lee David Zlotoff
- Co-Producer - Marci Liroff
- Editor - Margie Goodspeed
- Casting Director - Marci Liroff
- Alison ElliottAlison ElliottAlison A. Elliott is an American actress.Elliott was born in San Francisco, CA, the daughter of Barbara, a teacher of nursing, and Bob Elliott, a computer executive. She moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan when she was 4 years old, and then moved back to San Francisco when she was 8, where she...
.... Percy Talbott - Ellen BurstynEllen BurstynEllen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
.... Hannah Ferguson - Marcia Gay HardenMarcia Gay HardenMarcia Gay Harden is an American film and theatre actress. Harden's breakthrough role was in Miller's Crossing and then The First Wives Club which was followed by several roles which gained her wider fame including the hit comedy Flubber and Meet Joe Black...
.... Shelby Goddard - Will PattonWill PattonWilliam Rankin "Will" Patton is an American actor.-Life and career:Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of three children. His father is Bill Patton, a playwright and acting/directing instructor who was a Lutheran minister and served as a chaplain at Duke University...
.... Nahum Goddard - Kieran MulroneyKieran MulroneyKieran Mulroney is an American actor known for his numerous television appearances. He is also a musician and screenwriter, along with his wife, Michele. He was born in Alexandria, Virginia, where he graduated from T. C. Williams High School. His brother is actor Dermot Mulroney.-Television:* NCIS...
.... Joe Sperling - Gailard SartainGailard SartainGailard Sartain is an American comedic and serious actor, often playing characters with roots in the South. He is also an accomplished and successful painter and illustrator.-Early years and education:...
.... Sheriff Gary Walsh - John M. JacksonJohn M. JacksonJohn Murice Jackson is an American actor, best known for playing Rear Admiral A. J. Chegwidden on the CBS series JAG....
.... Johnny B./Eli - Louise De Cormier .... Effy Katshaw
- Ida Griesemer .... Rebecca Goddard
- Lincoln Grow .... Molly Goddard
- Emerson Grow .... Molly Goddard
- Lisa Louise Langford .... Jolene
- Forrest Murray .... Stuart
- Patty Smith .... Customer #1
- Faith Catlin .... Neighbor
- Janet St. Onge .... Town member #2
- Jim Hogue .... Deputy
- Stacy Becker .... Clare
- Cliff Levering .... Aaron Sperling
- Dennis Mientka .... Customer #2
- Stuart Jackson .... Customer #3
- Monica Callan .... Woman at bar
- Richard AddisRichard AddisRichard Addis is a British journalist and former editor of the Daily Express newspaper. He is a former novice Anglican monk....
.... Man at bar - Patti Tippo .... Clare's Voiceover
- Ed CookEd CookEdward Joseph Cook was a professional American football offensive lineman in the National Football League ....
.... Additional Voices (voice) - Malcolm Groome .... Additional Voices (voice)
- Harry JohnsonHarry JohnsonHarry Zephaniah Johnson is a Jamaican reggae record producer of African, Sicilian and Scottish descent. He is the head of the landmark Harry J. Records, located at 10 Roosevelt Avenue, Kingston 6, Jamaica WI.-Biography:Johnson started to play music with the Virtues as a bass player before moving...
.... Additional Voices (voice) - Gracie Moore .... Additional Voices (voice)
- Linda O. Cook .... Additional Voices (voice)
- Sam Lloyd Sr. .... Meeshack Boggs
- On-set assistant... Marla Collet Coyne
Reception
Critics generally were impressed by the film's efforts, but often felt that the script was too underdeveloped and too similar to other films. Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote, "Watching this plot unfold, I was remembering last week's "Heavy," which also premiered at Sundance; its cafe was run by an older woman (Shelley Winters), and had a veteran waitress (Deborah Harry) and a young waitress (Liv Tyler), and had a regular customer whose name was Leo, not Joe, although he was played by Joe Grifasi. Also echoing in the caverns of my memory were several other movies about stalwart women running cafes and striding above the local gossip: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Fried Green Tomatoes, Staying Together and of course Bagdad Cafe." Robert Roten of the Laramie Movie Scope chimed in by writing, "this light character study explodes into a full blown melodrama at the end using a bunch of tired old clichés, like misplaced money, your standard hermit in the woods and an almost laughably melodramatic drowning. Give us a break. With a more imaginative story, this could have been a great movie, but as it is, it's just a C+."