Lovin' Molly

Lovin' Molly is a 1974 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Anthony Perkins, Beau Bridges, Blythe Danner in the title role, Ed Binns, and Susan Sarandon. The film is based on one of Larry McMurtry's first novels, Leaving Cheyenne (1963). Prior to release, the film was also known as Molly, Gid, and Johnny and The Wild and The Sweet.

Plot
Over a span of nearly 40 years, Gid and Johnny, a pair of Texas farm boys, compete for the affections of Molly Taylor, a free spirit who cares for both of them. The story is told in three consecutive segments, each narrated by one of the three lead roles.

The first segment is set in 1925 and narrated by Gid, who introduces himself as well as his best friend Johnny and Johnny's girlfriend Molly Taylor with whom Gid becomes smitten. Gid works part-time as a ranch hand at Molly's farm and often competes against Johnny for Molly's affections. Despite their frequent feud and arguments, Gid and Johnny's friendship never ends during their excursions and errands for Molly's father to sell and buy cattle for the family farm. Molly eventually sleeps with Gid, as well as Johnny, but she eventually chooses neither one of them and instead marries school friend Eddie after the death of her father. Gid eventually marries Sarah, a local widow with several children, and Johnny leaves town for places unknown.

The second segment is set in 1945 and is narrated by Molly. It was revealed that Molly had three sons from her three different suitors, and each one of them died in combat during World War II which is currently waging. Molly's husband Eddie also died from an illness several years before. Gid had divorced Sarah and began spending most of his free time with Molly, who withheld the news of their son's death in battle. When he finally did learn the news, Gid took it badly and became more depressed. Johnny re-entered their lives after living away and, having married and divorced his own wife, took a more active part in helping Molly run her late father's farm.

The third and final segment is set in 1964 and is narrated by Johnny. He reveals that Gid is in a local hospital dying from cancer and Johnny has been keeping a bedside vigil over him. Wanting out of the place, Johnny takes Gid away from the hospital for a few days to visit Molly who is still living at her father's farm and is contemplating selling it. After working with Johnny around the farm to relive their "good old days" long gone by, Gid passes away as Johnny is driving him back to the hospital. After Gid's funeral, Johnny meets with Molly where they agree that, despite never getting married or having a life in operating her family farm, they will always be soul mates, before Johnny leaves Molly for the last time.

Cast

 * Anthony Perkins as Gid Frye
 * Beau Bridges as Johnny
 * Blythe Danner as Molly Taylor
 * Susan Sarandon as Sarah
 * Edward Binns as Mr. Frye
 * Conard Fowkes as Eddie White
 * Claude Traverse as Mr. Taylor
 * John Henry Faulk as Mr. Grinsom
 * Richard Ray Lee as Sheriff (uncredited)
 * Paul A. Partain as Willy (uncredited)

Production
Film rights to the novel were purchased by Warner Bros in 1964. McMurtry says Warners wanted to call the film Gid, after the lead character Gideon, to cash in on the success of the movie Hud, based on McMurty's first novel, Horseman Pass By. The writer recalls, "Something like seven scripts ensued, one of them done by Robert Altman, another of them nursed along for years by Don Siegel. Insidiously unfilmic, the book resisted all but the most foolhardy efforts to drag it onto celluloid, until, in 1974, it finally succumbed to the abundantly foolhardy efforts of Stephen Friedman and Sidney Lumet and appeared as Lovin' Molly".

In an interview with another of the actors in the film, Paul Partain (better known for his role in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) described the origins of the film:"When Sidney [Lumet] and producer Stephen J. Friedman got into town, they came with what they hoped would be the perfect formula for success. It had worked on The Last Picture Show, and they knew it would work here. It was this: get a Larry McMurtry novel, hire your three lead actors from Hollywood, get a great director, pick up all the rest of the actors and the crew from the local pool and you were set. Great plan, and it almost worked ..."

The movie was filmed in Bastrop, Texas; the filming was witnessed by a Texan journalist who later wrote a 1974 Texas Monthly article about it. Lumet directed this film during a span when his Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Network and Equus were nominated for a combined 27 Academy Awards. McMurtry has claimed to have hated the movie as it wasn't very true to his book and says that it "just about killed his father."

Lumet said: "There were so many problems with that film! First, I should have taken a year to prepare it, because I wasn’t at all familiar with life down South. I should have researched it more. It was an independent film, with little financing, so we had to shoot quickly, and that’s why the makeup, for example, is not all that convincing. Anyway, it was a failure, due in great part to my haste." McMurtry felt Lumet's "indifference to locale was so total that one is sorry he was put to the anguish of uprooting himself from home and hearth for even the few short weeks he could bring himself to stay in Texas." He added "indifference to detail, on the scale to which it is evident in Lovin' Molly, adds up to indifference to substance."