The Crucible (1996)

Kino

Love the Hard Way

Film.com's FREE movie of the week is "Love the Hard Way." Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Charlotte Ayanna star in this drama about a thief who falls for a curious, beautiful young woman. As their intimacy grows, a slick cop (Pam Greer) is closing in.

Studio: 20th Century Fox Studio: 20th Century Fox

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: Nov 29, 1996

Running Time: 123 mins. (V)

Country Of Origin: United States

starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Paul Scofield, Joan Allen, Bruce Davison, Rob Campbell, Jeffrey Jones, Peter Vaughan, Karron Graves, Charlayne Woodard

director: Nicholas Hytner

Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. Perched on the edge of a continent is a community dedicated to the service of God. A gang of teenage girls, stifled by the crushing piety of their elders, dance naked in the woods. One girl, Abigail Williams -- her innocence lost in the bed of John Proctor, a married farmer -- drinks a charm to kill his wife. And suddenly, the Devil is loose in Salem. The girls are discovered and, spurred on by their terrified accusations, the entire village is consumed by cries of witchcraft. One by one, the blameless victims of mass hysteria are torn from their homes until, inexorably, Abigail's vengeance is turned on Proctor's wife.

December 8, 2000

The Crucible

749 12-12-96
Confess it! you're really dreading seeing The Crucible, fearing a high-minded thesis of numbing good intentions. Arthur Miller's 1953 play about the witch trials in Salem, Mass, circa 1692, is freighted with enough background history to require a catch-up quiz.

True or false:

(1) Miller's play parallels the Red-baiting hysteria of the 1950s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee, run by a rabid Senator Joe McCarthy, equated communism with satanism. (True.)

(2)…