The Cradle Will Rock
The legendary Orson Welles is involved in this production ... sort of.
In the late '30s, Welles tried to get funding to make a film about the early days of the Federal Theater that he was a member of. One of the Federal's productions was The Cradle Will Rock, a play about a greedy industrialist who gets his comeuppance. It was a government funded production that suddenly had its funding withdrawn when the play was seen as an attack on capitalism.
Welles and his troupe put the play on anyway. It was a novel production in which the audience followed the cast members around. This film is the story of that production combined with the story of the old Federal Theater. Bill Murray appears as a drunken vaudevillian who presents himself as a pain in the butt to the entire theater company, including its artistic director, Orson Welles.
| Director: | Tim Robbins |
| Studio: | Buena Vista Pictures |
| Producer(s): | Tim Robbins, John Kilk, Lydia Picher |
| Cast: | Cary Elwes, Cherry Jones, Hank Azaria, John Turturro, Vanessa Redgrave, Bill Murray, Jeff Daniels, John Cusack, Susan Sarandon, Joan Cusack, Emily Watson, Ruben Blades, Gretchen Mol, Audra McDonald |
| Official Site: | studio.go.com/movies/cradlewillrock/index_flash.html |