Jackson, Miss. — Viewers nationwide will experience a bit of Southern culture this month when ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre’s (EMMT) American Collection presents an adaption of Eudora Welty’s prize-winning comic novel The Ponder Heart on Monday, October 15, at 8 p.m., repeating October 17 at 8 p.m. and October 21 at 3 p.m. on ETV.

Welty died at age 92 on July 23, 2001. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1909, she became one of the most distinguished writers in a region which produced William Faulkner, Truman Capote and Flannery O’Connor. In The Ponder Heart, published in 1953 and winner of the William Dean Howells Medal of the Academy of Arts and Letters, Welty uses her ear for dialect and eye for colorful detail to bring a small southern town vividly to life. And like the best storytellers, she exaggerates a little.

She writes about the Ponder family in which Uncle Daniel Ponder — who’s blessed with a loving heart, not much common sense and the riches of Croesus — throws his southern hometown into an uproar. In The Ponder Heart, Peter MacNicol (Sophie’s Choice, Ally McBeal) stars as Daniel, heir of the richest family in Clay County, Mississippi. His penchant for giving away his possessions — from heirloom watches to the family filling station — borders on lunacy. Small wonder that his father, Sam “Grandpa” Ponder (Boyce Holleman), tries to have him committed.

Co-conspirator in the plot to tame Daniel’s generosity is his niece and contemporary, Edna Earle Ponder, played by JoBeth Williams (The Big Chill). Edna Earle is the brains of the family, the proprietor of the Beulah Hotel and the exasperated narrator of her Uncle Daniel’s bizarre adventures.

After the family attorney, DeYancey “Tadpole” Clanahan (Lenny Von Dohlen), wins back the Ponders’ gas station from the pretty female motorcycle daredevil on whom Daniel has bestowed it, Grandpa and Edna Earle decide that Daniel needs to settle down with a wife. The most respectable candidate is widow Teacake Magee (Joanne Baron). Daniel is game, but on the way to the wedding ceremony chances across backwoods flower Bonnie Dee Peacock (Angela Bettis, Girl, Interrupted) and marries her instead.

A wisp of a thing and a mere 17-years-old, Bonnie Dee insists on a “trial” marriage while she gets used to living in a big house and being the richest woman in Clay County. But the isolation does not suit her and she runs away, only to return in time for a dark and stormy night during which she mysteriously dies.

The ambitious district attorney Dorris Gladney (Brent Spiner, Star Trek: The Next Generation), arch enemy of the Ponders, indicts Daniel for murder. Tadpole organizes the inept defense, and thus commences one of the strangest trials in American fiction — a trial with an outcome that would have bewildered even Perry Mason.

The film was shot in several areas in Mississippi. “We filmed in Canton, Edwards and Raymond, Mississippi, which are authentic places around and about Jackson, where Eudora lived and where she used to take pictures. Her photographs turned out to be quite useful in understanding how she observed people,” says director Martha Coolidge. “The hotel we used was in Edwards. The house was in Raymond, where there was a famous battle during the Civil War. These are places that have never been used in films before. I felt it gave the picture a really special look.”

Coolidge’s big breakthrough came in 1991 with Rambling Rose, a quiet film about a troubled beauty played by Laura Dern, who comes to live with a respectable, if eccentric, southern family presided over by Robert Duvall and Diane Ladd.

Her skill depicting the South is again evident in The Ponder Heart. Though Coolidge is a Yankee herself, certain southern qualities perhaps run in her family since she is a distant cousin to one of our more eccentric presidents: Calvin Coolidge.

“The book itself has its own eccentric structure. It rambles on in a charming way about the family, and then things come together at the end. You can’t do that in a movie, where you’re driven more by plot. So you try to maintain the spirit of Eudora Welty and get the best out of the book,” says Coolidge. “One of the things I did was insist on going back to the original ending of the book, where Uncle Daniel gives away his money. That had actually been changed in the script because people didn’t want it to seem as though he’d bought his way out of the trial. But I felt I could do it without giving that impression, and I think I succeeded,” Coolidge added.

Coolidge had no interaction with Welty during the filming, but Ms. Welty was aware of the production. According to Coolidge, Welty saw and approved the script and also signed a copy of the book for every single member of the crew.

Sam Sherrill, who retired from Public Radio in Mississippi (PRM) this past June, secured a small part in the film. “I had read the book and liked it because it was southern to the core,” says Sherrill. “It’s real, the language is real, the people are real and I have an aunt like the one JoBeth Williams plays. I think people will enjoy the movie.”

After rehearsing their segment, PRM announcer Joe Bonelli and Peter MacNicol wrote additional dialogue for Bonelli’s character, political gossiper Preston Buford. “Everyone was very nice and professional on the film, but Peter MacNicol went out of his way to help me make a good showing,” says Bonelli.

Other cast members from Mississippi include Boyce Holleman (Grandpa Ponder) from Gulfport; Nathaniel Lee, Jr., (Talmadge Peper) Clinton; Emily Noble (Nurse) Brandon; Jaymee Vowell (Johunie Ree Peacock) Ridgeland; Brenda Judin (Leota) Jackson; Shari Schneider (Eloise) Jackson; and Andrew Libby (Bailiff) Jackson.

For in-depth information about The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty and American Collection, visit the series web site at www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/index.html and the educators’ web site at www.ncteamericancollection.org/. The educators’ web site, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, represents a collaboration of thousands of teachers in high schools and junior high schools nationwide.

Now in its second season, ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection is an acclaimed new series featuring the best of American drama from the finest literature. The next title in the series is James Agee’s A Death in the Family, scheduled for January 2002.

Additional Information
	Mississippi ETV web site.
	ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre / American Collection. Available on the PBS web site.
	American Collection Educators' Site. From the National Council for Teachers of English web site.

 

Mississippi Writers Page Links
About This Site | New Book Info | News & Events | Literary Landmarks | Mississippi Literary History | Mississippi Publishing | Other Features | Other Web Resources

WRITER LISTINGS:
by author | by title | by place | by year | by genre

SEARCH THE MISSISSIPPI WRITERS PAGE

Ole Miss Links
UM Home Page | English Department | Center for the Study of Southern Culture | The University of Mississippi Foundation