The Whales of August is a 1987 American drama film directed by Lindsay Anderson and starring Bette Davis and Lillian Gish (in her final film appearance) as elderly sisters. Also in the cast were Ann Sothern as one of their friends, and Vincent Price as a peripheral member of the former Russian aristocracy. The story is based on the play of the same title by David Berry.
The film was shot on location on Maine's Cliff Island. The house still stands and is a popular subject of artists on the island. Ann Sothern earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the 60th Academy Awards.
Synopsis
Two elderly widowed sisters from Philadelphia, near the end of their lives, spend their annual summer in a seaside house in Maine. In a prologue, actresses Margaret Ladd, Mary Steenburgen and Tisha Sterling (Sothern's real-life daughter) play respectively Libby, Sarah, and Tisha as young women. In the present, their surroundings cause them to recall their relationship as young women, and the summers they had enjoyed there in the past. They reflect on the passage of time, and the bitterness, jealousies and misunderstandings that slowly festered over the years and kept them from establishing a true closeness in their relationship.
Libby, played by Davis, is the more infirm of the two sisters, and her nature has become bitter and cold as a result. Sarah, played by Gish, is a softer and more tolerant character, intent on nursing her sister through her discomfort and trying to breach the gulf that has grown between them. The resentment that Libby so clearly displays to her stifles Sarah's every attempt at making a friendly overture towards her, and Sarah cautiously retreats.
Maranov (Price) is an expatriate from Russia who comes to visit the sisters, and who has recently lost the friend with whom he had been living. Tisha (Sothern) is a vivacious lifelong friend who provides common sense, fun and laughter, and is the catalyst for some of the sisters' conversations and revelations.
Cast
Production
The film's producer, Mike Kaplan, saw the play performed by the Trinity Repertory Company while he was visiting Rhode Island on family business. Kaplan, who had met Gish many years earlier when he was a publicist involved in The Comedians (1967), decided immediately that the role of Sarah Webber was a role that would introduce new generations of filmgoers to the great talent of the "First Lady of American Film", who had begun her film career in 1912. This was to be the final film role for the 93-year-old Gish; she died aged 99 in 1993. It was also to be Sothern's final acting role.
As opposed to the original stage production, the film made it possible to showcase stars who were the age peers of the characters. Actors and actresses of the appropriate age and stature were contacted to see whether they were both interested in and physically capable of playing the roles. Many screen greats were approached to play a role but demurred because they suffered from various infirmities, including Shirley Booth, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred Astaire and Paul Henreid. Gish and Davis were both infirm: Davis had recently recovered from several strokes which inhibited movement on the left side of her body, and Gish was somewhat hard of hearing. Other greats turned down the producers' overtures for other reasons, including Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, Katharine Hepburn and John Gielgud. Even Davis and Gish turned down the parts more than once before being persuaded to star in the film.
This film marks a reunion between Davis and Vincent Price after 48 years, having last appeared on screen together in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex in 1939.