EDITOR’S NOTE: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden was on the CBS Late Movie on September 8, 1982.
Based on the novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg, this was directed by Anthony Page (Absolution, Chernobyl: The Final Warning) and written by Gavin Lambert and Lewis John Carlino (Where Have All the People Gone?, The Mechanic).
It stars Kathleen Quinlan as Deborah Blake, a borderline schizophrenic who lives in a world of fantasy that is rudely intruded upon when she ends up in a brutal institution. Luckily, Dr. Fried (Bibi Andersson) saves her and helps her learn what’s real and what isn’t.
After One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a success, Roger Corman was able to make this. All of the Jewish content was removed, including the antisemitic abuse that the protagonist endures. How did Greenberg feel about that? She said that the Jewish moments left the producers “terrified” and the way that mental illness was treated “stank on ice.” Of the actors, only Andersson contacted her to learn the character, and she said the producers told her the author was “hopelessly insane.” She’d know, as the novel was based on her life.
One of New World Pictures’ most expensive films, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and won two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress (Quinlan) and Best Picture.
This movie also has Dennis Quaid, Susan Tyrell, Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brodie!), Martin Bartlett, Ben Piazza and Sylvia Sidney in the cast. I want to know more about the deleted scenes, as Barbara Steele was in those. And when the movie shows scenes in Blake’s imagination — The Kingdom of Yr — the warriors Anterrabae and Lactameaon are Robert Viharo and Jeff Conaway.
