The Quiet One

1948 DramaDocumentary 65 minutes Directed by Sidney Meyers

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About The Quiet One

A ten-year-old African-American boy from Harlem, rejected at home, is sent to the Wiltwyck School. The film follows his silence, his trouble, and the staff's attempt to reach him. James Agee wrote the commentary, and Gary Merrill speaks it.

Cast & crew

More about The Quiet One

Sidney Meyers directed and edited. Janice Loeb produced and shared the writing and photography with Helen Levitt and Meyers. Richard Bagley was the principal cinematographer. Ulysses Kay composed the score. Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn distributed the 65-minute film.

Themes

  • a child turned out at home
  • silence as the boy's answer
  • a school instead of a cell
  • Wiltwyck School
  • Harlem
  • James Agee
  • documentary
  • Gary Merrill
  • rehabilitation

Background

The Wiltwyck School is the place the film shows taking in a Harlem boy his family had rejected.

In film history

It is one of two English-language films, with Street Angel, to draw Academy Award nominations in separate years.

Making

Levitt, already known for still photographs of New York streets, worked as a writer and a cinematographer. Loeb, a painter, produced and also shot.

Reviews

Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times in 1949, described a documentary drama built from a ten-year-old Harlem boy's rejection by his family and his rescue at the Wiltwyck School.

Look

Richard Bagley was the principal cinematographer. Helen Levitt and Janice Loeb also photographed, moving between Harlem streets and the Wiltwyck grounds.

Music

Ulysses Kay wrote the score. Gary Merrill reads James Agee's commentary; there is no conventional dialogue track carrying the story.

Preservation

A print is on the Internet Archive.

Notes

  • Donald Thompson, Clarence Cooper, Sadie Stockton, Estelle Evans, and Paul Baucum appear with Merrill.
  • The National Board of Review ranked it the second-best film of 1949.
  • It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 21st Academy Awards and lost to The Secret Land.
  • The next year it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and lost to Battleground.
  • Bagley later photographed the New York feature On the Bowery.

Awards

  • National Board of Review: Top Ten Films, ranked second (1949)

Scenes

  • The boy is shown unwanted in Harlem before the school takes him.
  • Merrill's narration, from Agee's text, follows him through the Wiltwyck routine.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (the_quiet_one)