Fried Green Tomatoes

Written by Flagg and Carol Sobieski, and starring Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker and Cicely Tyson, the film tells the story of a middle-aged housewife who, unhappy with her life, befriends an elderly lady in a nursing home and is enthralled by the tales she tells of people she used to know.

Fried Green Tomatoes
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jon Avnet
Screenplay by	Fannie Flagg Carol Sobieski
Based on	Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
Produced by	Jon Avnet Jordan Kerner
Starring	Kathy Bates Jessica Tandy Mary Stuart Masterson Mary-Louise Parker Cicely Tyson
Cinematography	Geoffrey Simpson
Edited by	Debra Neil-Fisher
Music by	Thomas Newman
Production companies	Avnet/Kerner Productions Electric Shadow Productions Act III Communications
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	December 27, 1991 (1991-12-27)
Running time	130 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million
Box office	$119.4 million

The film was released in theaters in the United States on December 27, 1991, garnered positive reviews from critics and was a box office success, grossing $119.4 million on a $11 million budget.

Fried Green Tomatoes received nominations for two Academy Awards and two BAFTA awards, as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and a Guldbagge Award.

Evelyn Couch is a timid housewife in her 40s in 1980s Birmingham. Her slovenly husband Ed has an aunt living at an Alabama nursing home, where Evelyn meets elderly Ninny Threadgoode. Evelyn befriends Ninny, who tells her the story about the long-abandoned town of Whistle Stop and its residents.

Ninny's tale begins with tomboy Idgie, the youngest member of the Threadgoode family. Following a wedding, Idgie's older brother Buddy is killed by a train, devastating Idgie and Buddy's girlfriend, Ruth Jamison. Idgie remains socially withdrawn well into her adolescence. At the Threadgoode family's request, Ruth - who had since left town - returns to try and help her. Idgie initially rebuffs Ruth's attempt at friendship, but over the summer they gradually develop a deep attachment. Ruth eventually moves to Valdosta, Georgia, to marry the older, wealthy Frank Bennett.

Idgie eventually visits Ruth to discovers that Frank abuses the pregnant Ruth, whose mother has since passed away. Against Frank's violent attempts to stop her, Idgie and some friends rescue Ruth, who returns to Whistle Stop with them, where her baby, Buddy Jr., is born. Papa Threadgoode gives Idgie money to start a business and help care for Ruth and Buddy Jr. She and Ruth open the Whistle Stop Cafe, employing the family cook Sipsey and her son, Big George, whose excellent barbecue becomes widely popular.

Despite the cafe's success, it soon becomes controversial because it serves the town's African American residents. Motivated by this, Frank leads the Ku Klux Klan to attack the cafe, verbally attacking Ruth and unsuccessfully trying to lynch Big George, before fleeing when Sheriff Grady Kilgore assembles a posse against them. Not long after, Frank comes to Whistle Stop to kidnap his infant son, but an unseen assailant thwarts his attempt, and he is soon reported missing.

About five years later, Frank's truck surfaces in a nearby river. Idgie becomes a suspect, due to threatening Frank for beating Ruth. Grady detains both her and Big George; he offers to release Idgie and pin Frank's supposed murder solely on Big George, but she refuses. During the subsequent trial, Reverend Scroggins provides false testimony that supports both Idgie's and Big George's alibis. Taking into account Frank's reputation for drunkenness and his body never being found, the judge rules his probable death as accidental and drops all charges against Idgie and Big George.

Shortly after the trial, Ruth is diagnosed with terminal cancer and soon dies. When trains stop running through Whistle Stop, the café closes, and the townsfolk drift away. Ninny's story concludes, but not before Frank's fate is revealed. When Frank attempted to kidnap Buddy Jr., Sipsey hit him over the head with a cast-iron skillet, killing him. To prevent Sipsey from getting lynched, Idgie and Big George dumped the car in the lake, then supposedly cut up Frank's body and cooked him in Big George's barbecue to cover up the evidence, serving it to the very cop investigating his disappearance.

In the present, Ninny's story motivates Evelyn to take more control of her life, ditching classes she was taking to salvage her marriage, working on self-improvement, and even remodeling the house. Ed is initially perplexed, but eventually comes to realize his culpability and apologizes.

Soon after, Evelyn discovers Ninny was discharged from the nursing home. During her stay there, however, Ninny's house was condemned and demolished unbeknownst to her. Evelyn finds Ninny where the house once stood. She offers to have Ninny live with her and Ed, to which Ninny agrees. They pass by Ruth's grave which is freshly adorned with a jar containing honey and a honeycomb left by Idgie, heavily implying that Ninny herself is Idgie. Ninny coyly does not confirm this, so Evelyn suggests they may see her on the way to their home.

 

 

 

Kathy Bates (pictured in 2006), Mary Stuart Masterson (2007), and Mary-Louise Parker (1999)

• Kathy Bates as Evelyn Couch
• Mary Stuart Masterson as Imogene "Idgie" Threadgoode
  • Nancy Moore Atchison as Young Idgie Threadgoode
• Mary-Louise Parker as Ruth Jamison
• Jessica Tandy as Ninny Threadgoode
• Cicely Tyson as Sipsey
• Chris O'Donnell as Buddy Threadgoode
• Stan Shaw as Big George
• Gailard Sartain as Ed Couch
• Tim Scott as Smokey Lonesome
• Gary Basaraba as Grady Kilgore
• Lois Smith as Mama Threadgoode
• Danny Nelson as Papa Threadgoode
• Jo Harvey Allen as Women's Awareness Teacher
• Macon McCalman as Prosecutor
• Richard Riehle as Reverend Scroggins
• Raynor Scheine as Curtis Smoot
• Grace Zabriskie as Eva Bates
• Nick Searcy as Frank Bennett
• Constance Shulman as Missy

Development

Jon Avnet first read the novel in 1987. He was introduced to it by producer Lisa Lindstrom, with whom he worked on television films Heat Wave and Breaking Point. Although he wanted her to give him a synopsis of the story, she insisted he read the book and like her, he loved it. He decided to turn the story into a film and pitched the idea to Norman Lear's company, Act III Communications, who were interested and gave him a small budget for a screenwriter. He hired Carol Sobieski who had written the screenplay for 1982's Annie. She wrote a draft for it as a musical, which he was unhappy with. Sobieski left the project and he hired Flagg, who had been surprised that anyone would want to turn the novel into a film, to develop the script. Although she had some screenwriting experience, she found the process of turning her own novel into a script a strange one. The job was made somewhat easier by the work done by Sobieski and Avnet in choosing which characters from the book were going to be featured, but she found it difficult and also left the project, after writing 70 pages of the screenplay. With no money left to hire another writer, Avnet took the script over himself and spent the next 2–3 years developing it. Flagg gave her blessing to the final draft.

Avnet wrote the film with Jessica Tandy in mind; she expressed excitement about making the film. He had worked with Kathy Bates and Chris O'Donnell on the 1990 film Men Don't Leave before offering them the roles of Evelyn Couch and Buddy Threadgoode respectively. When Bates read the script she loved the characters and was particularly keen to work with Tandy. Mary-Louise Parker was casting director David Rubin's first choice for the role of Ruth Jamison. She read for the part several times, initially unhappy with her own tests. When she read along with Mary Stuart Masterson, they – and the producers – agreed that they had good chemistry.

Location and filming

Avnet hired Barbara Ling as production designer. Scouting for a location, she found Juliette, Georgia, a town that was, according to Avnet, nearly deserted. The building chosen to be the Whistle Stop Café was formerly an antique and hardware store. It was redesigned as a cafe, with a horseshoe-shaped counter to allow for optimal camera angles.

The scene where Idgie goes to collect honey from a tree stump for Ruth was originally intended to be performed by a stunt double. However, after the latter backed out at the last minute, Masterson volunteered to do it herself. The footage of her covered in a swarm of live bees is seen in the final version of the film.

Flagg based the Whistle Stop restaurant on the real-life Irondale Café in Irondale, Alabama. She was a frequent visitor and it was formerly owned by her great-aunt.

Differences between the film and novel

Unlike the novel, the film does not make the lesbian romance between the two central characters explicit, instead leaving the relationship between Idgie and Ruth ambiguous. The DVD contains an audio commentary by Avnet in which he points out that a scene between Idgie and Ruth engaging in a food fight was intended as a "love scene".

At the time of the film's debut, it was criticized by reviewers and activists for what was seen as "glossing over" the lesbian relationship. But it won an award in 1992 from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for best feature film with lesbian content.

Although in the book Idgie and Ninny are two distinctly separate characters, at the end of the film it is largely hinted that they are one and the same. This runs counter to Ninny's earlier comment that "I was practically adopted by the Threadgoodes; I married her [Idgie's] brother, Cleo". Additionally, the film has Ruth being in love with Buddy Threadgoode, Idgie's brother.

Fried Green Tomatoes was given a limited release in the United States on December 27, 1991, opening in five theaters. It got a wide release four weeks later on January 24, 1992, in 673 theaters. It ran for 19 weeks in total, with its widest release having been 1,331 theaters.

Fried Green Tomatoes grossed $82.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $37 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $119.4 million, against a budget of $11 million. In its opening weekend it earned $105,317, and at its wide release opening weekend it earned $5,235,940, which was 6.4 percent of its total gross. According to Box Office Mojo, it ranked at no. 11 for all films released in the US in 1991, and no. 5 for PG‑13 rated films released that year.^{[citation needed]}

The VHS was released by MCA/Universal Home Video in North America on August 20, 1992.

The 137-minute "extended" collector's edition DVD for Region 1 was released by Universal Studios on April 18, 2000. The DVD features a documentary about the making of the film, commentary by Jon Avnet, original theatrical trailer, and the film poster campaign. The region free Blu-ray was released March 4, 2014.

In the United Kingdom, the VHS was released as Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Columbia Tristar Home Video on October 2, 1992. The DVD for Region 2 was released by Carlton Visual Entertainment on September 9, 2002.

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 76% based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 6.70/10. The critical consensus reads, "Fried Green Tomatoes' tearjerking drama is undeniably manipulative, but in the hands of a skilled cast that includes Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates, it's also powerfully effective." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Critics enjoyed the narrative, but found it conventional and predictable. The adaptation of the separate narrative of book to the screen was criticized by Time Out as "clumsy", Roger Ebert praised the performances, Janet Maslin praised the costume and production design and Emanuel Levy praised the cinematography and score. The cast drew praise for their performances, particularly Masterson and Tandy.

In 2005, Fried Green Tomatoes was nominated by the American Film Institute for its "AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers" list of most inspiring movies.

The Fried Green Tomatoes: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was supervised by Arthur Baker, who also produced several of the songs. Baker and American singer-songwriter Grayson Hugh co-arranged and recorded Bob Dylan's song "I'll Remember You" for the end-title song. British singer-songwriter Paul Young appears with the song "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted," which peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1992. The soundtrack featured Patti LaBelle performing Bessie Jackson's 1933 blues song, "Barbecue Bess".

The original score, composed by Thomas Newman, was released as Fried Green Tomatoes in June 1992.

 

After the release of Fried Green Tomatoes, the town of Juliette saw an influx of tourists and, with Jon Avnet's encouragement, locals opened the Whistle Stop Café, recreated to mirror the film set. Although "Whistle Stop Café" is a registered trademark, other establishments have appeared using that name.

The film caused the fried green tomatoes food dish to be known as a delicacy of the Southern United States, when it previously did not have such a status.