Our Town, 1940

Our Town is a 1940 American drama romance film adaptation of the 1938 play of the same name by Thornton Wilder, starring Martha Scott as Emily Webb, and William Holden as George Gibbs. The cast also included Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee and Frank Craven. It was adapted by Harry Chandlee, Craven and Wilder, and directed by Sam Wood.

The film was a faithful reproduction of the play except for two significant changes: the film used scenery, whereas the play had not; the events of the third act, which in the play revolve around the death of one of the main characters, were turned into a dream from which she awakens, allowing her to resume a normal life. Producer Sol Lesser worked with Wilder in creating these changes. Wilder wrote Lesser that “Emily should live…. In a movie you see the people so close to that a distant relation is established. In the theater they are halfway abstractions in an allegory; in the movie they are very concrete…. [I]t’s even disproportionately cruel that she die. Let her live….”