''Silent Tongue'' is a 1994 American

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

written and directed by

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...

. It was filmed in the spring of 1992, but not released until 1994. It was filmed near

Roswell, New Mexico Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fi ...

and features

Richard Harris Richard St John Francis Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Irish actor and singer. Having studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he rose to prominence as an icon of the British New Wave. He received numerous a ...

Sheila Tousey Sheila May Tousey (born June 4, 1959) is a Native Americans of the United States, Native American actress. Biography Born in Keshena, Wisconsin in 1959, Tousey is a stage and film actress of Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee descent. She was ra ...

Alan Bates Sir Alan Arthur Bates (17 February 1934 – 27 December 2003) was an English actor who came to prominence in the Cinema of the United Kingdom#The 1960s, 1960s, when he appeared in films ranging from ''Whistle Down the Wind (film), Whistle Down ...

Dermot Mulroney Dermot Patrick Mulroney (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor and musician. He is known for his roles in a wide variety of genres, including romantic comedy, western, and drama films. After making his film debut in ''Sunset'' (1988), Mulro ...

and River Phoenix.

Plot

The film is about a young man named Talbot Roe (Phoenix), who has gone insane over the death of his wife. Talbot's father, Prescott Roe (Harris) feels his son's pain and wants to find him a new wife. He goes back to the place where he bought Talbot's first wife, from Eamon McCree (Bates). He finds the dead wife's sister (Arredondo), who is a champion horse rider and Mr. McCree's daughter, which makes her only half-Indian. Roe asks McCree if he could have his last daughter for his son, but McCree refuses. Then, Roe kidnaps her and tries to get her to help him, and she takes the deal for gold and four horses. But Talbot is not taking any chances for her. He is too afraid that she will try to take his wife's corpse from him. And for the last few nights, he sees the ghost of his dead wife. She wants him to destroy her corpse, but he refuses.

Cast

Production

was inspired to write ''Silent Tongue'' after researching

medicine show Medicine shows were touring acts (traveling by truck, horse, or wagon teams) that peddled "miracle cure" patent medicines and other products between various entertainments. They developed from European Charlatan, mountebank shows and were common ...

s and the gullible idea of a magic potion or cure all. Shepard's script for ''Silent Tongue'' found its way to producer, Gene Rosow, with Shepard's editor, Bill Yahraus, telling Rosow the story at a Passover seder at Rosow's home. Rosow was impressed by the story and took the project to Ludi Boeken of French production company Belbo Films who helped secure financing from

Groupe Canal+ Canal+ S.A., formerly Groupe Canal+, is a French Media conglomerate, media and telecommunications Conglomerate (company), conglomerate based in Paris. It runs its own Canal+ (streaming service), eponymous Over-the-top media service, over-the-to ...

and Hachette Premiere. Following the film's initial showing at the 1993

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

, Shepard re-edited the movie.

Delay in release

The film was shot in 1992 but its release was delayed until early 1994, marking the penultimate film appearance of River Phoenix who died four months before its release. It was the final film to feature Phoenix for 19 years until the release of his unfinished film '' Dark Blood'' in 2012. https://junegloom.medium.com/530-silent-tongue-b407db2fa3a3

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 38% based on , with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating of 4.9/10.

Peter Travers Peter Joseph Travers (born June 27, 1943) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film i ...

from ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' awarded the film 4/4 stars, calling it "a demanding chunk of Shepard frontier poetry that shuns pretty-boy posturing". Film critics Siskel & Ebert both disliked the film and included it on their Worst of 1994 show; Ebert in particular claimed that "I've seen whole movies that seemed shorter than the last half hour of Silent Tongue" and ridiculed its plot.

References

External links

* * * {{Sam Shepard 1994 films 1994 horror films 1994 independent films 1994 Western (genre) films 1990s American films 1990s British films 1990s French films 1990s ghost films 1990s Western (genre) horror films American independent films American supernatural horror films American Western (genre) horror films British independent films Dutch independent films English-language Dutch films English-language French films English-language independent films English-language Western (genre) horror films Films scored by Patrick O'Hearn Films shot in New Mexico French independent films Trimark Pictures films