I apologize if this is in the wrong forum and/or if it has been asked before. I did a search but came up empty handed.
In the movie “Fried Green Tomatoes”, Jessica Tandy plays a character named Ninny Threadgoode who tells the story. All through the movie, I don’t remember that character being played as a younger person, although I may have just missed it. At the very end of the movie, she says that Idgie is still alive and that she thinks she sees her sometimes. By the expression on her face, I get the impression that Idgie and Ninny are the same person.
Am I right or am I reading something in that isn’t there?
The movie did seem to be trying to leave that impression.
However, in the book Ninny, her husband, and her son are all characters in their own right. Also, there’s a vignette of present-day-Idgie towards the end.
Thanks for reminding me that this is a Fannie Flagg book that I need to read. I’ve read several of her other books and enjoyed them immensely but this one, I saw the movie first and never got around to reading the book.
My dad and I love this movie. We have had this discussion more than once, whether they are the same person. Our decision that they aren’t is based upon the fact that Ninny was married for 40 years (or so) to the same man.
In our heart of hearts, we know that Idgie never would have gotten married.
Those of us who’ve read the book know that of course, they aren’t the same person, because Ninny was married to Idgie’s brother Cleo. I suppose the screenwriters may have been taking the tack that Ninny was making all that up when she was telling Evelyn all the old stories, and giving herself an alter ego to conceal the fact that she was really Idgie.
If so, it’s just another lame attempt by screenwriters to “spice up” a story that doesn’t need it. I’d like to know what Fannie Flagg thought of it.
And I’ll put in another vote for “If you liked the movie, you’ll love the book.”
The first couple times I saw the movie, I too had the impression, but then I saw the movie again and again, and between that, plus finally reading the book, it became quite apparent that they are not the same person.
I had thought that even in the movie, Ninny mentions the fact that she was married to Idgie’s brother. Maybe I need to watch it again to make sure.
As already posted, Ninny had married. Don’t forget that according to the movie (and maybe the book, which I haven’t read) she also had a child, Albert. The lesbian subtext of the movie doesn’t seem to allow for the idea that Idgie would be with a man, right up to the honey on the tombstone saying she’d always love her.
I never read the book but I understand there is no lesbian subtext in it. It’s right there in the text.
I had no idea that the cute redhead that I only knew from 1970s celeb game shows was lesbian, but then again I was late to the party about Roddy McDowell and Charles Nelson Reilly also.
Heh. Yea, he had a (brief) Hollywood marriage as a cover; there was some archival story about her giving him green socks for Christmas or some such. My mother had a mad crush on him, glad she never knew, it’d have really thrown her for a loop.
Another ditto to this. It’s one of the most “laugh out loud” funny (and also very touching) books in recent years.
Idgie and Ruth’s lesbianism is a bit less “open to interpretation” in the book. It’s never graphic at all- no sex scenes- but the movie kind of left it to “if you want them gay then they are and if not, they don’t have to be”. In the book Idgie’s not a tomboy but flat-out butch (she’s mistaken for a marine in one scene) and there are a lot more characters (including Ninnie/her husband/her Down’s Syndrome son, as mentioned above- Ninnie is definitely not Idgie).
I’ve always thought that the book would work well as a musical, incidentally. I love the notion of characters from different times (the '30s/the '80s) singing duets. Dot Weems (not in the movie, but in the book her small town newspaper column gives a lot of exposition) would be great filler for scene changes.
Fannie Flagg based the book- loosely of course- on her great aunt, Bess Fortenberry, who ran [with her longtime “roommate”] the Irondale Cafe (now called Whistlestop Cafe- still the same location, though Fannie’s aunt is long dead of course [she’d be over 100]).
When I lived in Georgia I took a “shortcut” a co-worker recommended to me while driving home from Atlanta once and, because they left out a little turn, I got hopelessly lost. I found myself in this picturesque little town that I had a strong deja vu feel for- I knew I’d seen it before but never been there. I learned later that it’s Juliette, GA where the Whistlestop scenes from the movie were filmed. (Now the movie’s a mini cottage enterprise there.)
What’s sick is that he had a wife and son who died in a private plane crash— in his official biography— and his heartbreak over their deaths were why he was never interested in remarriage. In reality, neither the wife nor the child ever existed.
His partner of 35 years, Robert Benevides, manages the winery they founded. Burr’s estate was incredibly complicated- he left a mountain of debts and a mountain of assets, plus his nephew and niece contested the bequest of most of the estate to his partner. Apparently it’s all worked out though. (In addition to wine Burr and Benevides [who was a very open secret] were orchid growers and also developed a new breed of sheep; the day Burr died Benevides and Barbara Hale [Della Street] wheeled him [he was wheelchair and oxygen dependent] through their farm with Burr holding and bottlefeeding a newborn lamb in his arms, which Benevides says is his favorite image of Burr in the last years.)