The actor's adage don't ever work with children or animals - is only half right, according to Peter Strauss.
"Having just done `The Yearling,' I would say don't work with animals," he said. "But I would never say don't work with kids."This version of "The Yearling" (Sunday, April 24, 8 p.m., Ch. 5) is an excellent remake that is in some ways superior to the 1946 original. Scriptwriter Joe Wiesenfeld went back to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' novel about a young boy and the deer he loves and loses on the way to growing up and turned out an excellent teleplay.
And the performances by Strauss, Jean Smart and 14-year-old Wil Horneff, as Jody, are outstanding.
But still, making a movie in which a deer figures prominently isn't easy. Just ask Strauss.
"One of the most important scenes I have I'm bedridden and I'm having an argument with my wife," Strauss said. "And the deer is in bed with me. And this deer grew during the shoot. This deer did not think it belonged in a bed. They smeared me with banana puree and put apples in my armpits.
"At one point I said, `This doesn't look like a scene - it looks like a cannibalistic scene.'
It took about an hour to get the deer to settle down. With the animal finally under control, Strauss was set for his big argument scene with Smart.
"And the trainer said, `Uh, Peter, you can't raise your voice.'
"I said, `What do you mean?'
"He said, `It will disturb the deer.'
"I said, `Yeah, but this is an argument.'
"He said, `Well, you can't do that.'
"So I looked at the director and I said, `Alright. Now it's no longer an argument because we don't want to upset the deer.'
There aren't a lot of options in a case like that.
"You don't upset the deer," Strauss said with a laugh. "It's important to preface this with a sense of humor, but when you work with animals, you will probably do 52 takes. On 51 takes, you the actor are incredible. You're sensational. And the deer sucks.
"On take 52, the deer did what it should do. And it's the one place where you were lousy as an actor. Guess which one is going to get in the picture?
"That's what working with animals is all about."
"The Yearling" is full of animals, and Strauss said that was a bigger challenge than playing against "the mythology of Gregory Peck," who starred in the original film.
"I never thought about that," he said. "I've never played a remake before. I wondered how I was going to deal with that. And within 10 minutes of starting shooting you can't afford to think about it. It's just got to disappear.
"Now that I think about it having done the movie, I just tried to play it differently."
And, while the 1946 "Yearling" is a classic, this TV version can stand on its own.
Basically, the story is the same. Jody Baxter (Horneff) is a lonely boy who lives in rural Florida with his parents in the early 1900s. Theirs is a precarious life, struggling to eke out an existence.
Jody's mother, Ora (Smart) - having lost five children - shuts herself off emotionally from her only surviving child for fear of losing him, too.
When Jody's father, Penny (Strauss) - whom he adores - is bitten by a rattlesnake, Jody has to shoot a doe and use her liver to draw out the poison and save his father. Penny then gives Jody permission to adopt the doe's orphaned fawn, which as it grows will threaten the Baxters' meager existence.
By going back to the book for a new script, Wiesenfeld rediscovered this story of a small family in which all three members are suffering.
"The point of making a film over should not be to reproduce the original film. The point should be to either contemporize it or find a different way to reach an audience," Strauss said.
" `The Yearling,' to me, is so exciting because it's a film that a family can sit down and look at huge themes. The theme of a woman who's afraid to love her child because she's lost five of them. And the theme of a man who's afraid to disappoint his son and who knows what loneliness feels like and, contrary to his own survival, allows a boy to have a pet. And then is fearful of the day when that pet has to be dealt with.
"And the mother's responsibility to do the killing. And how the son reacts to the parents who kill his pet. And what loneliness is about - I mean, there are big themes in this picture."
The 1946 movie did have a tendency toward the maudlin.
"The original version was cloyingly sentimental. And this version is not," Strauss said. "It also doesn't have the shooting schedule and the finances of the original. But on the other hand, it wasn't shot on a stage.
The new version of "The Yearling" was shot entirely on location in South Carolina, whereas the original was shot entirely on studio soundstages. The locations are a big boost to the former.
And, without over-senti-men-tal-izing the story, the new version is affecting, compelling and heart-wrenching.
"I was really intrigued in that film by the role of what a father is. It was so exciting to play those big themes," Strauss said.
The actor also had nothing but praise for Smart and his young co-star, Horneff.
"Working with kids is great because they're inventive and they're spontaneous. And if you can connect, you've got something wonderful going," Strauss said. "I had a sensational time with Will in `The Yearling.'
"Now, if you ask me if I'll ever work with deer again . . ."