Long Day's Journey Into Night Resources

Movie or TV Productions

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)

This is really powerful stuff, with a killer performance by Katharine Hepburn. Sidney Lumet directs, and Jason Robards, who is basically the most accomplished O'Neill actor of all time, plays Jamie.

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1973)

This one features Sir Laurence Olivier, which is, you know, pretty sweet. Directed by Peter Wood.

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1982)

This is cool – the Irish-American family is substituted with an African-American family. The always-awesome Ruby Dee stars as Mary.

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1987)

Nominated for a Golden Globe and boasting a stellar cast: Peter Gallagher (Edmund), Jack Lemmon (James), and Kevin Spacey (Jamie). Directed by Sir Jonathan Miller.

Videos

Clip from the Lumet Film

So, some awesome YouTube user put up a bunch of clips from Lumet's 1962 film. Here, James finds out Edmund has tuberculosis from Act II, Scene Two. You can see most of Act IV, actually.

Clip from the Lumet Film

Edmund talks about the fog in Act IV.

Clip from the Lumet Film

Edmund talking about his time on the sea from Act IV.

Clip from the Lumet Film

James talks about Mary's Father in Act IV

Clip from the Lumet Film

Jamie's confession from Act IV.

Clip from the Lumet Film

Mary's final scene.

Documents

Review of the Play's World Premiere

This is a fantastic review of the premiere performance of Long Day's Journey. It was first performed in Stockholm, Sweden. The review is worth checking out just for the commentary on how the Swedes reacted to O'Neill's work and to his relationship to Swedish playwright August Strindberg (who's mentioned in the play). Basically, some critics thought O'Neill was the best thing since Shakespeare, and others were horrified that his reputation could beat out those of Scandinavian dramatists like Strindberg and Ibsen.

Preview of the play's Broadway premiere

Some interesting stuff on the play's early life.

Brief O'Neill Autobiography

This is pretty cool – a short autobiography O'Neill wrote when he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Other

Eugene O'Neill Archive
This is a terrific first resource for all things O'Neill, including a link at the bottom to a great Britannica biography. Hard to imagine what you'd need to know about O'Neill that you couldn't find through this website.