Peter Fonda reminded me so much of Henry here - one can easily imagine Fonda snr being cast in the role if this film had been made forty years earlier. His vocals, mannerisms, quiet authority and hairline all call his dad to mind throughout the film.
shareWhat's interesting is that the trivia on this film holds that the writer-director first sought Nick Nolte for the part. Evidently Nolte rejected it as "too close to who he played in The Prince of Tides." Wha? Oh, the Deep South, maybe.
But Peter Fonda evidently somehow got ahold of the script and asked for the role. HE must have seen daddy Henry in there...
...and moreover, Peter felt that the film captured his dad in REAL LIFE...as a stern, distant father who didn't connect.
But in Ulee's Gold, the father/grandfather gets better, nicer, more caring. In Ulee's Gold, Peter Fonda gets to pay the Henry Fonda he WISH he had had, as a father...
PS. Interesting: whereas Peter Fonda acts like his dad here, it was his sister Jane who was always a "dead ringer" in the face for Papa Hank. Henry and Jane had the same beautiful faces ..one version of the face worked on a handsome, almost pretty man, one version of the face worked on a sexy woman. Peter must have looked like the mother...