Silent Tongue

Silent Tongue is a Western written and directed by Sam Shepard. It was filmed in the spring of 1992, but not released until 1994. It was filmed near Roswell, New Mexico and features Richard Harris, Sheila Tousey, Alan Bates, Dermot Mulroney and River Phoenix.

Contents

• Silent tongue 1994 trailer
• Silent tongue 5 of 12 with river phoenix
• Cast
• Delay in release
• References

The film is about a young man named Talbot Roe (Phoenix), who's 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 (Tousey), 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 isn't taking any chances for her—he's too afraid that she'll try to take his wife's corpse from him. And for the last few nights, he sees the ghost of his dead wife, who wants him to destroy her corpse, but he won't.

Cast

Richard Harris as Prescott Roe

Sheila Tousey as Awbonnie / Ghost

Alan Bates as Eamon McCree

River Phoenix as Talbot Roe

Dermot Mulroney as Reeves McCree

Jeri Arredondo as Velada McCree

Tantoo Cardinal as Silent Tongue

Bill Irwin as Comic

David Shiner as Straight Man

Tommy Thompson as Medicine Show Band Performer

Jack Herrick as Medicine Show Band Performer

Bland Simpson as Medicine Show Band Performer

Clay Buckner as Medicine Show Band Performer

Chris Frank as Medicine Show Band Performer

Arturo Gil as Little Person Acrobat #1

Delay in release

The film was the last full film to be released featuring a performance by River Phoenix, who died on October 31, 1993 from a drug overdose. The film's release was delayed, and Phoenix continued to work on The Thing Called Love (the film he had just completed at the time of his death), which was released before Silent Tongue.

The various release dates of Silent Tongue are : Sundance Film Festival - 28 January 1993 Native American Film Festival - November 1993 London Film Festival - 15 November 1993 U.S. Public Release - 1 February 1994