![]() ![]() That led to him sitting down and doing his own rewrite, which garnered some pretty negative criticism from the other writers. Weir did provide notes when he was hired but found his suggestions weren’t fully understood. He would always have co-writers, but this was a screenplay where he hadn’t had a hand at all in penning it. This was the first film where Weir hadn’t been involved in scriptwriting. During this time, Book begins to find a sense of peace in how the Amish live and grows more attracted to Rachel. Unfortunately, he’s shot in the process and has to hole up in their reclusive community while he heals. A department conspiracy surrounding seized amphetamine ingredients leads Book to flee the city with Rachel and Samuel. Detective John Book (Ford) is assigned to the case and learns from Samuel’s positive identification that the culprit is a narcotics officer, McFee (Danny Glover). Samuel goes to use the restroom and witnesses a murder of an undercover cop. She takes a trip with her son, Samuel (Lukas Haas), to visit her sister in another community, but stops in Philadelphia for a connecting train. Rachel (Kelly McGillis) is mourning the death of her husband in Pennsylvania’s Amish country. Harrison Ford had already shown interest, so Weir’s first American film was a bit of a gamble but certainly helped by his star’s prominence in the industry. ![]() It was 182 pages (about 3 hours in movie time) and was critiqued by some executives for focusing too much on the Amish lifestyle rather than the thriller elements. Witness, based on an episode of Gunsmoke, had been circulating in Hollywood for years. He’d return to the project, but Paramount offered him the director’s chair for a picture they had trouble courting someone for. Peter Weir was in the middle of pre-production work on The Mosquito Coast when backing fell through. Wallace, Pamela Wallace, and William Kelley
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