What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

The Great Gatsby from 1949 with Alan Ladd, Betty Field, MacDonald Carey, Barry Sullivan, Ruth Hussey, Shelly Winters and Howard Da Silva


"They're a rotten crowd - you're worth more than the whole lot of them put together." - Nick Carraway to Jay Gatsby


The above quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is the point of his famous novel, but Hollywood, by wont or to abide by the Motion Picture Production Code, turned the 1949 movie version of The Great Gatsby into another mid-century high-society melodrama.

Taking the movie on its own, it's not bad at all, but this is The Great Gatsby, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, so it's not easy to take the movie on its own.

If you do, though, you get a good story about a now-rich bootlegger who, as a young man, loved a pretty young socialite, played by Betty Field, whom he was too poor to marry.

It's about ten years later and Field is married to a man of her background, played by Barry Sullivan, who is wealthy but cheats on her - you make your choices in this world and then you live with them or not.

The rich bootlegger, Gatsby, played by Alan Ladd, pops up in an exclusive section of Long Island in an ostentatious mansion with plans to steal Field, who lives nearby, away from Sullivan.

He uses his connection to one of Field's friends, and the narrator and conscience of the story, played by MacDonald Carey, to gain entry to Field and Sullivan's "circle."

Also in the mix is another friend of Field's, Ruth Hussey as a cynical and unethical golf pro, a struggling local garage owner, played by Howard Da Silva, and his wife, played by Shelly Winters. Winters is having an affair with Sullivan.

Yes, it's a Peyton Place for the society set, a popular movie genre at the time. Joan Crawford who, had she been younger, could have played Field's role, churned out several of these rich-people-behaving-badly pictures during the late '40s/early '50s.

This 1949 movie version of Fitzgerald's story plays out like a Hollywood-of-the-era "reinterpretation" of The Great Gatsby, so bad acts are punished, marriage is ultimately respected, some people are redeemed and there is nothing to really offend the Motion Picture Production Code.

It's a good story with Ladd and Hussey, in particular, bringing an energy and affability to two not-really-likable characters that gives the movie its punch. If the story was just another one churned out by the Hollywood script mill, there'd be little more to say.

But it isn't just another movie. Instead, the movie The Great Gatsby disappoints as F. Scott Fitzgerald's carefully constructed story and nuanced characters are forced into mundane Hollywood boxes that undermines Fitzgerald's scathing denunciation of the rich and snooty.

In his life, Fitzgerald craved the lifestyle and acceptance of that society, but in his writing, he clearly saw it for what it was or what its worse elements were, which he beautifully limned with elegant prose and a meticulous plotting in a novel that deserved more Tinseltown respect.

The Great Gatsby would finally get that respect in the 1974 version of the movie, but that effort, while faithful to the novel, somehow drained the energy from the story, making one wonder if the novel can ever be successfully brought to the screen. The 2013 version is fun in a "spectacle" way, but it is not the book either.

The Great Gatsby from 1949 is fine as a run-of-the-mill Hollywood melodrama, with several notable performances and some "we tried hard" sets that don't really work, but it simply doesn't hold up to the expectations of its famous source material.

 

[Edward]

Watched a few films on the streamers recently. Last night, though, I managed to (finally - is it just me, or since Covid are films suddenly taking vastly longer to reach the 'included with subscription' market?) see Edgar Wright's 2021 picture, Last Night in Soho. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9639470/

An interesting piece, it centres on a young lady from a sheltered upbringing in rural Cornwall heading to London to study fashion at the UAL. Raised by her grandmother after her mother died when she was seven, we know she has some level of sensitivity to the Other Side. Before long she's time-travelling on the astral plane, and getting wound up in a murder mystery that takes place in the nastier underbelly of Soho.

This picture caused a bit of a splash when it came out over here. On my viewing, it represents something of a return to form after his hit and miss post-Pegg years. Vastly superior to the rather too pleased with itself Scott Pilgrim, and particularly the extremely disappointing Baby Driver. Broadly speaking, it falls into the Romero school of horror, with the supernatural being used to explore something more mundane. Here there's a very deft treatment of the misogyny suffered by sex workers, as well as the clash between naive nostalgia for a "golden era" from before the lifetime of an individual and the more unpleasant side of the same era. I'll not spoiler the ending, save to say that it was refreshingly nuanced compared to much of the run of the mill in terms of "person has bad experience, what they do next" end of cinema. With much of the action happening in the mid to late Sixties, it's also an interesting exploration of a part of the Sixties that is very much reality but all too often ignored in favour of hippie stereotypes and caricature. Like seeing genuine footage of punk rock kids in the Summer of 1976 up against poor attempts to recreate the same by dressing all your extras head to toe in Seditionaries.... I would very much like to see more of this sort of thing. Good performances all round, particularly from leads Thomasina McKenzie and Anna Taylor Joy, with Matt Smith playing hard against his Doctor Who type as one of the villains of the piece, and Rita Tushingham, a veteran of British 1960s cinema herself, in a supporting role.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm so glad you dug it, Edward!

I am no big fan of Edgar Wright, I haven't been particularly impressed by any of his earlier films. But I totally LOVE this one!



Obviously, recreating Swinging London was a labor of love for him, and that aspect of the film is really well done; his affection for that time and place suffuses the film. And the subtle effects work to make McKenzie the mirror image of Taylor-Joy is fantastic.

Tomasin McKenzie (*) and Anya Taylor-Joy (**) are both great. Matt Smith excels at playing these charming-then-scummy types. And besides Rita Tushingham, additional 60s Brit-film stalwarts Terence Stamp and (in her final performance) Diana Rigg are there to provide a legit connection back.

(* I recently saw Tomasin McKenzie in an excellent film called Leave No Trace, where she and her PTSD-suffering father live off the grid, camping in state parks, until the authorities catch them. She's great in it, and totally different from in Last Night in Soho - she's the real deal.)

(** I mean, I'd watch Anya read the phone book, but besides her stunning looks, she's a fine actress. Outstanding in better projects like The VVitch, The Queen's Gambit, Emma, The Menu. And not bad even in badly underwritten roles like The Northman, Split, Thoroughbreds, The New Mutants, Amsterdam.)

One minor issue I have with the film is the opening title sequence: with McKenzie's Swinging London shrine bedroom and Peter and Gordon LP on the soundtrack, it doesn't really give an obvious clue that the main story is taking place in the present. My daughter got confused when McKenzie put on modern headphones on the train, she already thought the story was taking place in the 60s!

But as you say, Edward, the film does a great job of comparing latter day nostalgia to reality, showing the seedy underbelly that was undoubtedly really part of the scene. Glamour isn't all it's cracked up to be...

My only complaint is that, for me, it becomes too much of a horror film in the third act, and the pacing - which has been great until then - is off. The eventually redundant horror sequences drag on far too long for me, especially in repeat viewings. But when the explanation for the apparitions ultimately comes, it's frickin' brilliant. I was totally misdirected on first viewing.

It's one of my real favorites from the last couple of years. This one's not leaving my DVR anytime soon!

 

[Fading Fast]

I really enjoyed both of your comments on "Last Night in Soho." I pretty much agree with all that was said as, Edward, like your daughter, I got confused a few times as to the time period. Also, like Doctor Strange said, the last third horror act was too much horror for me and, IMO, hurt, a still-impressive movie.

I think it is good that we look at the seedy underside of things and don't wallow in nostalgia, but the flip is today's movies' unrelenting desire to only show the ugly. I grew up in the 1970s, it wasn't all happy "That '70s Show," nor was it all "Licorice Pizza" (which wasn't too negative in truth). I'd love to see more balance.

And, yes, Anya Taylor-Joy is a heck of an impressive actress.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

View attachment 544566
The Great Gatsby from 1949 with Alan Ladd, Betty Field, MacDonald Carey, Barry Sullivan, Ruth Hussey, Shelly Winters and Howard Da Silva


"They're a rotten crowd - you're worth more than the whole lot of them put together." - Nick Carraway to Jay Gatsby


The above quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is the point of his famous novel, but Hollywood, by wont or to abide by the Motion Picture Production Code, turned the 1949 movie version of The Great Gatsby into another mid-century high-society melodrama.

Taking the movie on its own, it's not bad at all, but this is The Great Gatsby, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, so it's not easy to take the movie on its own.

If you do, though, you get a good story about a now-rich bootlegger who, as a young man, loved a pretty young socialite, played by Betty Field, whom he was too poor to marry.

It's about ten years later and Field is married to a man of her background, played by Barry Sullivan, who is wealthy but cheats on her - you make your choices in this world and then you live with them or not.

The rich bootlegger, Gatsby, played by Alan Ladd, pops up in an exclusive section of Long Island in an ostentatious mansion with plans to steal Field, who lives nearby, away from Sullivan.

He uses his connection to one of Field's friends, and the narrator and conscience of the story, played by MacDonald Carey, to gain entry to Field and Sullivan's "circle."

Also in the mix is another friend of Field's, Ruth Hussey as a cynical and unethical golf pro, a struggling local garage owner, played by Howard Da Silva, and his wife, played by Shelly Winters. Winters is having an affair with Sullivan.

Yes, it's a Peyton Place for the society set, a popular movie genre at the time. Joan Crawford who, had she been younger, could have played Field's role, churned out several of these rich-people-behaving-badly pictures during the late '40s/early '50s.

This 1949 movie version of Fitzgerald's story plays out like a Hollywood-of-the-era "reinterpretation" of The Great Gatsby, so bad acts are punished, marriage is ultimately respected, some people are redeemed and there is nothing to really offend the Motion Picture Production Code.

It's a good story with Ladd and Hussey, in particular, bringing an energy and affability to two not-really-likable characters that gives the movie its punch. If the story was just another one churned out by the Hollywood script mill, there'd be little more to say.

But it isn't just another movie. Instead, the movie The Great Gatsby disappoints as F. Scott Fitzgerald's carefully constructed story and nuanced characters are forced into mundane Hollywood boxes that undermines Fitzgerald's scathing denunciation of the rich and snooty.

In his life, Fitzgerald craved the lifestyle and acceptance of that society, but in his writing, he clearly saw it for what it was or what its worse elements were, which he beautifully limned with elegant prose and a meticulous plotting in a novel that deserved more Tinseltown respect.

The Great Gatsby would finally get that respect in the 1974 version of the movie, but that effort, while faithful to the novel, somehow drained the energy from the story, making one wonder if the novel can ever be successfully brought to the screen. The 2013 version is fun in a "spectacle" way, but it is not the book either.

The Great Gatsby from 1949 is fine as a run-of-the-mill Hollywood melodrama, with several notable performances and some "we tried hard" sets that don't really work, but it simply doesn't hold up to the expectations of its famous source material.

Gatsby, perennial literary brass ring, and, quioxtic elusive cinema chameleon extraordinaire.
Ladd is out of his depth here. Redford had it decent and neat like whiskey but too plain Jane handsome
yet since he rode his looks no end while chap for the shallow side of every pool truth be told.
Told college prof F. Scot waited Hemingway's read of Gatsby who declared it masterly so there it trully
begins and ends. Hemingway really couldn't touch Fitzwilly since he lacked the Princetonian's sensitivity
with its deft sure touch of it all. So anyone, writer, director, actor must first account themselves equal to
the task of handling F Scot Fitzgerald.

 

[Edward]

I'm so glad you dug it, Edward!

I am no big fan of Edgar Wright, I haven't been particularly impressed by any of his earlier films. But I totally LOVE this one!

View attachment 544609

He's an interesting director. I watched Spaced when it first came out (and, despite being so heavily pop-culture-reference oriented, it has aged better than many shows that try the same; the attempted emulation of the same style with a couple of the lead players but by a different director in Paul was very weak indeed, chiefly as it seemed to fail to trust its audience, contrary to what Wright did). I loved the Cornetto Trilogy, but yes, hit and miss otherwise for me. He really nails the sense of period here, though.

One minor issue I have with the film is the opening title sequence: with McKenzie's Swinging London shrine bedroom and Peter and Gordon LP on the soundtrack, it doesn't really give an obvious clue that the main story is taking place in the present. My daughter got confused when McKenzie put on modern headphones on the train, she already thought the story was taking place in the 60s!

Funnily enough, that was an aspect I really liked about that scene. The contrast between the nostalgist and the sudden, harsh intrusion of the real world.... They did something similar on stage at the National in 2018 in Home, I'm Darling (a stage play dealing with the 'trad wife' movement).

But as you say, Edward, the film does a great job of comparing latter day nostalgia to reality, showing the seedy underbelly that was undoubtedly really part of the scene. Glamour isn't all it's cracked up to be...

My only complaint is that, for me, it becomes too much of a horror film in the third act, and the pacing - which has been great until then - is off. The eventually redundant horror sequences drag on far too long for me, especially in repeat viewings. But when the explanation for the apparitions ultimately comes, it's frickin' brilliant. I was totally misdirected on first viewing.

It's one of my real favorites from the last couple of years. This one's not leaving my DVR anytime soon!

I like the feint it took into horror. I particularly loved that we don't get any easy explanation as to how / why / what exactly is happening in the "time travel" sequences. The feint at the end is wonderful, though. I didn't see it coming either until it started to unfold. What is particularly nice about it is that it is done in a way where it isn't... well, Shyamalan-style. As in the surprise works, but at the same time it doesn't kill the film for a rewatch knowing what's coming.

I think it is good that we look at the seedy underside of things and don't wallow in nostalgia, but the flip is today's movies' unrelenting desire to only show the ugly. I grew up in the 1970s, it wasn't all happy "That '70s Show," nor was it all "Licorice Pizza" (which wasn't too negative in truth). I'd love to see more balance.

Yes, the balance is important. I like dark, but being dark for its own sake at some point can become as bad as being forcibly upbeat.... I think that's why the ending - where she doesn't change everything and cut x,y,z from her life - works so well.

Gatsby, perennial literary brass ring, and, quioxtic elusive cinema chameleon extraordinaire.
Ladd is out of his depth here. Redford had it decent and neat like whiskey but too plain Jane handsome
yet since he rode his looks no end while chap for the shallow side of every pool truth be told.
Told college prof F. Scot waited Hemingway's read of Gatsby who declared it masterly so there it trully
begins and ends. Hemingway really couldn't touch Fitzwilly since he lacked the Princetonian's sensitivity
with its deft sure touch of it all. So anyone, writer, director, actor must first account themselves equal to
the task of handling F Scot Fitzgerald.

I really did not like Redford's portrayal - though to be fair, I've never liked Redford in anything. Th Luhrman version wasn't perfect (I don't think they had Daisy quite right), but with both Gatsby and Carraway they had what had long been my dream castings, and I think they worked as well as I'd hoped. Isla Fisher really got to grips with how I had envisaged Myrtle also, character-wise at least.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I recently rewatched most of the 1974 Gatsby movie for the first time in decades. It's still too mannered and largely inert, but you know, it's not a terrible adaptation.

The Baz Lurhmann version does some things a lot better, but only if you can look past its nonstop overwrought excess.
Between them, they almost do justice to the book. A really good adaptation would have more of the seriousness of the 1974 with some of the production flash of the 2013. I've never seen the 1949 version, so no comment.

And for record, I have to state again that I have NEVER thought that The Great Gatsby was the pinnacle Great American Novel, I've always found it overrated. Part of this is my English major background: do you know how many classes I had in high school and college where we dissected the hell out of it? I was eventually exhausted by what my creative writing professor used to call "that lit crit shit"!

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I recently rewatched most of the 1974 Gatsby movie for the first time in decades. It's still too mannered and largely inert, but you know, it's not a terrible adaptation.

The Baz Lurhmann version does some things a lot better, but only if you can look past its nonstop overwrought excess.
Between them, they almost do justice to the book. A really good adaptation would have more of the seriousness of the 1974 with some of the production flash of the 2013. I've never seen the 1949 version, so no comment.

And for record, I have to state again that I have NEVER thought that The Great Gatsby was the pinnacle Great American Novel, I've always found it overrated. Part of this is my English major background: do you know how many classes I had in high school and college where we dissected the hell out of it? I was eventually exhausted by what my creative writing professor used to call "that lit crit shit"!

L's take was that, his take and for me copper thown a ha'penny wasted.

American Literature's pinnacle is Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

American Literature's pinnacle is Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

Melville's first person sea narrative was captured best by a black and white film yarn dating circa 1950s with
black Irish Gregory Peck as Ahab and Richard Basehart as Ishmael, biblical halfbred Nantucketter torn between
sea and shore, but a castoff narrator whose sharp eye for surface detail could slice a razor to cut thru skin and bone down toward soul floorboards. For its sheer breadth and depth no other work in American letters can
match much less best Moby Dick.

 

[Fading Fast]

Mr. Buddwing from 1966 with James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, Jean Simmons, Angela Lansbury and Katherine Ross


Some movies improve with multiple viewings, especially if they are the type of picture whose good good parts stand out more and flaws fade a bit each subsequent time you see it. Mr. Buddwing is that type of movie.

It's a bit too artsy and self conscious, but once you know that from prior viewings, those flaws matter less, allowing you to better appreciate the good story underneath and the excellent performances by its talented cast. Plus, its beautiful, shot-on-location, black and white cinematography is an incredible time capsule of mid-1960s New York City.

A handsome, middle-aged man in a well-tailored grey suit, played by James Garner, wakes up one Sunday morning in New York City's Central Park to discover he's lost most of his memory. The rest of the movie is Garner wandering around New York and encountering several, mainly female, strangers as he tries to discover who he is.

That's the surface story and it's a pretty good one, but then, Garner starts to have confusing flashbacks that bring parts of his past to light, which expose another drama - his old life and its failing marriage - wrapped inside his immediate drama - the "who am I" one.

This plays out as Garner meets several women, played by Angela Lansbury, Katherine Ross, Suzanne Pleshette and Jean Simmons, where the latter three induce these flashbacks. In the flashbacks, each woman stands in as a surrogate for Garner's real-life wife at different stages of his struggling marriage.

You probably get that the "who am I" surface amnesia drama is a metaphor for the drama in his old life, as we see a young Garner happily married, but then, through more flashbacks, we watch his marriage begin to fail as he wonders, "how did I get here?"

The first time you take in Mr. Buddwing's "heavy" construct, it's a bit too much. Combined with ahead-of-its-time odd camera angles used to emphasize Garner's amnesiatic confusion, an of-the-moment jazz score and some intentionally jarring scene transitions, it becomes a lot of "artsy" stuff to process all at once.

But after you've seen it, subsequent viewings are better as it is a good story told in a different manner than most movies. Director Delbert Mann went all in on his ambitious 1960s movie experimentation, which overall, just missed the mark, but still produced an interesting film.

With the exception of his star, the casting is spot on. Each woman impressively tackles playing a double role: the woman Garner meets today and the one she plays in his flashback.

Katherine Roth is good as the young college student he meets today who plays the "dreamer" girlfriend Garner courts in his "how I met my wife" flashback. Suzanne Pleshette is wonderful as the struggling "free spirited" actress who plays Garner's young wife in her flashback sequence.

It is Jean Simmons, though, who hits it out of the park as the present-day alcoholic socialite who plays his present-day wife in her flashback sequence.

Simmon's scene with Garner at a craps game in Harlem is fascinating over-the-top 1960s movie zeitgeist at its captivating best. Also popping up in that Daliesque moment is actress Nichelle Nichols looking like she's ready to take her communication officer seat on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Garner, an outstanding actor, is unfortunately miscast in this one. His character is supposed to be a sensitive musician, but big, strong, square-jawed Garner, despite an admirable attempt, wasn't cut out to play an insecure, touchy-feely man.

The role calls for a handsome man as several pretty women take pity on him, which could only happen if he is very attractive, but the character should also look vulnerable, almost helpless.

It's not Garner's fault that his gene pool produced a man whose physicality simply says "lean on me, I got this." A young Montgomery Clift would have been perfect for the role.

Mr. Buddwing, for us today, also doubles as a visual documentary of mid-1960s New York. So many famous landmarks and obscure streets flash by that you could watch it with the sound turned off just to appreciate the comprehensive view it provides of New York City at that moment.

The climax (no spoilers coming), which brings Garner's amnesia and flashback worlds together, is heavy with 1960s pop psychology, but it's consistent with the melodramatic and artistic style of the entire picture.

Mr. Buddwing will never be a classic, but subsequent viewings make it a better movie. It can then be appreciated almost as a cultural curio of 1960s au-courant movie making with a heck of a cast and a wonderful capture of that era's New York City's streetscape.

N.B. Comments on the movie's 1964 novel Buddwing here: #9,023

 

[Fading Fast]

Once in a Lifetime from 1932 with Aline MacMahon, Jack Oakie, Russell Hopton, George Ratoff, Zasu Pitts and Sidney Fox


Based on a George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart Broadway play that poked fun at Hollywood during its transition from silent to talking pictures, there is every reason to believe this farcical effort with a talented cast would be witty and entertaining, but it didn't gel.

Once in a Lifetime's mocking of Hollywood has too much talent on the screen for there not to be some good scenes and funny lines, but director Russell Mack didn't know how and when to pull back the crazy and ridiculousness to make the story engaging.

Aline MacMahon, Jack Oakie and Russell Hopton play a Vaudeville troupe put out of work by the talking pictures. So they go to Hollywood to open an elocution school, trying to mimic the success businesses had selling mining supplies during the gold rush.

Once there, they see that Hollywood is an absurd fantasy land run by egomaniacal studio executives who make decisions based on hackneyed ideas supported by yes men.

Much time is spent mocking the executive offices of a fictional studio where uniformed boys walk around with signs noting which VIP is in conference. The secretary, played by Zasu Pitts, wearily dismisses all visitors to the executive floor except the chosen few.

It's also a place where a successful playwright, played by Onslow Stephens, is hired to come to Hollywood, given an office and a large salary, but then is assigned nothing to do. He spends his days waiting in the outer office trying to get in to see the man who hired him.

MacMahon, the brains of the old Vaudeville trio, is less valuable in this nutty environment than simple-minded Oakie who is lauded for his inane observations, picked up from the trade magazines he skims, and made while he annoyingly chews on Indian nuts.

His trite utterances impress the studio president, played by George Ratoff, who hires Oakie to be his new head of production. It is all silly, including Oakie giving an inexperienced actress, played by Sidney Fox, a starring role because he's smitten with her.

The rest of the plot, for what it is worth, has Oakie's star rising and falling a few times as his insane decisions somehow, mainly, work out. Meanwhile, MacMahon and Hopton struggle to find a place for their more-thoughtful approach to the business.

None of this is taken seriously. It plays more like a Saturday Night Live skit stretched into an hour-and-half movie, but that's also the problem. Camp is funny in small bites, but ninety minutes of it, without a story or characters you really care about, is too much.

MacMahon, a true pro, tries her best to bring some sanity and continuity to all the craziness going on around her, but an actress can't fix a picture whose writers and director didn't care enough to create a compelling narrative.

Once in a Lifetime wanted to mock Hollywood's egoes, foibles, excesses and its insecurities over the coming of sound. It did that reasonably successfully, but without an even somewhat-believable story holding it together, the effort overall falls flat.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

View attachment 544953
Mr. Buddwing from 1966 with James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, Jean Simmons, Angela Lansbury and Katherine Ross


Some movies improve with multiple viewings, especially if they are the type of picture whose good good parts stand out more and flaws fade a bit each subsequent time you see it. Mr. Buddwing is that type of movie.

It's a bit too artsy and self conscious, but once you know that from prior viewings, those flaws matter less, allowing you to better appreciate the good story underneath and the excellent performances by its talented cast. Plus, its beautiful, shot-on-location, black and white cinematography is an incredible time capsule of mid-1960s New York City.

A handsome, middle-aged man in a well-tailored grey suit, played by James Garner, wakes up one Sunday morning in New York City's Central Park to discover he's lost most of his memory. The rest of the movie is Garner wandering around New York and encountering several, mainly female, strangers as he tries to discover who he is.

That's the surface story and it's a pretty good one, but then, Garner starts to have confusing flashbacks that bring parts of his past to light, which expose another drama - his old life and its failing marriage - wrapped inside his immediate drama - the "who am I" one.

This plays out as Garner meets several women, played by Angela Lansbury, Katherine Ross, Suzanne Pleshette and Jean Simmons, where the latter three induce these flashbacks. In the flashbacks, each woman stands in as a surrogate for Garner's real-life wife at different stages of his struggling marriage.

You probably get that the "who am I" surface amnesia drama is a metaphor for the drama in his old life, as we see a young Garner happily married, but then, through more flashbacks, we watch his marriage begin to fail as he wonders, "how did I get here?"

The first time you take in Mr. Buddwing's "heavy" construct, it's a bit too much. Combined with ahead-of-its-time odd camera angles used to emphasize Garner's amnesiatic confusion, an of-the-moment jazz score and some intentionally jarring scene transitions, it becomes a lot of "artsy" stuff to process all at once.

But after you've seen it, subsequent viewings are better as it is a good story told in a different manner than most movies. Director Delbert Mann went all in on his ambitious 1960s movie experimentation, which overall, just missed the mark, but still produced an interesting film.

With the exception of his star, the casting is spot on. Each woman impressively tackles playing a double role: the woman Garner meets today and the one she plays in his flashback.

Katherine Roth is good as the young college student he meets today who plays the "dreamer" girlfriend Garner courts in his "how I met my wife" flashback. Suzanne Pleshette is wonderful as the struggling "free spirited" actress who plays Garner's young wife in her flashback sequence.

It is Jean Simmons, though, who hits it out of the park as the present-day alcoholic socialite who plays his present-day wife in her flashback sequence.

Simmon's scene with Garner at a craps game in Harlem is fascinating over-the-top 1960s movie zeitgeist at its captivating best. Also popping up in that Daliesque moment is actress Nichelle Nichols looking like she's ready to take her communication officer seat on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Garner, an outstanding actor, is unfortunately miscast in this one. His character is supposed to be a sensitive musician, but big, strong, square-jawed Garner, despite an admirable attempt, wasn't cut out to play an insecure, touchy-feely man.

The role calls for a handsome man as several pretty women take pity on him, which could only happen if he is very attractive, but the character should also look vulnerable, almost helpless.

It's not Garner's fault that his gene pool produced a man whose physicality simply says "lean on me, I got this." A young Montgomery Clift would have been perfect for the role.

Mr. Buddwing, for us today, also doubles as a visual documentary of mid-1960s New York. So many famous landmarks and obscure streets flash by that you could watch it with the sound turned off just to appreciate the comprehensive view it provides of New York City at that moment.

The climax (no spoilers coming), which brings Garner's amnesia and flashback worlds together, is heavy with 1960s pop psychology, but it's consistent with the melodramatic and artistic style of the entire picture.

Mr. Buddwing will never be a classic, but subsequent viewings make it a better movie. It can then be appreciated almost as a cultural curio of 1960s au-courant movie making with a heck of a cast and a wonderful capture of that era's New York City's streetscape.

View attachment 544954


N.B. Comments on the movie's 1964 novel Buddwing here: #9,023

This looks a classic almost-a-classic but eminently serviceable film nonetheless for cold wet fall night viewing. I agree Montgomery Clift would have been perfect as the sensitive soul and Jimbo is terribly
miscast here. Sound actor but the completely wrong miscast man. The plot itself is serviceable stew but
your descript of the crap game methinks a script shift redo was in order with Garner a man with the golden
arm professional crap shooter. And the barefoot in the park stuff tossed out completely.

 

[Edward]

I recently rewatched most of the 1974 Gatsby movie for the first time in decades. It's still too mannered and largely inert, but you know, it's not a terrible adaptation.

I remember the supporting players being very good in the 74, just Redford ruined it for me. Bruce Dern really got inside Tom Buchanan.

And for record, I have to state again that I have NEVER thought that The Great Gatsby was the pinnacle Great American Novel, I've always found it overrated. Part of this is my English major background: do you know how many classes I had in high school and college where we dissected the hell out of it? I was eventually exhausted by what my creative writing professor used to call "that lit crit shit"!

I studied it for A-level - surprisingly, that didn't ruin the book (or the other books and plays I studied) for me, but I know I'm lucky. I put it down to the quality of teaching I got. What studying literature did ruin for me for a long time was poetry. I have no time for the promotion of ignorance, but all the same there quickly comes a point if not careful where the technical dissection removes all the... well, the poetry from poetry.

 

[Turnip]

Just finished „Little Odessa“, what a masterpiece!

 

[Worf]

"Barbie" - After being dragged (sans kicking and screaming... much) to the local multi-plex I finally watched "Barbie" on the big screen. Like many I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the film despite its subject matter. While not being a woman (duh) there was much in this film for anyone who's been on the outside looking in to take in. I found the film insightful and touching, add to that it's often laugh out loud funny. Barbie's interaction with a group of modern teens was particularly hilarious. The timeline was a bit confusing, at one point I thought the film was set during the Clinton Presidency but the cars didn't fit. I can say for sure that no "thinking man" today would slap a strange woman on the rump and not expect to be arrested if not pilloried. A lot of the behavior depicted is not acceptable anymore, not to say it doesn't happen but it's much rarer these days.

Barbie has a message but I didn't find it overly preachy. I don't exactly know how they intended to resolve the future of "men" in this film but I found it lacking, but then again the movies named Barbie not Ken. Ken has a story ark but I'm not sure what this "genital lacking side piece" is supposed to do with himself after liberating himself from the eternal "friend zone". I will add that the film has one of the BEST ending line I've seen in a movie in recent years. Can't spoil it.

All in all I think Barbie's worth the time and effort to see, particularly during a weekday, senior matinee.

Worf

PS I'm sure Disney's killing themselves for passing on this one. And kudos to Mattel for allowing themselves to be dragged through the mud!

 

[Doctor Damage]

Here's an article in the Japan Times entitled "Lost in Translation at 20: A Tokyo perspective". Hopefully the link bypasses the paywall.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/cultur...8pqhr1xhiwrkpv7uuvi8mexjvu.bgf1th0rdprgoizc1y

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

"Barbie" - After being dragged (sans kicking and screaming... much) to the local multi-plex I finally watched "Barbie" on the big screen. Like many I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the film despite its subject matter. While not being a woman (duh) there was much in this film for anyone who's been on the outside looking in to take in. I found the film insightful and touching, add to that it's often laugh out loud funny. Barbie's interaction with a group of modern teens was particularly hilarious. The timeline was a bit confusing, at one point I thought the film was set during the Clinton Presidency but the cars didn't fit. I can say for sure that no "thinking man" today would slap a strange woman on the rump and not expect to be arrested if not pilloried. A lot of the behavior depicted is not acceptable anymore, not to say it doesn't happen but it's much rarer these days.

Barbie has a message but I didn't find it overly preachy. I don't exactly know how they intended to resolve the future of "men" in this film but I found it lacking, but then again the movies named Barbie not Ken. Ken has a story ark but I'm not sure what this "genital lacking side piece" is supposed to do with himself after liberating himself from the eternal "friend zone". I will add that the film has one of the BEST ending line I've seen in a movie in recent years. Can't spoil it.

All in all I think Barbie's worth the time and effort to see, particularly during a weekday, senior matinee.

Worf

PS I'm sure Disney's killing themselves for passing on this one. And kudos to Mattel for allowing themselves to be dragged through the mud!

Barbie is admittedly a tad more than I had expected and a swop more milk for tea to drink but while
certainly not a flick I'll ever have to see again, it wouldn't surprise me if Babs became some landmark
Hollywood yardstick wherein box office muscle measurement took. What with Mouse House madness and all.

 

[Zombie_61]

"Barbie" - After being dragged (sans kicking and screaming... much) to the local multi-plex I finally watched "Barbie" on the big screen. Like many I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the film despite its subject matter. While not being a woman (duh) there was much in this film for anyone who's been on the outside looking in to take in. I found the film insightful and touching, add to that it's often laugh out loud funny. Barbie's interaction with a group of modern teens was particularly hilarious. The timeline was a bit confusing, at one point I thought the film was set during the Clinton Presidency but the cars didn't fit. I can say for sure that no "thinking man" today would slap a strange woman on the rump and not expect to be arrested if not pilloried. A lot of the behavior depicted is not acceptable anymore, not to say it doesn't happen but it's much rarer these days.

Barbie has a message but I didn't find it overly preachy. I don't exactly know how they intended to resolve the future of "men" in this film but I found it lacking, but then again the movies named Barbie not Ken. Ken has a story ark but I'm not sure what this "genital lacking side piece" is supposed to do with himself after liberating himself from the eternal "friend zone". I will add that the film has one of the BEST ending line I've seen in a movie in recent years. Can't spoil it.

All in all I think Barbie's worth the time and effort to see, particularly during a weekday, senior matinee.

Worf

PS I'm sure Disney's killing themselves for passing on this one. And kudos to Mattel for allowing themselves to be dragged through the mud!

Okay, NOW I want to see it.

 

[Fading Fast]

Letter from an Unknown Woman from 1948 with Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan


In the Romantic Era, love was a transcendental experience, a force beyond reason and logic. While a few embers of that idea burn today, as most people still marry for love, love now is rationalized. We use apps to align likes and, at all costs, we keep our own identities.

This makes movies like Letter from an Unknown Woman, a Romantic Era throwback picture, much like Wuthering Heights or Peter Ibbetson, a bit foreign to modern audiences that expect a different type of love and a different type of female character.

If you can put that modern viewpoint aside and let yourself be absorbed in the spirit of the Romantic Era, then you can enjoy Letter from an Unknown Woman as a beautiful and poignant tale of love, hope and loss.

Joan Fontaine plays a girl growing up in early 1900s Vienna who is smittened by her neighbor, a handsome, brilliant young pianist. He doesn't notice the shy girl, though, as he's a successful musician and, more importantly, a playboy who has women coming and going.

Several years later, after her family moved to Linz (home of the much-beloved linzer tart), Fontaine refuses an advantageous proposal, which angers her parents. She then moves back on her own to Vienna to, in modern terms, stalk her former neighbor played by Louis Jourdan.

They meet and share a long and wonderful romantic evening; this is the coin of the realm in Romantic Era stories. The evening ends with a long and (one assumes) wonderful tumble in the hay, with a little pianist on the way as a result.

Jourdan, unaware of the baby on the way, goes on a trip with a promise to return, but he doesn't keep it. Fontaine never tells him about the baby. She raises the boy on her own until she marries a kind and wealthy general who gives her and the boy a beautiful home.

Today's rational world would say things worked out well for Fontaine, but the Romantic Era wasn't rational. So students of that period know what is coming next: Jourdan returns and Fontaine swoons.

To tell more is to give the story away, but of course, there will be much angst, passion and a surprisingly emotionally cold reveal, followed by an equally surprising act of symbolic sacrifice. It's a Romantic ending worthy of Anna Karenina.

Like in Anna Karenina, the woman is the story here, making this Fontaine's movie. From a girl with a crush, to a young woman giving herself to the man she loves, to a mature woman facing a life-altering decision, beautiful and reserved Fontaine owns every one of her scenes.

The camera loves her and she understands that less is often more in acting. Her performance is quietly captivating, so much so, you forget she is acting. In her long career, this is one of Ms. Fontaine's finest performances.

Jourdan is very good playing the male lead as his job is to look handsome, check, and to be unawarely selfish, check. The trick he pulls off successfully is being selfish, but not mean or unappealing.

Director Max Ophuls is in his comfort zone with Romantic Era stories. He moves the pace along, something not all directors of this style of material master. With beautifully detailed sets, he also creates a wonderfully warm and magical atmosphere for fin-de-siècle Austria.

Letter from an Unknown Woman is a moving and sensitive homage to a bygone era; to a time when poetry and novels, not movies, capture the Romantic Era's unabashed belief in transcendental love.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Watched home films: A Beautiful Young Mind about an autistic maths wizard who placed on the UK Maths
Olympiad team; and The Man Who Knew Infinity that portrayed Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan,
who spent two years at Trinity under famed Cambridge mathematician GH Hardy. Absolutely wonderful.