Female actors have to look back on their roles from days of yore and shake their heads. Things have certainly changed since the advent of The Pill. In this "wacky" comedy, Joanne Woodward plays a role that today would be unplayable, probably unwritable even by a hack like Elliott Baker Cohen. She is Rhoda, the long-suffering partner of mad poet Samson Shillitoe. I have met Shillitoes, and they all dream of owning a Rhoda, but today such a creature has to be ordered by mail from the Philippines, because they ain't makin' em any more round here. Rhoda runs after Shillitoe, shouting, then she runs after a shrink, shouting, then she runs after Shillitoe, shouting, some more. Finally, she tells him she's pregnant and he socks her in the head. In between, he beds several susceptible females who yearn for his life-force. Shillitoe never really exists, he's just Life Force write large, and Sean Connery blunders through the part just adequately. Rhoda is a fantasy, and Joanne Woodward --- well, I bet Joanne never pulls this movie off her shelf. The lovely Jean Seberg is totally wasted and delivers nothing except a rather titivating gusset-shot when her husband's friend tries to rape her. At least this movie pays lip-service to literature, but the sexism is too much to take.
Review of A Fine Madness
