Reviews

Yes this is a perfectly awful late 50's movie but I watched the mess until its unbelievable ending. The film is flawed for me from the start with the period set in the late 1940's but hey look its really 1960. The clothes, hairstyles and decor are wrong and annoying for the period that the film is suppose to be set in. I know that this was the general practice of Hollywood in the 50's and 60's and it always bothers me. The film was based on a long novel by John O'Hara, which happily I never read, and the film clocking in at 2 1/2 hours is a bore and a chore. Badly directed by Mark Robson who early in his career directed some nice B movies for Val Lewton but who went on to make such schlocky as Peyton Place and Valley Of The Dolls. This one is no better. It has lots of gloss and smooth hard edges, and its always a joy to see Joanne Woodward who sinks her teeth into the role of Newman's slutty wife and is the real villain of the piece and looks great in all those fabulous late 50's Travilla's gowns and frocks. Newman basically sleep walks through the film wearing a bad hair piece and looking like he would rather be anywhere but here. The film as an able supporting cast including George Grizzard actually quite convincing playing a heterosexual sex hound, An underused Myrna Loy, the very good Ina Balin, and Ted de Corsia as her father who is cast against the type of character he usually played. Look for a bit by the great silent screen star Mae Marsh as the governess. See it if you must.

I remember seeing this silly bio. of the great Cole Porter on our small black and white TV when I was a kid and not liking it much. Now years later a pristine DVD of the film is now available and I still do not like it. Actually I hated it. Of course the no.1 reason for my disliking it is the total fantasy that Warner Bros. came up with as "the life of Cole Porter." The cast tries hard but everything is so wrong about this film that I sat there shaking my head. Maybe in 1946 movie audiences were more accepting of this kind of crap, but come on Cary Grant as Cole Porter?? Of course all the gay stuff hangs over this movie big time. Porter was gay, Grant was gay Monty Wooley was gay, and from what I've heard Alexis Smith was a closet Lesbian. They must have had a hoot making this one. Needless to say the period costumes, decor etc are all wrong and Porter's great music deserved better singers than Ginny Simms or Jane Wyman. The only nice moment for me was Mary Martin (another closet Lesbian) doing My Heart Belongs To Daddy. This movie really needed Ethel Merman (another bi lady) to give this 500pd Easter Egg some life. Unfortunately the more recent movie bio De-Lovely or De Lousy isn't much better. A shame because Porter was one of the great composers of the Broadway Stage.

I first saw this film when I was a teenager and it made a big impact on me, and I'm happy to report that after 40 some odd years the film stills holds up and entertains one very well indeed. Of course at the center is the beautiful Julie Christie who is in every scene. The story is about a beautiful but basically empty young woman and the shallow life she lives in mod London of the 60's. The film is a bit dated and some of the points that Schlesinger makes are sometimes labored, heavy handed and overdone ie the charity ball, the orgy like party in Paris, but these are small qualms. The film has a terrific performance by Bogarde and Christie was the best choice for an Oscar that year. The people on this list who harp about her not deserving an Oscar and that Julie Andrews was robbed because she didn't win for the soppy unwatchable Sound Of Music do not know what they are talking about. It was bad enough that they gave Andrews an Oscar for Mary Poppins the year before. And besides the Oscars rarely give the award to the "best" performance or film of the year anyway. Just take a look at what and who has won in the last few years. Crash Julia Roberts, Gweneth Palthrow, Gladitor I could go on and on.

I could not believe how many people on IMDb love this movie, and carry on about it as it if was Citizen Kane. Some silly even said that this was one of the greatest films ever made. My advice to this person is that you have to do some serious film watching. Maybe take a film class in some college in your town. Released in 1959 (and shown at Radio City Music Hall no less) it was even then poorly reviewed and with good reason. It stinks. The direction is sloppy and plodding. It just lays there for over 2 hours. This is the kind of melodramatic soap opera that a director like Douglas Sirk could turn into pure cinema magic, and in fact he did just that in the same year with the fantastic Imitation Of Life, with our dear little Sandra Dee once again playing a troubled daughter. I was also bothered by the obvious California coast trying to look like Maine. Why the hell didn't they just set the film in California? As far as the performances go they were OK. The usually fine Dorothy McGuire did what she was getting paid for, and Richard Eagan was his same old wooden self. An attractive man but a bad actor was he. The only tangy performances were given by Arthur Kennedy, (his final drunken scene had some real depth and feeling to it) and the always watchable tough as nails Constance Ford. I guess one can watch this trash as pure camp if it wasn't so damn boring.

I was ready to get up and leave after 10 minutes of this overdone pretentious piece of garbage. As someone who was part of this historical moment of our history I was put off by Taymor's so called vision. Hey I love musicals as much as the next person, but this this thing was dead on arrival. I didn't even find it visually arresting and what Taymor and the actor's did to the great Beatles music is a crime. I hated most of the scenes, the performances and the script, and it saddens me that the younger generation is going to take this fantasy as fact which is really a shame. So finally after nearly 2 hours of this torture, I left.