MIDWAY (1976)

Posted on September 20, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Jack Smight

SCREENWRITER: Donald S. Sanford

FILM STARS: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Glenn Ford, James Coburn, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Edward Albert, Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifune, Ed Nelson, James Shigeta, Pat Morita, Dabney Coleman, Erik Estrada, Tom Selleck, Susan Sullivan, Monte Markham, Biff McGuire.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Donald S. Sanford

TYPE: Novel or Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Corgi

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1976

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1976

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: War

WORDS: The book and the film deal with the Battle of Midway, a naval battle in the Pacific between the USA and Japan during World War 2. The battle was largely fought between aircraft carriers, which proved to be the turning point in the war, as well as leading to the ascendancy of the aircraft carrier over the battleship as the primary naval assault craft. The Battle of Midway permanently cemented aircraft carriers as the dominant naval weapon.

By demonstrating that carrier-based aircraft could sink capital ships well before their big guns came into range, it effectively ended the battleship’s reign as the ultimate arbiter of naval power, and ships with guided missiles placed the final nail in the coffin.

No navy in the world currently has a traditional battleship in active service or reserve (the last active battleship, the legendary USS Missouri (launched in 1944), was officially decommissioned in 1992, and the final battleships were struck from the Naval Registry in 2006).

The United States won the Battle of Midway, delivering a decisive strategic victory that permanently halted Japanese expansion and turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific. The military losses suffered by each side were highly lopsided, permanently crippling Japan’s offensive capabilities. Japan’s losses were catastrophic, effectively destroying the core of its frontline carrier strength. They lost four fleet aircraft carriers (all four had previously participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor), one heavy cruiser, approximately 248 to 292 carrier planes shot down or lost with the sinking ships, and over 3,000 sailors and airmen. Crucially, this included hundreds of highly skilled, irreplaceable combat pilots and elite aircraft technicians. The United States lost one aircraft carrier, one destroyer, approximately 145 planes, and just over 300 men.

I read this novel a long, long time ago, sometime back in the late 70s as a pre-teen (which explains the condition of the book … pre-teens and teens …). I had seen the film, so I bought the book. The only thing I recall from it (if my memory doesn’t fail me) is some graphic language in relation to sex … “If she is old enough to bleed, she is old enough”. It probably stuck with me because, as a pre-teen Catholic schoolboy, I had little knowledge of sex or sexual activity (no dull, tiresome jokes please), and I found it shocking, probably because the rest of the book is essentially a war story. Of course, now the phrase is shocking for altogether different reasons, though it describes some of the attitudes of the 1970s and/or perhaps the 1940s.

The book has its feet in a couple of camps. It is trying to be a little factual, like a Cornelius Ryan dramatic history (The Longest Day (1959), A Bridge Too Far (1974)), but with the dramatic licence of a novel, specifically the gritty, realistic “Soldier’s Experience” World War 2 literature of James Jones (From Here to Eternity (1951), The Thin Red Line (1962)), Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead (1948)), and Irwin Shaw (The Young Lions (1948)).

With fewer subplots outside the war and concentrating on one battle, the book is a shorter read than most of the ones mentioned.

I skimmed through the book recently, and it still works as a war novel with some historical detail and time and place flavour.

Author Donald S. Sanford (1918–2011), who also wrote the screenplay, was a television, radio and film screenwriter, so the novel is probably just a novelisation of his screenplay. Sanford knew his subject – he served as a chief sonar soundman in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1945 during World War 2. He also liked writing screenplays for war films – Submarine X-1 (1968), The Thousand Plane Raid (1969), and Mosquito Squadron (1969).

The film is an interesting one. I liked it as a kid. Didn’t like it as a young adult, or, rather, thought it a bit predictable and obvious, full of the usual World War 2 tropes. And now, having rewatched it recently, I appreciate it more.

The hardware is impressive (a lot of the filming was done on the USS Lexington, a World War 2-era aircraft carrier – though commissioned after the Battle of Midway).

The battle footage is a mix of real wartime footage as well as action footage from earlier films. Most sequences of the Japanese air raids on Midway are stock shots from 20th Century Fox’s Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), with some scenes from the Japanese Toho film Hawai Middouei daikaikusen: Taiheiyo no arashi (1960) (which also stars Toshiro Mifune). Several action scenes, including the one where a Mitsubishi Zero fighter aircraft slams into aircraft carrier Yorktown’s bridge, were taken from Away All Boats (1956). Scenes of Doolittle’s Tokyo raid at the beginning of the film are from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). In addition, most dogfight sequences come from wartime gun-camera footage or from the film Battle of Britain (1969)! Well, at a distance only the trainspotters, errrr planespotters, can tell the planes apart. For a big-budget movie, this seems a little odd, but I think the producers (or rather, producer Walter Mirisch) thought the footage could be incorporated into the film, as the action is largely secondary to the talk and the tactics in the battle. And he is right and it works, up to a point.

Some of the scenes are familiar. If you have seen Away All Boats (1956), the scene of the Japanese plane slamming into the ship’s bridge is vivid and memorable, which makes it a little jarring when it pops up in Midway. Also, some of the footage doesn’t match the modern film stock, though this isn’t fatal, as the scenes are usually concise.

The film’s selling point was Sensurround (a 1970s movie theatre sound system that used massive low-frequency bass speakers to make audiences physically feel explosions, rumbles, and vibrations in their bodies). What you can forgive in the footage is made up for in the loudness of planes taking off and battle, and a rousing John Williams score, which may be lost on TV unless you have a kick-arse sound bar. I don’t … I have neighbours.

Director Jack Smight started work in television in the 1950s and did some good (Harper (1966), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)) and interesting (Kaleidoscope (1966), The Illustrated Man (1969), Rabbit, Run (1970)) films in the 60s (and early 70s) before doing the big(ger)-budget action thing in the mid-70s … Midway (1976), Airport 1975 (1974), Damnation Alley (1977). He is a little anonymous, but he has the actors read their lines with conviction, which was all that was required from producer Walter Mirisch, whose film this really was. Mirisch had had a big hit with the thoughtful crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1967) and was not averse to well-made, talky action films – Scorpio (1973), The Spikes Gang (1974), Mr. Majestyk (1974), Gray Lady Down (1978). Well, more talky than you get in similar films nowadays, and for that they are infinitely more appealing to me. films were always mid-large budget as opposed to big-budget, but he had the knack of getting more on the screen than the film cost.But he held the reins tight, as you would expect from an independent film producer like Mirisch, especially when he shelled out a lot of money on the cast.

These actors are all seasoned pros, and it shows. Heston plays the lead; Captain Matt Garth (coincidentally Montgomery Clift’s character name in Red River (1948)) a naval pilot called to action. His character is a ruggedly ramrod-straight, made-of-granite hero character, one familiar to the Heston screen persona. He has his doubts, but they don’t get in the way of what he must do and what is right. We love that. Fonda co-stars, and he plays the real life Admiral Nimitz with concern effectively. It’s as if Mister Roberts had become an Admiral. The rest of the big stars are cameos.

Interestingly, Heston had been in the air force in World War 2, albeit in the Aleutians (north of Midway), as a gunner and radio operator on a bomber. Fonda had served under the real Admiral Nimitz, the character he plays in this film.

There are cameos from all sorts of stars: largish cameos from Glenn Ford, Robert Wagner, and Toshiro Mifune, and one-scene ones from Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, and Cliff Robertson.

Jarring it may be, but I love half those actors and like the other half.

A win-win for me. Do the cameos take me out of the movie, creating a loss of realism? I’m always surprised by people who raise those concerns. My answer is, “No, I know the film is not real.”

The second-lead support is also stellar – Hal Holbrook, Christopher George, Glenn Corbett, Robert Webber, Edward Albert, and James Shigeta, and small pre-fame roles for Erik Estrada (CHiPs), Tom Selleck (Magnum P.I.), Dabney Coleman (9 to 5 (1980)), Steve Kanaly (Dallas), Pat Morita (Happy Days), and Robert Ito (Quincy, M.E.).

The cast alone makes the film watchable.

The problem is there is drama, but no blood or feel for the characters … it feels like a documentary with recreated scenes. Of the few war films being made at the time, the desire for more “factual” ones was popular, so I get that.

Get the facts, put them in a script, drop in fictional characters with some small concessions to lives outside the military (with related small dramas), link the events, throw in some action and bang (sic), you have a war film. It works, though the films are neither accurate documentaries nor dramatic “men in war” films. Neither here nor there.

Interestingly, perhaps not to alienate a market, but also because it was the 1970s not the 1950s, the film treats the Japanese as honourable, or rather, as an enemy free of earlier stereotypes. Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was much the same. The film benefits because it gives airtime to the Japanese tactics.

The difference between the book and the film … the film and its companion novel, written by Sanford, share the same plot, but the book contains more historical context and less of the Hollywood melodrama. The main difference is the film included a fictional subplot involving a Navy pilot (Captain Garth’s son) who falls in love with a Japanese-American woman held in a Hawaiian internment camp. It’s in the book as well, but marginalised, though, to be fair, the subplot in the film doesn’t take up that much screen time. Also, the film is dialogue-heavy, and the book has internal monologues, as you would expect, and the book largely concerns itself with events rather than characters. Spoiler … in the climax, the character played by Charlton Heston dies in a dramatic, fictionalised plane collision and crash on the carrier, whilst the book focuses on the actual tactical success of the American dive-bombers destroying the Japanese carriers, rather than Heston’s on-screen death.

Be warned, this is the theatrical version of the film. The TV version adds some 45 minutes of footage, also directed by Smight, increasing the running time from 132 minutes to 178 minutes (to make the film a two-night mini-series-type film). Most of it is backstory to the Heston character, including an invented romantic subplot between Heston’s character and a new girlfriend named Ann, played by Susan Sullivan. It seriously slows things down … made worse because the actress looks more 1970s than 1940s. The TV version also added Coral Sea battle scenes to help the plot build up to the decisive engagement at Midway, which are unnecessary.

The 1976 film cost $4 million and made $100 million.

The book is a good read, and the film is easy to watch.

ALSO:

It is hard not to compare the film to the 2019 film about the same event, also called Midway … which doesn’t have as much star power but is more accurate (though still not totally accurate) and is the better film as a film. Though it cost $100 million to make and only made $127.4 million … not enough to cover its costs.
Universal Studios released five primary feature films using the official Sensurround audio system. Earthquake (1974), Midway (1976), Rollercoaster (1977), Battlestar Galactica (1978/1979 theatrical release), Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1979)(A European compilation film that also utilized the track) A related and variant version was used for Zoot Suit (1981) – Utilized a modified, non-rumble variant marketed as “Sensurround Plus” that relied on DBX noise reduction rather than horn subwoofers.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Novel, War | Tagged 1976 | 1 Comment

WITHOUT RESERVATIONS (1946)

Posted on August 9, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Mervyn LeRoy

SCREENWRITER: Andrew Solt

FILM STARS: Claudette Colbert, John Wayne, Don DeFore, Anne Triola, Phil Brown, Frank Puglia, Thurston Hall, Dona Drake, Fernando Alvarado, Charles Arnt, Louella Parsons, Frank Wilcox, Sam McDaniel, Lisa Golm

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Jane Allen & Mae Livingston

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Century

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1946

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1946

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Thanks God! I’ll Take It From Here

NOTES

GENRE: Romantic Comedy

WORDS:

An obscure (ish) John Wayne film based on an obscure novel.

The novel is a humourous romance and some philosophising. The film is a romantic comedy with screwballish overtones.

The story is engaging, and relevant, coming as it does at the end of World War 2. Kit, a 24ish author from New England, writes a novel “Reunion in Jeopardy” an inspirational novel which becomes a best seller. The book espouses amongst other things a future ordered society made up of citizens who “not only had the privileges of living in a democracy, but the responsibilities as well” (page 4). Children are educated and would be groomed for public service because “we’ve got a world full of sickness – take it – it’s yours to cure … Let’s see that everyone to begin with has a good healthy start. Let’s not forget too, that the human soul needs more than bread. Let’s have beauty and truth and freedom, but above all individual dignity” (page 5). The hero of “Reunion in Jeopardy” rejects the woman he loves because he has important civic things to do, which makes him that much more appealing to female readers. The book comes in the closing days of the war and taps into what a new society could look like, a socially engineered one, that breeds prosperity and peace. The book is a best seller which has bipartisan support of its vision from all sides of politics (Christians, Communists, Democrats, Republicans) making the book a cultural phenomenon. The book is optioned by a movie studio, and Kit hops on a train to head west to Hollywood to talk about leads, Lana Turner and Cary Grant are being chased, and script for the film version.

On the train she meets a couple of pilots in the marine corps on their way to San Diego for deployment, Rusty and Dink, and doesn’t let them know she is the bestselling celebrity author. She comes to realise that the film needs an unknown for the lead and that Rusty would be perfect for the role. The trouble is all he thinks about is chasing “beetles” (girls) and, worse still, he has read the book and thinks the book is wrong headed, and thinks all men should be self-reliant, and the call of nature will come before any civic responsibility. Screwball style adventures ensue. Kit and Rusty fall in love as you would expect without realising it and ‘without reservations” with Dink the third man (to keep all activities (and perceptions) above board).

Social engineering versus rugged individualism is at its core but this this is no Ayn Rand tract. Kit may fall in love causing her to reassess the position she took in her book, but Rusty has also been put through the hoops. Love can’t be socially engineered and it takes two to tango I assume id the point.

The book is a gentle send up of the inspiration novels of Louis Bromfield and the like wrapped up in a romance.

The book is told from Kit’s perspective, and the end is particularly satisfactory. Inevitably, Rusty finds out that Kit is the author and leaves upset never to see her again. Her rise to Hollywood celebrity, his yearning for her, her making him jealous leading to their eventual reconciliation is largely done through letters between her and Diink, epistolary style before the final where Kit on her way to meet Rusty looks upwards and say ends as does the film with the line “Thanks God” I’ll Take it from here” (the original title of the novel).

It is an easy read. It’s light, there is no dramas, just one humorous situation after another. Nothing written will make you laugh out loud, though nothing written will make you cringe either. It’s not boring, but it is a little obvious, perhaps.

Reading the book, I felt I had seen if before rather than read it before. It covers the same ground as any number of screwball comedies films from the 30s and 40s. I’m not complaining though.

Two authors:

Mae Livingston was born Folesia Mae Livingston on August 13, 1903, in South Carolina, she worked as a novelist and television contributor apparently. There is little biography, bibliography or filmography on her. I can’t find any novels (apart from this one) attributed to her but she has a poetry collection ”Psalms of These Days” which is held in the Library of Congress collection (I can’t find a publication date on it). She earned a story credit for an episode of the anthology series ‘General Electric Theater‘ in 1959. Livingston died on June 19, 1989, in the United States.

The main driver of the novel would seem to be Jane Allen and it seems that Jane Allen is a penname for Silvia Schulman.

It’s all very murky, not a real-life murk but an internet murk (things get repeated and repeated and become the truth but aren’t … heard that before? You will, I suspect there is a lot more coming).

The Internet Movie database has Jane Allen with no mention of Silvia Shulman:

“Jane Allen was born on October 24, 1916 in Indiana, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for She Knew All the Answers (1941) and Without Reservations (1946). She died on February 16, 1970 in Santa Monica, California, USA”.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0020622/bio/

She also has a string of bit parts in films of the 1940s (apparently).

Wikipedia has Silvia Schulman as the person who used the pen name Jane Allen:

Silvia Schulman (March 3, 1913 – February 19, 1993) was an American writer, interior designer, and building contractor. During the 1930s, she worked for the Hollywood film studios RKO Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and later Selznick International Pictures as a secretary. She was producer David O. Selznick’s personal assistant until February 1937, when she quit to marry screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. During their honeymoon, she began to write a comic novel based upon her Hollywood experiences and later enlisted the help of freelance writer Jane Shore. In 1938, I Lost My Girlish Laughter was published under the pseudonym Jane Allen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvia_Schulman

No mention of any appearances in films as “Jane Allen”. I have no idea who Jane Shore is (if she exists). She is referred to on-line as a screenwriter, or a ghost writer.

Apparently, the I Lost My Girlish Laughter novel was written by Schulman with the Allen pseudonym to avoid her losing her job, though it seems on some accounts she had already left her job after marrying Ring Lardner Jr before starting the novel.

In any event on some accounts online the novel caused a scandal at the time. And on some accounts on-line (in the murky world of feminist agenda driven blogs) she never worked in Hollywood again (even though she wrote “Without Reservations” later). I’m not sure why the novel would cause a scandal even if written by an insider. The year before Hollywood had taken a poke at itself in the drama A Star Is Born (1937) and in the comedy Stand-In (1937). If true, perhaps her proximity to Selznick made it more sensitive.

How influential she was on Selznick and his movie making is open for debate though apparently, she had tried to make her own mark as a writer, co-writing the play Adam Had Three Eves with Selznick production assistant Barbara Keon in 1935. Selznick bought the rights but never produced it. In any event she raised two children and worked for many years as an interior designer and building contractor in California. She died of cancer in 1993.

I’ve gone off topic.

The movie is a hoot and sticks closely to the book in narrative, events and tone though Kit resists Rusty a little less in the film. Little things, as always, have been omitted, probably for length: there is picnic scene dropped from the novel, and a few other “misunderstandings” are omitted. I note, for no other reason than I noticed it when reading, that the car that replaces the train on this road trip goes from a (German) Mercedes to a (Italian) Isotta.

The actors are all too old for their roles with Colbert (still a big star – and billed above John Wayne) aged 43 as the youthful Kit, and John Wayne at 39 as the young flier.

John Wayne was a star but not a big one. He didn’t enter the Top 10 box office till 1949. At this point in his career, he was still under contract to B picture outfit Republic Pictures (a firm he had managed to drag almost to A status). The prestige roles of the time were his loan outs to other major studios (here RKO) and they were happy to cast him in non-westerns. This is his second screwball (ish) comedy. The first was A Lady takes a Chance (1943) (also RKO) with another screwball actress, Jean Arthur, which showed John Wayne could do light comedy. That was reinforced many times in the future – The Quiet Man (1952), North to Alaska (1960), McLintock (1963), Donovan’s Reef (1963) and individual scenes in many other action-oriented films. He had a likeable persona. He is ruggedly individualistic here but not boorishly so. It is strange, though, how his character matches his beliefs and the post war persona he created – some good dialogue delivered by Wayne against progressive social engineering and in favour of freedom could have been lifted directly from a script (or scripts) by his mate James Edward Grant. But the politics are minimal, he spends most of the time channelling his inner Cary Grant. Claudette Colbert was an old hat at this type of romantic comedy: she was in the similar (and bona fide classic) It Happened One Night (1934), Midnight (1939) and The Palm Beach Story (1942). Don DeFore is a little bland as the third wheel but that is the third wheels job. Anne Triola who is one of the people the trio meets on the train and later Wayne and DeFore find being a waitress in San Diego is a 100% total hoot and scene stealer, Frank Puglia as the Mexican does what he does best, earthy ethnics, and Dona Drake as his daughter is suitably distracting (why she never became a bigger actress I don’t know. She was often cast as Hispanics even though her ancestry was Afro-American, albeit light skinned). Look hard and you will find a young Raymond Burr and there are cameos from Cary Grant, Jack Benny, Dolores Moran, Louella Parsons, and director Mervyn LeRoy.

Andrew Solt wrote the screenplay – though he doesn’t add much. He just follows the “road” theme … travel by train, car, foot and add events and misunderstandings. Solt hadn’t hit his stride, yet which came shortly after though for thrillers and dramas, Joan of Arc (1948), Little Women (1949), Whirlpool (1949), In a Lonely Place (1950), Thunder on the Hill (1951) … all based on novels or plays. Mervyn LeRoy was accomplished Hollywood director. He could direct anything, comedies included (though not often) but his forte was drama and action films, Little Caesar (1931), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Anthony Adverse (1936), They Won’t Forget (1937), Waterloo bridge (1940), Random harvest (1942), Little Women (1949), Quo Vadis (1951), Rose Marie (1952) Gypsy (1963). He produced The Wizard of Oz (1939).

The film made money. Budget $1,683,000 (estimated), Box office $3,000,000 (US rentals). The film returned a profit of $342,000. (apparently)

This film is, perhaps, not for everyone. If you don’t like romantic comedies it won’t work. I do, so it works on me. The film owes a lot to It Happened One Night (1934) and there are shades of Hail the Conquering Hero? (1944) but if you are going to lift then lift from the best.

The film is hard to find but worth watching for a few reasons though Wayne in a comedy is the major one.

The book is a pleasant read and refreshing (reading it now) in its lack of cynicism, and it may even be relevant to today. A remake would be interesting, though unlikely.

LINKS

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Posted in Comedy / Satire, Novel | Tagged 1946 | Leave a comment

THE GREAT GATSBY (1974)

Posted on July 19, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton

SCREENWRITER: Francis Ford Coppola

FILM STARS: Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Sam Waterston, Karen Black, Scott Wilson, Lois Chiles, Edward Herrmann, Howard Da Silva, Vincent Schiavelli, Patsy Kensit

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: F. Scott Fitzgerald

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1974

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1925

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: Much has been written about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. You can do the googling. Of course I knew of its importance in the American literary canon when I read it many years ago, and … I can see why. A thoroughly entertaining read it was, with segments that remain vividly with me now some 20 or more years after reading. There is poetry in the prose remains with me as does the romantic tragic story told.

Th narrative is simple … as told by Jay Gatsby’s freind, Nick Carraway, it follows Gatsby, an enigmatic and newly-rich millionaire, as he dedicates his life to winning back his former lover, Daisy Buchanan, who is married to another man. The story encapsulates the promise that anyone, regardless of their background, can reinvent themselves and achieve wealth and success. However, the novel ultimately exposes the dark side of this ideal, revealing how the relentless pursuit of materialism can lead to moral emptiness and tragedy.

The book defined the cultural mood of the 1920s Jazz Age, and exposed some of its shallowness. It is both a critique of the “American Dream” and a lesson in the idea that money can’t buy you everything, it can’t buy you happiness. Though as a modern cynic I would say, for sure money can’t buy your happiness but better to be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy. Or, as Spike Milligan once said “Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery” or David Lee Roth “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it”. Whichever way you lean, I’m pretty certain money can’t buy you peace of mind.

The poor boy does well and hides his past story is still relevant today, perhaps as much as it ever was. Of course that modern cynic (again) in me would say that modern technology has further obscured any path to awareness. A super cynic would say, if you aren’t aware then why does it matter? I wouldn’t.

This film from 1974 is the best of the three (major) versions so far. The 1949 version directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Alan Ladd concentrated on how he made his money as a gangster, but it is not without charms of its own. The Baz Lurmann directed version with Leonardo Di Caprio is a bit of everything and (unintentionally) celebrates the jazz age as much as critiquing it. It, also, is too intentionally anachronistic for my taste. There was a (lost) 1926 silent version directed by Herbert Brenon with Warner Baxter as Jay and a Made for TV version from 2000 directed by Robert Markowitz with Toby Stephens in the lead. Neither I have seen. Oft filmed the only surprising thing about the novel is that it hasn’t been filmed with a dull gender or race swap treatment. Actually a google reveals there was a 2002 Afro-American updated version set in a hip hop milieu directed by Christopher Scott Cherot and starring Richard T. Jones. It seems that version had the good sense and taste to not to re-write or fuck with the past and changed the characters names and called itself “G” whilst still being inspired by the original story.

In 1970s film there was a wave of 20s (The Fortune (1975), Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), The Front Page (1974), Valentino (1977), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)), 30s (The Day of the Locust (1975), Chinatown (1975). The Last Tycoon (1976), The Streetfighter (1976), The Sting (1973), Hearts of the West (1975), At Long Last Love (1975), Movie Movie (1978), Thieves Like Us (1974), Hindenburg (1975)), and 40s (Summer of ’42 (1971), New York, New York (1977), The Other Side of Midnight (1977), The Way We Were (1973), The Godfather (1972), Farewell, My Lovely (1975)) nostalgia. Likewise in music there was a 1970s Ragtime revival (mainly on the back of the Marvin Hamlisch via Scott Joplin score for The Sting) as well as the emergence of Leon Redbone, The New Sunshine Jazz Band, The Pasadena Roof Orchestra, The Manhattan Transfer and other nostalgic acts. To make Gatsby at the time was perhaps inevitable.

Redford was suited as a leading man for the revived eras starring in Gatsby, The Great Waldo Pepper, The Sting, and The Way We Were. I can see why. His clean cut Wasp-ish good looks make him perfect for a time when ethnicities were not usually leads in films and his film persona doesn’t incorporate 50s heroes with flaws as played by Kirk Douglas, Montgomery Clift or Marlon Brando. He is straight up and down but thoughtful and pensive enough to elicit sympathy. He works as the singular minded Gatsby though the Gatsby of the novel was a tougher with blue collar veins.

The usually reliable Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway is a little underwhelming, Bruce Dern is good though perhaps overly boorish as Daisy’s husband Tom Buchanan. Karen Black, Lois Chiles and Scott Wilson are fine, Howard Da Silva effortlessly looks the part, and there is a very young Patsy Kensit for train spotters. The biggest problem is Mia Farrow. Farrow as the object of Gatsby’s attentions does not work for me. She is not the ethereal, wealthy, enchanting socialite who represents beauty and privilege. She is too neurotic, though admittedly that does lean into Daisy’s superficiality, emotionally cowardice and moral carelessness. Perhaps her subsequent career (and private life) has affectedmy perception of her performance though, to be fair, her roles up till then are no less neurotic. In her favour she does have the build of a former 20s flapper. People complained of the lack of chemistry between her and Redford and Farrow “subsequently revealed that she found it hard to establish a rapport with her co-star, who was obsessed with the unfolding real-life drama of the Watergate scandal and who, when not on camera, spent nearly all his time in his trailer, watching the coverage of the Watergate hearings on TV”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Clayton. I don’t know about that. If that was the case maybe Redford was cutting his losses after the original more appropriate Ali MacGraw left the role. Reportedly, Candice Bergen, Katharine Ross, Tuesday Weld and Faye Dunaway were considered or offered the role before Farrow got it. Bergen or Weld would have been best. To be fair, Hollywood has never nailed Daisy – Betty Field in the 1949 version, and Carey Mulligan in 2013 also weren’t perfect, and I can’t see Mira Sorvino in the Made for TV film being any better. Daisy, much like Helen of Troy or Cleopatra has to be right for the rest of the film to work truly successfully.

The cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, music by Nelson Riddle, and set design and costumes bring no complaints and only praise. But, English director, Jack Clayton, is all literature no cinema. He was a director who tackles novels – Room at the Top (1958) by John Braine, The Innocents (1961) based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, The Pumpkin Eater (1964) by Penelope Mortimer, Our Mother’s House (1967) by Julian Gloag which is not a problem unless the book gets in the way of the viuality of a film which happens here. The actors seem to come out a little “written”.

The screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola is well done as you would expect from Coppola. He remains largely faithful to the theme, plot and dialogue of the novel, though the film forces us to watch events unfold rather than experiencing them through Nick Carraway’s reflective, deeply analytical first-person narration and moral lens. Accordingly, the film unfolds slowly (a shortish less than 200 page book becomes a 146 minute film). Also, maybe, because it was the 70s (and subsequent generations are smarter than earlier ones apparently) in the film, Gatsby exhibits a level of self-awareness regarding his obsession with Daisy and with his self-destructive fixation that he lacks in the book. I think that a misstep. We aren’t necessarily smarter because we are further ahead in time. The awareness also makes Gatsby becomes more conveniently sympathetic which is accentuated by making Daisy’s husband more harsh. In the book he is tough with some vulnerability, in the film he is a manipulative cynic. Small details perhaps, and they don’t affect the central premise of the book, but they do make it a little squidgy.

Still, it is very watchable.

The film did well. On a budget of $7 million it brought in $26.5 million

See the film but definitely read the book.

NOTES

There was a 1926 play of the book done by Owen Davis that was the basis (apparently) of the 1949 film and it, perhaps, informs the 1974 film.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Drama, Novel | Tagged 1974 | 1 Comment

PAL JOEY (1957)

Posted on June 28, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: George Sidney

SCREENWRITER: Dorothy Kingsley

FILM STARS: Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, Barbara Nichols, Bobby Sherwood, Hank Henry, Elizabeth Patterson, Judy Dan, Bek Nelson, Robert Reed, Bess Flowers, ‘Snub’ Pollard

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: John O’Hara

TYPE: Novel PUBLISHER: Panther

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1960

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1940

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Satire

WORDS: Pal Joey started off as a as a series of epistolary short stories (an epistolary story is a story written as a letter between the fictional characters of a narrative) by author John O’Hara.

In 1940 O’Hara compiled them into a novel.

That same year the novel became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy by the legendary Broadway writers Rodgers & Hart.

In 1957 the film was made.

John O’Hara wrote protagonist “Pal” Joey Evans as an unlikable amoral conman, a manipulative, small-time crooner and M.C. in shady Chicago nightclubs whose venality is cloaked by an amiable easy going persona but who ultimately gets his comeuppance. Through letters to a bandleader friend in New York, Joey recounts his failed ambitions, run-ins with the mob, and schemes to romance wealthy women.

The book is wonderful. The letters “written” by Joey are slang-filled and error-riddled as you would expect. O’Hara has the knack of getting the hip street vernacular down perfect much as Damon Runyon did for his novels and short stories about Broadway, Manhattan, and New York City. The world O’Hara paints is dark, funny, and his central character is a cynical antihero trying to navigate the fringes of the post Jazz Age world when money was tighter. It’s an easy and very entertaining read. I have much O’Hara sitting on my shelf but apart from this I have read little, though there are friend readers I regard highly, who rate him highly, so … one day.

The writing is of the past but evokes time and the place, at least the way I have come to know it. Sorry about the length but this a lengthy quote from the book gives you the rich flavour of time and place as well as insight into Joey

Dear Pal Ted:

Well at last I am getting around to knocking off a line or two to let you know how much I apprisiate it you sending me that wire on opening nite. Dont think because I didnt answer before I didnt apprisiate it because that is far from the case. But I guess you know that because if you knew when I was opening you surely must be aware how busy Ive been ever since opening nite. I figure you read in Variety what date I was opening in which case I figure you have seen the write ups since then telling how busy Ive been and believe me its no exagerton.

Well maybe it seems a long time since opening nite and in a way it does to me too. It will only be five weeks this coming Friday but it seems longer considering all that has happened to your old pal Joey. Its hard to believe that under two months ago Joey was strictly from hunger as they say but I was. The last time I saw you (August) remember the panic was on. I figured things would begin to break a little better around August but no. A couple spots where I figured I would fit in didnt open at all on acct of bankroll trouble and that was why I left town and came out this way. I figured you live in a small town in Michigan and you can stay away from the hot spots because there arent any and that way you save money. I was correct but I sure didnt figure the panic would stay on as long as it did. I finely sold the jalloppy and hocked my diamond ring the minute I heard there would be a chance down this way. I never was in Ohio before but maybe I will never be any place else. At least I like it enough to remain here the remainder of my life but of course if NBC is listening in Im only kidding.

Well I heard about this spot through a little mouse I got to know up in Michigan. She told me about this spot as it is her home town altho spending her vacation every year in Michigan. I was to a party one nite (private) and they finely got me to sing a few numbers for them and the mouse couldn’t take her eyes off me. She sat over in one corner of the room not paying any attenton to the dope she was with until finely it got so even he noticed it and began making cracks but loud. I burned but went on singing and playing but he got too loud and I had to stop in the middle of a number and I said right at him if he didnt like it why didnt he try himself. Perhaps he could do better. The others at the party got sore at him and told him to pipe down but that only made him madder and the others told me to go ahead and not pay any attenton to him. So I did. Then when I got finished with a few more numbers I looked around and the heel wasnt there but the mouse was. She didnt give me a hand but I could tell she was more impressed than some that were beating their paws off. So I went over to her and told her I was sorry if it embarrassed her me calling attenton to her dope boyfriend but she said he wasnt a boyfriend. I said well I figured that. I said she looked as if she could do better than him and she said “you for instance” and I said well yes. We laughed and got along fine and I took her home. She was staying with her grandmother and grandfather, two respectible old married people that lived there all their life. They were too damn respectible for me. They watched her like a hawk and one oclock was the latest she could be out. That to me is the dumbest way to treat that kind of a mouse. If its going to happen it can happen before nine oclock and if it isnt going to happen it isnt going to no matter if you stay out till nine oclock the next morning. But whats the use of being old if you cant be dumb? So anyway Nan told me about this spot down here and knew the asst mgr of the hotel where the spot is and she said she would give me a send in and if I didnt hold them up for too much of the ready she was sure I could get the job. I sing and play every afternoon in the cocktail bar and at night I relieve the band in the ballroom. Anyway I figured I would have to freshen up the old wardrobe so I had to get rid of the jalloppy and hock my diamond ring. I made the trip to Ohio with Nan in her own jalloppy which isnt exactly a jalloppy I might add. Its a 37 Plymouth conv coop. It took us three days to go from Mich. to Ohio but Ill thank you not to ask any questons about my private life.

In 1940 Rodgers and Hart added 14 songs to the story and whilst not downplaying the cynicism upped the humour already evident in the book. Pal Joey, directed by George Abbott with choreography by Robert Alton, premiered on Broadway on December 25, 1940, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and ran for 374 performances. The opening-night cast included Gene Kelly as Joey, Vivienne Segal as Vera, June Havoc as Gladys. Future actor Van Johnson and future director Stanley Donen were also in the cast.

In 1957 the film was made as a musical comedy. And, it is a role tailor made for its lead, Frank Sinatra. Apparently (according to screenwriter Dorothy Kingsley) the film was meant to star Kirk Douglas (and to be directed by George Cukor). I’m assuming because Kirk doesn’t sing (well, not often) then that it would be a non-musical version of the book. The non-musical Joey character is one that would have been equally tailor made for Douglas who played his fair share of cynics, heels and flawed heroes (Champion (1949), Ace in The Hole (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)).

Despite Sinatra, at 42, being (perhaps) too old for the role (Kelly was 28 on the Broadway show and I suspect Joey would have been there or in his early 1930s) he is perfect. He knew the world Joey travelled in and he looks and speaks convincingly. His acting was at its peak. He stretched himself in the 1950s in dramatic roles (From Here to Eternity (1953), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Johnny Concho (1956), Kings Go Forth (1958), Some Came Running (1959)), Comedy (The Tender Trap (1955)), and smart musicals (Guys and Dolls (1955) , High Society (1956)) and musical drama with The Joker Is Wild (1957), which is almost a companion piece to Pal Joey.

Of course if helps that he can sing as well. Sinatra is one of the greatest vocal stylists of the 20th century. When he sings a line it has more than just words set to music. It sounds like he is singing directly to you. It’s a skill very few have – Crosby, Presley, Johnny Cash, Dylan …

Of the original 14 Rodgers and Hart songs, eight remained, but with two as instrumental background, and four songs were added from other Rodgers & Hart shows (one from Two Many Girls (1939), one from On Your Toes (1936), and to from Babes in Arms (1937)).

From the original show the song “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” was a hit for Doris Day (#9 1949 US) and Mel Torme (#10 1950 US). “The Lady Is a Tramp” (from Babes in Arms) became a Sinatra standard. Joey Evans (Sinatra) sings the song to the wealthy widow Vera Simpson (Hayworth) as he tries to entice her into financing his dream of owning his own night club. “My Funny Valentine” (also from Babes in Arms) also became a standard. The music was adapted and arranged for the film by the great Nelson Riddle.

Pal Joey is often thought of as a Sinatra starring vehicle given he plays the title character and it is, but it is (almost) equally a Rita Hayworth (who got top billing – she was a Columbia studios star and this was a Columbia studios film) and Kim Novak picture. The three leads are all good though the chemistry between Hayworth and Sinatra is more present than between Sinatra and Novak. Hayworth, still stunning at 39, had a career that was slowing but she was a major star in the gossip magazines. The marriage to her third husband Prince Aly Khan, a son of Sultan Mohammed Shah, Aga Khan III ended in divorce in 1953 and later in the year she married and band leader Dick Haymes and divorced in 1955. She then sued second husband, Orson Welles, for back payment of child support, which she claimed had never been paid … she was in the news even if she wasn’t in film (apart from Fire Down Below (1957) she hadn’t released a film since Miss Sadie Thompson (1953)). She acts well and looks good and “sings” (dubbed by ghost singer Jo Ann Greer). Novak was on her ascendency (Picnic (1955), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Jeanne Eagels (1957), Vertigo (1958), Bell, Book and Candle (1958)), and is icily beautiful she also “sings” (voice dubbed by Trudy Stevens). Also in a support is the great Barbara Nichols and comedian Hank Henry.

Dorothy Kingsley wrote the screenplay and was perfect for softening the Joey character, which is, I assume what the producers wanted. She had written Angels in the Outfield (1951), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Small Town Girl (1953). George Sidney was a master at the musical hybrid films (Anchors Aweigh (1945), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Viva Las Vegas (1964)) an he had directed Novak before (The Eddy Duchin Story (1956), Jeanne Eagels (1957)). He worked mainly at MGM and knows his splashy technicolour.

The film does deviate from the book (and the play) …

In the book Joey Evans is a selfish, manipulative anti-hero who uses women for money and status. He ends up alone, broke, and without either woman at the end. In the film Sinatra portrays Joey as an amiable, wise-cracking shmuck with a good heart. He gets the girl (one of them), the nightclub, and walks off into a happy California sunset after the locale was moved from Chicago to San Francisco. Well, it was the 1950s, a time of optimism.

Some subplots are gone (blackmail) as are some chatacters Melba, a highly cynical reporter who sees through Joey’s trick and other characters are altered. The Vera of the book is a wealthy widow but not jealous of the chorus girl Linda, as she ultimately sees through Joey’s act. In the film Vera (Rita Hayworth) is a wealthy, former stripper (“Vanessa the Undressa”). Linda (Kim Novak) is a naïve chorus girl rather than the innocent stenographer from the original text.

Do these hurt the film, no, but Joey is now a product of the 1950s not the 1930s. He isnt as much of a conman, perhaps, becuase the depression is over and he doesnt have to be. He is still a bit of a heel though.

The book was a hit when it came out, the 1940 stage show was a hit, the film was a hit (one of the 10 highest-earning films of 1957), and the soundtrack was a hit (#2 US, #1 UK).

The book is worth reading, the film is worth seeing, and the soundtrack is worth listening to.

NOTES

Regarding top billing – “Pal Joey is one of Sinatra’s few post-From Here to Eternity films that did not give him top billing, which went to Hayworth. Sinatra was, by this time, a bigger star. When asked about the billing, Sinatra replied, “Ladies first.” He said as it was a Columbia Pictures film, Hayworth should have top billing because “For years, she was Columbia Pictures” and being billed “between” Hayworth and Novak was “a sandwich I don’t mind being stuck in the middle of.” Hayworth had garnered top-billing status in Columbia Pictures’ films starting in 1944’s Cover Girl through the 1959 film They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper… Sinatra’s earnings from the film paid for his new home in Palm Springs. He was so delighted that he also built a restaurant there dedicated to the film, named Pal Joey’s”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal_Joey_(film)#cite_note-6
Apparently Joey has become even more user freindly over the years. The 2023 New York City Center production had him as a struggling, but well-meaning singer (though they have have to do that – Joey was re-imagined as a struggling, ambitious black jazz singer in Chicago, with the story focusing heavily on the price of artistic authenticity and the appropriation of Black music … clealry, he can’t be a heel). Perhaps it was a cynical (Joey-esque) attempt to sell tickets through name recognition to something that has little or nothing to do with its title. In any event it failed (it failed to get a Broadway run).

LINKS

TRAILER

CLIPS

Frank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb7QR621H_U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx1ZZ4D-4TM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNOz74pu1RU

Rita

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW0i8pb_GsU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXr2rbI-qYg

Kim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpg9WTk1hek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08_2-xUOtSI

Posted in Comedy / Satire, Novel | Tagged 1957 | 1 Comment

THE SUN ALSO RISES (1957)

Posted on May 31, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Henry King

SCREENWRITER: Peter Viertel

FILM STARS: Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Errol Flynn, Mel Ferrer, Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert, Gregory Ratoff, Juliette Gréco, Marcel Dalio, Henry Daniell, Bob Cunningham, Danik Patisson, Robert Evans, Lilia Guízar

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Ernest Hemingway

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Pan

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1957

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1926

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title.

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS:

I saw this film and read this book so long ago I’m not sure if I am doing them a disservice speaking about them now. But, hey, if film watched and book read were to be recent I’m not sure how many posts I would do a year. In any event the blog was meant to be a celebration of film tie-in cover art which, morphed, into something more wordy, as a result of my enthusiasm for some books or films.

Groan.

OK, I saw the film in 1984 as a teen and despite liking it, I have not watched it since. I must … I should …

The novel I read in 1985 and, despite loving it, I have not re-read it but I do dip into it every now and then.

I was on a serious Hemingway kick at the time and I still rate and love Hemingway.

The Sun Also Rises (1926) (published as Fiesta in Great Britain in 1927) follows a group of disillusioned American and British expatriates traveling from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the bullfighting festival in Pamplona, Spain. It is a evocative of a time and place, so much so that it becomes the definitive portrait of the “Lost Generation” navigating post-World War I trauma, aimlessness, and broken relationships. Reading it as a kid I felt like a “grown up” because Hemingway’s dealing with the characters was adult and real. The characters disillusionment was pervasive. It was the second or third Hemingway novel I had read and unlike the earlier For Whom the Bells Toll or To Have and Have Not it was light on “action”, but it reinforced my love of all things Hemingway. I knew I did not relate to any of the characters but their story, and the time and place played out like a A-list Hollywood film, the A-List film I had seen the year before.

Hemingway is a writer I still love. Simple lines but packed full of information not spelt out. He wore his heart on his sleeve and here in his first novel he writes as many do for ‘firsts” … about himself (at least i part) –

“The novel is a roman à clef: the characters are based on people in Hemingway’s circle and the action is based on events, particularly Hemingway’s life in Paris in the 1920s and a trip to Spain in 1925 for the Pamplona festival and fishing in the Pyrenees. Hemingway converted to Catholicism as he wrote the novel, and Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera notes that protagonist Jake Barnes, a Catholic, was “a vehicle for Hemingway to rehearse his own conversion, testing the emotions that would accompany one of the most important acts of his life.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises

The 50s was awash with adult melodramas about people (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), This Earth Is Mine (1959), East of Eden (1955), A Summer Place (1959), Some Came Running (1958), Home from the Hill (1960), and anything by Douglas Sirk)) and I loved them. I was a kid brought up on westerns, adventure films, Martin & Lewis, Abbott & Costello and Elvis movies but I was branching out. I had learnt to love Hollywood film through “star power”. The more stars, the better. As a result I found myself in genres I would not have otherwise explored, at least not as a teenager. The multi character Hollywood melodramas was one limb. The bonus here is that the melodrama is based on a great novel by Hemingway, and set in errr European locales.

And, this film had star power … and not just Tyrone (you like how I did that) but Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert. All are great with Power (solid as melancholy Jake Barnes) and Flynn (as the drunken Mike Campbell) standing out. The much maligned Flynn’s career was in a downturn and he took this second lead role, probably because he need the money and it was a big budget A-Film, and he was perfect because he was playing Errol Flynn in many ways. All three leads, Power, Gardner and Flynn had been criticised as and categorised as good looking movies stars rather than actors, and perhaps they were but better casting you could not find, even if they were all way too old for their roles (as was Eddie Albert). And i don’t mind future Hollwood movie mogul, Robert Evans as a Spanish bullfighter … not at all bad for a Jewish kid from NYC.

Filming started March 1957 in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. Apparently it had been intended to shoot in Pamplona but the trees were not in foliage and the production could not afford to wait. There was some second unit shooting in Spain and France. Directed by Tyrone Power favourite Henry King (King and Power, 20th Century Fox studio regulars, made 11 films together Lloyd’s of London (1936), In Old Chicago (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938), Jesse James (1939), A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941), The Black Swan (1942), Captain from Castile (1947), Prince of Foxes (1949), King of the Khyber Rifles (1953), Untamed (1955), The Sun Also Rises (1957)) this film is lush in colour (filmed by Leo Tover who could do this in his sleep – When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950), The President’s Lady (1953), Untamed (1954), The Tall Men (1955), Soldier of Fortune (1955), The Conqueror (1956), The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Follow that Dream (1962)) and evocative of place, something King had a knack for (Captain from Castile (1947), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), Carousel (1956), The Bravados (1958), This Earth Is Mine (1959), Beloved Infidel (1959)), even if the filming took place elsewhere. King is a most underrated director, or perhaps, I should say that King, well regarded at the time is a a largely forgotten director by the casual viewers and he rarely turned in a bad film. With his feet solidly in the silents (he started directing in 1915 and did amongst many others Tol’able David (1921) The White Sister (1923), Romola (1924), The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)) and let his framing do a lot of the talking. Twice nominated for best director Oscars (if that is any indication of anything (for The Song of Bernadette (1943) and Wilson (1944)), he never won (the Oscars aren’t an indication of anything).

Novelist (The Canyon (1940), Line of Departure (1947), White Hunter Black Heart (1953) and others) and screenwriter (the Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Five Miles to Midnight (1962), his own White Hunter Black Heart (1990) and others) Peter Viertel had been bouncing around Hollywood for a while writing screenplays (Saboteur (1942), The Hard Way (1943), We Were Strangers (1949)) and doctoring other screenplays (The African Queen (1951), Beat the Devil (1953)). He liked literate subject matters and had a knack of making wordy things flow faster than they would otherwise.

This is an A-list Hollywood studio product (20th Century Fox under Darryl F. Zanuck’s vice grip control) with the right amount of sensitivity to the source material with an eye on what was acceptable at the time but both shrouded in commercial considerations. Tarantino has said somewhere that he doesn’t like 50s films because they were self censored and could not be explicit. He may have a point but I also like them for that reason … the film makers had to think up ways of getting across the source material without the censors knowing. Lead character Jake Barnes is impotent in the book and is still impotent in the film. Though, how impotent isn’t answreed. A lot of people will decry the self censorship used to not upset the censors, but the filmmakers also knew that many of the audience has probably read the book (it was a best seller) so they already knew of Barnes’ impotency (not that the book is explicit (leading some to suggest he is actually missing his penis – Jake Barnes’s impotence is never described with explicit anatomical details by Hemingway)) . So, you know, we get it … it doesnt have to be put on a billboard.

As you wuld expect from Hollywood in the 50s, the film is not as grim as the novel. There is also some comic relief (Eddie Albert as Bill Gortin and to a lesser extent Errol), less antisemitism to the Robert Cohn Jewish character (played by Mel Ferrer), less promiscuity and brazeness from Lady Brett Ashley’s character (as played by Ava Garner), and there is the optimistic ending … the book ends on a famously grim and cynical note with Jake and Brett riding in a cab, where Brett says, “Oh, Jake, we could have had such a damned good time together,” and Jake replies, “Yes. Isn’t it pretty to think so?” The film changes this to a hopeful, romantic ending, with Brett stating, “There must be an answer for us—somewhere,” and Jake stolidly replying, “I’m sure there is”.

That’s Hollywood … but it still works.

Though Hemingway didn’t think so – he saw the film but walked out after 25 minutes stating allegedly, “I saw as much of Darryl Zanuck’s splashy Cook’s tour of Europe’s lost generation bistros, bullfights, and more bistros…It’s pretty disappointing and that’s being gracious. Most of my story was set in Pamplona so they shot the film in Mexico. You’re meant to be in Spain and all you see walking around are nothing but Mexicans…It looked pretty silly. The bulls were mighty small for a start, and it looked like they had big horns on them for the day. I guess the best thing about the film was Errol Flynn”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises_(1957_film)

Though I note here that if Hemingway walked out after 25 minutes claiming Flynn’s performance was the only good thing, he couldn’t have seen it as Errol didn’t appear until 54 minutes in.

I love the book and like the film.

The book was a best seller, the film made money but not a lot because, errr, the star power cost too much …..

LINKS

TRAILER

some links to interesting articles on the film
https://brightlightsfilm.com/immovable-feast-another-look-henry-kings-sun-also-rises/
https://ricksrealreel.blogspot.com/2023/11/all-star-downer-sun-also-rises-1957.html

Posted in Drama, Novel | Tagged 1957 | Leave a comment

RED SPARROW (2018)

Posted on May 17, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Francis Lawrence

SCREENWRITER: Justin Haythe

FILM STARS: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons, Mary-Louise Parker, Ciarán Hinds, Joely Richardson, Bill Camp.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Jason Matthews

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2018

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2013

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Spy Thriller

WORDS: The film is a long spy thriller with dollops of realism, if not visually then in the storytelling detail.

Ultimately it’s another in a long line of well written spy thrillers that are quickly forgotten, or confused and misremembered with other films.

Jennifer Lawrence was cast as the current era Russian spy (Dominika) who indulges in Sexpionage (the involvement of sexual activity (or the possibility of sexual activity), intimacy, romance, or seduction in espionage. Sex, or the possibility of sex, can function as a distraction, incentive, cover story, or unintended part of any intelligence operation – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexpionage).

I don’t know how accurate or prolific the use of Sexpionage is, or if the spies look like Jennifer Lawrence, but if it was and they did, it would be worth looking into for employment …err, despite the chance of death.

Sure, people use sex in the real world to gain leverage, benefits, and all sorts of things but used here it is akin to State paid prostitution, which would meet with all sorts of red flags in the workplace health and safety and work discrimination areas, in the west. I can’t see feminist policy makers promoting the use of sex to gain advantage, no matter how prevalent it is in the real world. Officially, in the west, I suspect the best you could hope for is for management to turn a blind eye. Luckily (for the filmmakers if for no one else) Russia has no such policies or legal concerns regarding the use of sex by female (and male) spies. (I note, in the Soviet Union, female agents assigned to use such tactics were referred to as “swallows”, while male agents were known as “ravens”).

Most of these spies were honey pot spies used to entrap their targets with a view to blackmailing (or extorting) them, not spies used for killing or assassinations. But staying within the motion picture standards when it comes to age ratings doesnt always make for exciting plot lines. You get get away with more violence on screen than sex. So, the female spies became increasingly assassin oriented in films …. and the genre still seems to be paying off – Anna (2019), Ava (2020), Kate (2021), In from the Cold (2022), The 355 (2022), Ballerina (2025) all have female protagonists kicking arse in cartoonish (at worst), unlikely (at best) ways. Sure, women can kill people but shagging some mid level public servant to extract information out of him is one thing, taking out targets, alone, with military precision, whilst dispatching heavy built security and military types is something different altogether.

A history detour, which provides some background:

Yakov Agranov, deputy of the NKVD, known as one of main organizers of Soviet political repressions and Stalinist show trials in 1920s and 1930s, was responsible for sex spy operations among creative-class intelligentsia. He used Bolshoi ballerinas, as well as cinema and theater actresses. Agranov created a school named the Lenin Technical School (Ленинская техническая школа). The school was opened in 1931 by Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, who was the head of the Joint State Political Directorate. According to legend, Richard Sorge and Nikolai Kuznetsov studied at a Moscow Sexpionage school.

Kazan, Tatarstan Sexpionage school – According to former CIA officer Jason Matthews, the Soviet Union had a Sexpionage school called “State School 4” in Kazan, Tatarstan, southeast of Moscow, on the banks of the Volga river. The school trained female agents to be “swallows”. This school was depicted in Matthews’ 2013 novel Red Sparrow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexpionage

Apparently Russia now uses private contractors in the Sexpionage world instead of the graduates from State run schools. I’m not sure what that says about education in the constant argument between private and State education.

Author Jason Matthews was a former CIA officer (from the 1980s through to the 2010s) so he injects enough detail into the thriller like proceedings to give the illusion of realism. Perfect for Hollywood. real but not too real. It was bound to be made into a film … in fact before the book was published, Matthews sold the movie rights for Red Sparrow, for a seven-figure amount. There is also a nice quirky touch included. Each chapter in the book, as well as its two sequels, includes a recipe for a food or cocktail mentioned in the preceding chapter. I assume this is to to add a sensory, humanizing layer to the story and to provide some local flavour (sic) to the places the characters travel to..

The film adaptation of Red Sparrow condenses the novel into a darker, more visceral thriller. The movie omits the book “synesthesia” subplot (reading people as colored auras), changes the setting of key operations, and completely reworks the climax to alter who the ultimate double agent. The Dominika of the book is idealistic, patriotic, and possesses synesthesia, whereas in the film she lacks these supernatural/sensory abilities and is portrayed as far more self-serving, primarily motivated by keeping her ailing mother safe from being used as leverage. As you would expect the book focuses heavily on tradecraft, the mechanics of espionage, and the geopolitical maneuvering of the two countries whereas the film relies much more on graphic, extreme violence (e.g., the torture sequences and the skinning scene) to establish a grim, shocking atmosphere. Likewise, as you would expect in 2018 the movie also alters the gender, age, and roles of several supporting spy characters to make the cast more diverse.

Lawrence is supported well but has to carry the film, and she does. She was riding high at the time having starred in the successful Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Hunger Game films (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015)), Joy (2015), X-Men: Apocalypse(2016), and Passengers (2016). She was probably largely responsible for pulling the difficult and not very good film, Mother! (2017), into a slight profit. The role here is not a stretch – acting cold and ruthless usually means acting like a robot. She does that. She is also convincing as a Russian. Screenwriter Justin Haythe only has to move the book to the screen, keeping the drama and obligatory twists and turns intact and Austrian born director Francis Lawrence just had to keep it moving which he does I Am Legend (2007) and all three Hunger Games films with Lawrence.

It’s not rocket science. It’s paint by number but like well done kit art / hobby art its nice to look at but you know it’s not real and you know you are not getting anything new.

The film looks good. Like most spy thrillers it is filmed in Europe (even if it is not always in the country of action). Here … Budapest (stands in for Budapest) and Dunaújváros in Hungary and Bratislava, Slovakia and Vienna, Austria stand in for Russia and other places.

But, the big problem is we have seen many sexy female spies in the past (Salt (2010), Colombiana (2011), Hanna(2011)), and even cold killer ones like here (La Femme Nikita (1990), Atomic Blonde (2017)). Deja vu hangs over the film. Worse still, it’s way to long … the more serious a spy thriller tries to be the longer they are, generally. It takes time to create the right mood for all the moral questions they like to think they ask, but don’t.

The book was a best seller the film did well (budget $69 million, box office $151.6 million).

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Novel, Thriller | Tagged 2018 | Leave a comment

THE TERMINATOR ( 1984 )

Posted on May 4, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: James Cameron

SCREENWRITER: James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd

FILM STARS: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Rick Rossovich, Bess Motta, Dick Miller, Franco Columbu, Bill Paxton

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Shaun Hutson

TYPE: Novelization

PUBLISHER: Star

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1984

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1984

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sci Fi

WORDS: The Terminator.

A low budget-ish B action film that became a runaway success.

Budgeted at $6.4 million it made $78 million (US dollars).

It led to five sequels, two television series, two web series, comic books, video games and novels.

It made a big star out of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It put writer director James Cameron on the map and made him bankable.

It made a big budget action producer out of producer Gale Anne Hurd.

It created catchphrases – Schwarzenegger’s line “I’ll be back” became a catchphrase and was voted the 37th-greatest movie quote by the AFI.

In 2008, The Terminator was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

A terminator cyborg assassin from the future is trying to kill a diner waitress whilst a cop from the same future is trying to save her. Whether she lives or dies will have severe repercussions on the future.

Okay, intellectually I have problems with time traveller films but as entertainment I do accept them even though the Grandfather Paradox (or “consistency paradox”) is ever present – that is changing the past eliminates the reason for traveling back, making the change impossible. If you change the past, you prevent your own trip, meaning you couldn’t have changed it, creating a self-contradictory loop. As long as you don’t take it seriously (and I don’t) once you are on this ride you forget everything else. The sequels all became more serious and with the exception of Terminator 2 (1991) they became increasingly less fun.

As AI has become a thing the Terminator film (especially its sequels) with its dystopian future and the rise of the machines seems to have taken on more gravitas than needed. The Terminator robot in the film has become the dominant visual representation of AI risk. The “rise of the machines” is a concern that has fallen into the real world. (though, when looking at aged care, health care, work safety I for one welcome the rise of the machines. Well, as long as they are tools, thinking or otherwise. Why is every future dystopian? Perhaps the robot machine is as good or bad as the person programming it. Even sentience does just drop down out of the sky or come out of nowhere). The film has had an impact outside of the film world.

Gravitas acknowledged but the film is a chase film gussied up. It has great action set pieces and pacing that does not let up. This is made more impressive when you know that this film was made on a modest budget. $6.4 million may sound like a lot, especially for 1984, but when compared to the budgets of other 1984 films – The Karate Kid ($8m), Amadeus ($18m), Bachelor Party ($7m), Beverly Hills Cop ($13m), Broadway Danny Rose ($8m), City Heat ($25m), Conan the Destroyer ($18m), Dune ($40m), Firestarter ($12m), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan ($30m), Gremlins ($11m), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ($28m), Purple Rain ($7.2m), The Razor’s Edge ($12m), Rhinestone ($28m), Sixteen Candles ($6.5m), Splash ($11m), The Woman in Red ($9m) etc. you can see that The Terminator gets a lot of errrr bang for its buck.

The leading actors are great (though, perhaps inexplicably, only Schwarzenegger became a big star) and the supports are just as good (any film with Lance Henriksen is made instantly better). In small roles you have Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton and Dick Miller (its always fun playing pick the later (or former) “star”). Does actor spotting interrupt the momentum of the film for me? Not, my brain can do two things at once..

Cameron’s direction from his script concentrates on the action and the character. There is no room for scenery or local colour. The film became one of those roller coaster ride films (Die Hard (1988), RoboCop (1987), Predator (1987), Aliens (1986), Lethal Weapon (1987), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), and 48 Hrs. (1982)) that defined the 1980s and, rightly or wrongly, influenced all action films that came after.

The Terminator soundtrack was composed and performed on synthesizer by Brad Fiedel and it has the mechanical, industrial, atmospheric analog synth tones which conjure up the ominous future from which the terminator comes.

Cameron’s script (which producer Gale Anne Hurd contributed to though Cameron stated that she “did no actual writing at all”) was inspired by (it seems) television 1960s television shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits as well as (perhaps) the recent dystopian sci fi films like Mad Max 2 (1981), Escape from New York (1981), Blade Runner (1982) and probably because he was working on in Rome on his Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) the Italian and European sci fi B trash being made at the same time like 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982), The Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983), The New Barbarians (1983).

It may be Cameron’s script but (the great) sci fi writer Harlan Ellison sued for plagiarism. He “stated that he “loved the movie, was just blown away by it, “but believed that the screenplay was based on a short story, “Soldier from Tomorrow”, and an episode of The Outer Limits, “Soldier”, he had written, and threatened to sue for infringement. Orion settled in 1986, gave Ellison an undisclosed amount of money, and added an acknowledgment credit to later prints of the film. Some accounts of the settlement state that “Demon with a Glass Hand”, another Outer Limits episode written by Ellison, was also claimed to have been plagiarized by the film, but Ellison explicitly stated that The Terminator “was a ripoff” of “Soldier” rather than of “Demon with a Glass Hand.”

Cameron was against Orion’s decision and was told that if he did not agree with the settlement, he would have to pay any damages if Orion lost a suit by Ellison. Cameron replied that he “had no choice but to agree with the settlement. Of course, there was a gag order as well, so I couldn’t tell this story, but now I frankly don’t care. It’s the truth.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator

The novelisation is by Shaun Hutson. This is the UK novelization version of The Terminator. The US version is written by a completely different author(s) – Randall Frakes and Bill Wisher- who, I think, wrote their novelization after the film was completed.

As with other novelizations, we have no idea what version of the script the author had to work with, if anybody had already been cast before they started writing, or whether they had any access to the scriptwriter, director. or anyone else on the production team for background.

The novelizor (?) brings their own technique and sensibility to the novelization. How much depends on how much background they were given outside the script..

Hutson’s novel adheres very closely to the finished movie though there are the usual scenes (or locales) that don’t feature in the film. Shaun Hutson (born 1958) is a British novelist in the horror and crime genres and he brings his horror sensibility to the novel, the violence and gore are amped up rather spectacularly. There is some back story of course and in the book we get more on ancillary characters like Traxler and Vukovich (played by Paul Winfield and Lance Henriksen in the film) which is a bonus. Otherwise there are scenes and its and pieces of small business that will let the trainspotters discover but which don’t stray from the main story in any big way. Though I do note Hutson uses “I’ll come back” instead of the iconic “I’ll be back”, which may be because Arnold changed the line during shooting.

See the film, read the book if you are a big fan.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Novelization, Science Fiction | Tagged 1984 | 2 Comments

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE (2008)

Posted on March 22, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: George C. Wolfe

SCREENWRITER: Ann Peacock, John Romano

FILM STARS: Diane Lane, Richard Gere, James Franco, Scott Glenn, Christopher Meloni, Carolyn McCormick, Viola Davis, Pablo Schreiber, Mae Whitman, Charlie Tahan

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Nicholas Sparks

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publications

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2008

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2002

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Romance

WORDS: Look, I know many of you out there would like to see an older novel and an older film featured rather than the “recent” stuff like this. But I like doing these recent films because I don’t have to think or write too much, ’cause I don’t hold in high regard many modern films and think even less of contemporary literature.

With that in mind, I turn to the film Nights in Rodanthe (2008) based on the book Nights in Rodanthe (2002).

The book and the film are romantic dramas with tear jerking elements. This is the type of stuff that was written by women (and well written on many occasions) throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s. But, you see increasingly, men writing in this genre, and, I assume that come from the fact they want to be published and they aren’t going to be published nowadays if they write like Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Charles Bukowski, or James Jones.

Tastes perhaps have changed, rates of readership by gender may have changed, or maybe the industry itself has ideologically changed. I don’t know but readership is down and the vast majority of readers of contemporary literature nowadays are female.

Fiction readers in the 50s across the west were normally female but the gap between male and female was a closer than it is today. AI suggests that in the 1950s up to 80% of fiction readers were female in the USA. I’m not sure if that is accurate but if it is then it was females that were making bestselling authors out of Hemingway, Mailer, James Jones, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, Alistair MacLean etc. I suspect the gap was a little closer and when AI was pushed by me it let me know that almost half the readers where male, then. That seems about right. What does not seem to be in issue is that reading has declined amongst adults since the Second World War and contemporary fiction readers are 80% female today. That’s the audience you need to target if you want to be a successful writer.

Gone are the days when the big publishing house would print all sorts of novels. Sure there are small publishing houses and self publishing and kindle, but they won’t sustain you.

I was talking with a friend about this over coffee last week and it seems perhaps there is an ideological agenda to what will be published but the bottom line is publishers want to make money so they have to have an eye, or ear, on what the public wants. Of course, given that book sales are generally down one could be right in believing that commercial success is not paramount in their thinking.

You don’t have to be female to write romantic fiction but the approach between men and women is different, it seems. I hasten to say, not “all” men and not “all” women, just generally.

The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway (not to mention The Sun Also Rises (1926)), By Love Possessed (1957) by James Gould Cozzens, A Summer Place (1958) by Sloan Wilson were all best sellers and ostensibly “romance” novels and all written by men.

So, what is the difference? I’m no expert because I just have not read enough romance novels written by females but it seems to me that romance novels written by men often focus on action, external plot, social structures and environments, and physical descriptions of characters, whereas novels by women tend to prioritize emotional processes, relationship dynamics, and deep character development.

Nicholas Sparks is a best selling author. Nicholas Sparks writes romantic dramas. Nicholas Sparks has managed to do this in an era where women make up 80% of the contemporary fiction readers. He know what side his bread buttered on.

But, more importantly … he writes books that are written as films.

Of the 25 novels h has written since 1996, 12 have been made into films, all successful, some ultra successful – Message in a Bottle (1999), The Notebook (2004), Dear John (2010). They make easily adaptable and user friendly films. Their are no history lessons or big picture issues but, at least his novels usually involve adults, not teenagers, and don’t involve vampire love, or fantasy elements.

In Nights in Rodanthe (Rodanthe is a coastal town in North Carolina favoured by beach-lovers and romantics), an unhappy recently divorced (or about to be divorced in the film) woman, meets a divorced man, a surgeon (of course), who carries his own share of difficulties, at a hotel. Troubled by their pasts, they both quickly find comfort in each other. The protagonists are middle-aged (45 and 54) and the novel focuses on love, loss, and the challenges of parenthood and divorce.

It’s a tear jerker.

The book is not for me.

But, I did watch the film.

It’s a tear jerker

Why did I watch the film? …. I have followed Richard Gere since seeing Days of Heaven (1979) and Diane Lane since watching The Outsiders (1983) as a kid. Though they have both made my watching of their films an uneven and rocky ride they were for me here, the whole show (though the supporting cast (including Scott Glenn, James Franco, Christopher Meloni, Viola Davis) is solid.

The film doesn’t deviate much from the book. Even the ages of Lane and Gere, 43 and 59 (or thereabouts) are close to the book. That’s a novelty in Hollywood. Screenwriters Ann Peacock and John Romano and director George C. Wolfe only have to apply paint to the numbers put down by author Sparks and that’s what they do. The major difference between book and film is the book features a timeline with flashbacks, whereas the film plays out more fluidly and linearly. There are some character adjustments including oddly: in the novel Adrienne is already divorced from her husband, Jack. In the film, she is only estranged from him, and he is actively trying to reconcile with her, making her relationship with Paul a technical affair. Only in the contemporary era Hollywood can you have a unfaithful character as a sympathetic protagonist. Well, only if the character is a female, in an unhappy marriage, who has found her soul mate outside of marriage.

The movie becomes more of a traditional “chick flick” romantic drama, focusing heavily on the beauty of the setting and the romantic chemistry between the stars, which simplifies (the already perhaps simple) inner conflicts explored in the book. The film was watchable (just), even if was faintly ridiculous with enough obvious and noble characters to raise a regular chuckled groan.

The book received mixed reviews but was a best seller. The film received negative reviews but was a box office success (Budget $30 million, Box office $84.4 million). The people know what they want.

I think I have written too much. Groan.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Novel, Romance | Tagged 2008 | Leave a comment

NORWOOD (1970)

Posted on February 22, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Jack Haley Jr

SCREENWRITER: Marguerite Roberts

FILM STARS: Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Joe Namath, Carol Lynley, Pat Hingle, Tisha Sterling, Dom DeLuise, Leigh French, Meredith MacRae, Sammy Jackson, Billy Curtis, Edith Atwater, Jimmy Boyd, Virginia Capers, Cass Daley, Merie Earle, Jack Haley, David Huddleston, Gil Lamb

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Charles Portis

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1971

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1966

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Humour

WORDS: Hmmm. An odd little comedic novel becomes an odd little comedy film.

I’m not sure what to make of this. Nothing happens, a road movie where great philosophical, or even small philosophical questions are not answered, but both novel and film are diverting.

The film I saw many moons ago and didn’t think much of it, but I had cause to rewatch it after reading Portis’ novel. I get it now though it still doesn’t succeed. The novel was the first novel written (1966) by Arkansas native Charles Portis who would find success with his second novel True Grit (1968).

The book is about Norwood Pratt who leaves small town Ralph, Texas and travels to New York City and back again. Much like Odysseus in The Odyssey by Homer or, perhaps, more appropriately Huckleberry Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain the characters he meets are part of the story. Oddly here, they don’t reveal a bigger picture but just are a slice of life, albeit the whacky and fringe characters in the slice. They are a snapshot in time with no answers. It’s pleasant enough though I’m not sure of the point unless the humorous yakety yak is the point. More oddly, in these stories the journey usually has a climax and destination, which would be NYC here, but Norwood spends a moment there (about a halfway into the book) before heading for home.

Norwood travels to New York on a job to deliver some cars but also to retrieve a $70 loan, before returning home. Along the way he encounters quirky characters including grifters, a ditzy girl, a call girl (?), a philosophical midget, a “college-educated” chicken, depressed city dwellers and various other minor characters. It is a loopy gently comedic American journey set in the late 1950s.

Norwood is the protagonist. A good hearted but minor malcontent but I’m not sure I totally warmed to his character. If I met him on the road I would try to ditch him. The book has a lot of other little events and observations that are dropped from the film even if the film has whole chunks of dialogue taken from the book and remains relatively faithful to the storyline. These little observations and asides that have nothing to do with the story but everything to do with the characters which are quite funning though sometimes disarming. Like, a discussion of how squirrel brains taste — “About like calf brains. They’re not bad if you don’t think about it. The bad part is cracking them little skulls open” or Rita Lee describing boyfriend Wayne, “He would favour Rory Calhoun a lot if his neck was filled out more”. Or Mrs Reese talking about a relative “who ran up an eleven-hundred-dollar candy bill in Memphis and forced the family to sell a slave to pay it, and about the one who drained the swamps and how he agitated unsuccessfully for a public statue of himself in the square, like the one of Popeye in the Texas spinach capital.” And you find out that (actor) Dick Powell is from Arkansas.

The novel has deadpan humour (I love how Norwood gets names wrong) and Portis captures the Southern dialect and vernacular, warts and all (outside Memphian Tav Falco’s song I don’t think I have heard “shade tree mechanic” anywhere).

There are quite a few characters in the book that only have brief appearances which would make the film, if included, even more episodic than it is, and fleetingly so. The whole travel writer living in a dump in NYC, Dave Heineman, is dropped. Heineman introduces Norwood to Marie a speech major “and one night she read aloud from her favourite book, which was The Prophet, and Norwood listened and clipped his fingernails”. In the film, Marie’s character (in her slummy apartment with the ubiquitous W.C. Fields poster on the wall) incorporates some of the Dave’s dialogue with Norwood and serves as the plot device to get Norwood on stage. This does lead to one of the best scenes in the film where Norwood is taken to venue / club where he performs a up tempo country song (“Repo Man”) to a bunch of stoned hippies before being shunted off stage for a psychedelic band. A nice touch is having a table of ”straights” (there was always a table of straights slumming it in NYC Bohemian cafes, bars and clubs in movies) applauding him.

There are other small characters that disappear, but the real difference is the tone. The book is set in the late 1950s, and the film is set when it’s made, 1970. The book alludes to things whereas the film accepts 1970s permissiveness. Nothing wrong with though Norwood as a character might be the outer in the 50s because he is quirky but in 1970, he is anachronistic (though to be fair in 1970 not everyone was “wearing flowers in their hair”). Why 1970 urbanite Marie would take a shine to Norwood I don’t know. In the novel, despite Norwood’s attempts, there is no funny business with Marie. In the film, Norwood beds her. Which, just after before finding true love makes him seem like an opportunistic type. The film also is a little anachronistic with the good old boy bedding the uptight city girl and making her appreciate her womanhood (hey, it was 1970 even if the screenwriter was female).

The film knowing that nothing happens in a rambling road story injects some (1970 era) drama in the last act or so. Norwood’s new love Rita Lee, the ditz he meets on the bus, is travelling to an army base to compel her boyfriend, Wayne, to marry her, for no other reason than he promised to. In the film the journey is because she is three months pregnant. Wayne turns up later and bests Norwood in a fight, but she decides to stay with Norwood who likewise wants her. None of that is in the book, she doesn’t see Wayne who has already shipped out. Character motivations are not necessary, and they detract from the “it is what it is” slightly surreal loopy-ness of the book.

Likewise, Norwood’s singing and guitar playing career amounts to a couple of unfinished tunes but a determination to appear on the Louisiana Hayride and radio show. With what exactly I don’t know. That won’t do for Glen Campbell …. he sings and plays and ultimately in a happy ending beyond Ralph Texas he appears on the Louisiana Hayride with Rita Lee watching from the audience.

Campbell is natural and quite good if occasionally a little awkward. I suspect the role was one designed for Elvis by producer Hal Wallis (though both are too old for the Norwood role).

Hear me out.

The film was clearly designed to follow up on the success of Hal Wallis’ western with John Wayne, True Grit (1969), based on Portis’ novel. Norwood has him producing, with the same screenwriter, and the same second leads (Glen Campbell and Kim Darby). But, it seems that Wallis (who had produced nine Elvis films) had wanted Elvis for True Grit but the Colonel (Elvis’ manager) would not have Elvis playing second banana to anyone, not even John Wayne. I could see Elvis in the role, both True Grit and Norwood. He had done serious westerns Flaming Star (1960), Charro (1969) and he could do drama King Creole (1958), Wild in the Country (1961) and he could do quirky comedy Follow that Dream (1962), Stay Away Joe (1968). Variety picked up on this and called the film “little more than the perpetuation of the Elvis Presley format for Glen Campbell, complete with a parade of pretty faces and uninspired countryish rhythm by Presley tunesmith Mac Davis.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwood_(film)

In 1970 Glen’s career was riding high with hit country records, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969-1972) on TV and a co-starring role in a hit John Wayne film. The film career would splutter but the hit songs kept rolling. As if Glen was not going to sing. And sing he does, about eight songs as part of the story or as background to montage on transitioning scenes. I have no dramas with that … I love Glen and have the soundtrack. He is quite natural, if occasionally awkward but he looks good next to superstar footballer Joe Namath who was embarking on a movie career (well if Jim Brown could do it, why not Joe?) which was none too distinguished but led to some trash cultish kitsch with biker film C.C. and Company (1970) and western The Last Rebel (1971).

Kim Darby as Rita Lee is to prim and proper. Film pregnancy aside she is riffing on her prudish Mattie Ross role from True Grit. Dom DeLuise as the obnoxious brother-in-law is a hoot. His role is to small, but he is certainly more endearing than the book chaacter. Leigh French (a regular on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour) as Norwood’s sister, Vernell Bird, likewise is more likeable than the book version. Singers Sammy Jackson and Jimmy Boyd have small roles, and the female eye candy roles are supplied by Carol Lynley (whose career had stalled), Tisha Sterling, and Meredith MacRae (Petticoat Junction’s Billie Jo Bradley).

Screenwriter Marguerite Roberts had worked a bit for Hal Wallis around this time … Five Card Stud (1968), True Grit (1969), Red Sky at Morning (1971), Shoot Out (1971). (Though not all successful) they are thoughtful entertainments which don’t indicate her background. After she and her husband John Sanford refused to testify in 1951 before the House Un-American Activities Committee, she was blacklisted for nine years and unable to get work in Hollywood. She was hired again in 1962 by Columbia Pictures (for Diamond Head).

Director Jack Haley Jr (the son of actor Jack Haley (the tin man from Wizard of Oz (1939) and who has a small role here as Mr. Reese) mainly directed (and wrote) documentaries, and mainly Hollywood ones (like That’s Entertainment! (1974)) as well as producing Academy Awards presentation shows. Norwood and The Love Machine (1971) based on a novel by Jacqueline Susann are his feature films and they are, not surprisingly, quite TV like in look.

The film was not a success.

You have to have your head in the right space (a love of time capsules is needed) and not have any lofty expectations but there is enough here to keep you entertained. Perhaps substitute “me” for “you” in the last line.

LINKS

TRAILER

Glen Campbell singing “Repo Man”

a making of:

Posted in Comedy / Satire, Novel | Tagged 1970 | Leave a comment

THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN (1999)

Posted on February 8, 2026 by velebit2

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Ulu Grosbard

SCREENWRITER: Stephen Schiff

FILM STARS: Michelle Pfeiffer, Treat Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jonathan Jackson, Ryan Merriman, Tony Musante, Rose Gregorio (Ulu Grosbard’s wife), John Kapelos

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Jacquelyn Mitchard

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Flamingo

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1999

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1996

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: I saw this pretty much just after it was released, and haven’t thought of it since.

During her high school reunion Beth Cappadora’s three year old son Ben vanishes whilst being watched by his older brother. Police search but are unsuccessful and Beth experiences a nervous breakdown as her husband and family unravel. Nine years later a boy that looks like their son turns up on their doorstep.

It’s not an is he is he not our son story. It is revealed that one of the alumni at the reunion took her son, renamed him, and raised him before getting sick and leaving him with his adoptive father who doesn’t know about the kidnapped. The film (and the book) are about reintegrating the son into the family at the expense of his adopted family, the only one he has known for nine years. All the usual problems arise, though the book also has a interesting theme on ethnic identity only hinted at in in the film. The son is Italian American, his adoptive family is Greek American. The desires of the parents as they argue over identity vs happiness, causes conflicts amongst the other re-integration conflicts. It’s quite the mess.

I probably watched the film because I quite liked Treat Williams. He was an actor who never made the ultra big time despite having enough stabs at it … Prince of the City (1981), The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (1981), Flashpoint (1984), Deep Rising (1998) are enjoyable. Apparently his career was derailed by substance abuse problems in the 80s … Hollywood will do that to you, especially in the 70s. By 1999 his career had slipped into action leads in B films or supports in A pictures. Here he gets a showy role which shows (sic) off his everyman persona, coming across like a slightly hyper Van Johnson.

Michelle Pfeiffer was the whole show in another of those roles where actresses emote in stories designed for Oscar nominations (which didn’t happen here. Michelle is still waiting for an Oscar. Odd given other actresses have won with far less in much the same types of roles).

Whoopi Goldberg is in a supporting role and is thankfully quiet and John Kapelos as the adoptive father is good. For ethnic actor trainspotters the kinetic Tony Musante has a small role.

Ulu Grosbard, Belgian born but naturalized American after moving there in 1948, worked mainly in theatre and it shows. The movie is full of acting and telegraphed moments which is usually good enough for a Hollywood Oscar as long as you don’t look like a Made for TV film, which is the case here. Grosbard also directed The Subject Was Roses (1968), Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971), Falling in Love (1984, Georgia (1995) which are all literate and full of “acting”. They aren’t bad but the dramatics never surprise. Only Straight Time (1978) and maybe True Confessions (1981) are worth revisiting more than once.

Screenwriter Stephen Schiff who had written Lolita (1997) went on to do True Crime (1999) and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) compacts the book and adds a happy ending as opposed to an ambiguous one in the book (apparently test audiences wanted a happy ending). And I get that, anyone who is a parent wants this to end happily and wants all ambiguities pushed into a corner.

The film plays on a parents fears but the characters seem real in fits and starts.

Optimistic ending or not the film flopped ($38M budget, $28m return)

The Deep End of the Ocean was journalist Jacquelyn Mitchard’s first novel, and it became a best seller after it was the first selection for Oprah’s Book Club, on September 17, 1996 (which probably indicates at what intellectual level it sits on). Bolstered by being featured by Oprah Winfrey, the novel sold close to 3 million copies by May 1998 and went to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list where it sat for 29 weeks, including 13 weeks at #1. The paperback would spend a further 16 weeks on the list.

Mitchard wrote other novels, mainly domestic dramas (where the dramas are a result of exceptional circumstances) with strong empowered women, had some other bestsellers but like Jodi Picoult, Diane Chamberlain, Kate Morton and many others these are read when they come out books … or, in my case, don’t read at all.

Hey, I have enough to read already.

LINKS

TRAILER

Posted in Drama, Novel | Tagged 1999 | Leave a comment

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THE GREAT GATSBY (1974)

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THE TERMINATOR ( 1984 )

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THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN (1999)

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