Welcome to the fourth edition of the Paul Newman Retrospective and the second part of the first Joanne Woodward back-to-back. This is as promised the crappy one. From The Terrace is just plain inexplicable. Paul plays Alfred who returns to his prominent parents from World War II to find that his mother is an alcoholic wreck and his father is still a jerk. Instead of taking on the family business, he and a pal are going to start an aircraft company. Alfred marries a rich girl Mary St. John (Joanne) who was going to marry a doctor and then things start going south. The aircraft company goes bust and Alfred gets a job working at some firm that's just like Mad Men, except no advertising and no Joan. Basically, I've noticed that I've said "It's like Mad Men" to come to terms with any workplace in New York in the 1950s or 1960s lately. Oh, and Mary starts sleeping with that doctor guy which is inexplicable. Just why? Alfred starts falling for this other girl he met on a business trip but won't act on it. At this point, I start losing interest because the movie broke with reality and there's a lot of crap about social standing and mores, business versus personal life, stuff they would never bother with on Mad Men. And this goes on for like two and a half hours.
So, this movie is awful. Paul Newman can't even save it. I can't think of anything that I really like about this movie and I can't even figure out how it got made. Or how Ernest Lehman wrote this crap. Yes, the guy who brought you The Sweet Smell of Success and Sabrina wrote this crap. Apparently, this is based on a novel and the film just has about half of the novel. I can only assume the entertaining stuff was in the other half. This movie is so bad, I can't even find a real trailer on YouTube. I know, fail, but no more than this film. I've got nothing to say. If you do, or you know why this movie doesn't suck, please share in the comments section. No, seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment