Herman Wouk’s classic novel on the aspirational evolution of upper-middle-class Jews on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, with its drama balanced on the theatrical divide separating Upstate Catskill Summer Resorts and Broadway, is near perfect film material. The movie? Merely a place holder. Natalie Wood makes a lovely (and nice) Jewish American Princess, coming-of-age in the arms of Gene Kelly, a big fish in a little Catskill pond as entertainment director*, betrayed by the limits of his talent in the big city. (Brave, raw work from Kelly; Wood somewhat betrayed by the limits of her talent.) It’s one of those frustrating films where everything seems to be in place, but nothing quite clicks. Director Irving Rapper hasn’t a memorable shot in him. (Well one, right at the beginning, a very odd camera set up in an elevator with the BACK wall removed for the shot.) Plus unsolved structural problems in a script that needs to keep adding on new, unwieldy storylines. It’s certainly well cast up and down the line: camp pal Carolyn Jones; hopelessly-smitten bland doctor Martin Balsam; hopelessly-smitten nerdy playwright Martin Milner, looking like a young Mike Nichols in his black-framed glasses, each particularly fine. There’s even a perfectly swoony theme song in ‘A Very Precious Love.’ Somebody really ought to try this one again.
DOUBLE-BILL: Perhaps they have tried again in Amazon Prime’s THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL (not seen here) which mines similar territory.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Look sharp for a little scene played under a marquee for TUNNEL OF LOVE. A big hit on stage for writer Joseph Fields in ‘57, Kelly directed a flop film version in ‘58. Then had better luck on a second project later this year directing the original B’way production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s FLOWER DRUM SONG with a book by the same Joseph Fields.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Entertainment director at one of those big Catskill resorts was nothing to sneeze at. M-G-M boss Dore Schary & Broadway’s master-of-all-trades Moss Hart (between directing gigs on MY FAIR LADY and CAMELOT at the time) each held the position in the '30s.
No comments:
Post a Comment