TWO FOR THE SEESAW (1962)

Best remembered for his next play, THE MIRACLE WORKER, William Gibson actually had a longer B’way run with this intimate two-hander on an unlikely NYC affair between a MidWest lawyer headed for divorce and a much younger downtown artsy type, yin/yang lovers having mutual mid-life crises: his coming right on time/hers earlier than expected.  Henry Fonda & Anne Bancroft starred (later Dana Andrews & Lee Grant) before director Robert Wise, just off WEST SIDE STORY, got Isobel Lennart to ‘open up’ the play ever so slightly for Robert Mitchum & Shirley MacLaine.  Not particularly well received at the time, it now looks considerably better.  Mitchum something of a revelation playing a man-in-the-grey-flannel-suit type with unexpected tenderness.  Leaner than you recall, even his hair looks leaner, he’s a confused  stranger in a strange town hoping to restart his life & career.  MacLaine, on the other hand, has worn this characterization thrice too often.  After THE APARTMENT/’60, her spritely kook act always looked studied.  But she largely gets away with it here since faults and motivation merge when she’s looking over her shoulder at 30.  Cinematographer Ted McCord (in what he thought would be his last pic*) gets the sort of detailed b&w look then going out of style in Hollywood.  Presumably Wise had to fight the studio for every layer of chiaroscuro.  With all sorts of grownup touches in sleep-overs, sex and affairs signaling the fast decline of the Production Code.*  Unpushy and not too sentimental, it’s a modest thing, but neatly served.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Was this the first mainstream Hollywood film to use ‘queer’ for homosexual?  And in a surprisingly non-judgmental way for 1962.  (MacLaine briefly thinks Mitchum might not be interested in staying over and asks if he’s ‘queer.’  ALSO: Note that instead of using split screen to place Mitchum & MacLaine in a shared shot as they talk on the phone in separate apartments, Wise uses simple stage craft, ‘building’ the composition into the set.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  More grownup, ‘daring’ treatment of Manhattan-set sex next year in LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER/’63.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/04/love-with-proper-stranger-1963.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: *Showing quite the range, the next collaboration between Wise & McCord was THE SOUND OF MUSIC/’65.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-sound-of-music-1965.html