GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

jacobs-greenwood It's ironic that Kirk Douglas's frequent co-star Burt Lancaster starred in a similar drama about a corporate executive's mid-life crisis (the origins of this term now used frequently for such men?) one year earlier titled The Swimmer (1968). Both films are unusual, introspective and lack wide appeal, the latter being superior to this overlong melodrama that was based on the popular novel by Elia Kazan, who also produced and directed it; still, it contains a certain truth if one is patient enough to wait almost two hours for it.The movie is rated R for several snippets of nudity, mostly at a distance and/or through sheer curtains except for a beach scene featuring Douglas with his character's mistress, second-billed Faye Dunaway, who each cover up the other's most private parts with their hands. It's interesting to note that frequent on screen "bad girl" Dunaway would earn her only Best Actress Oscar seven years later playing a similar role as network executive William Holden's muse- mistress in Network (1976).Eddie Anderson (Douglas) is a rainmaker advertising executive that appears to have everything going for him including a beautiful loyal wife Florence (Deborah Kerr) who tolerates his extramarital indiscretions, though she realizes that her husband's relationship with Gwen (Dunaway) was something more than just a physical one. Gwen had helped Eddie realize that he'd sold his soul to the devil for his multimillion dollar client, a tobacco company whose cigarette advertisements play constantly on every radio and television station. So, not liking who'd he'd become, Eddie attempts suicide. He survives and then refuses to go back to work; his wife thinks it's all about Gwen, but at that point Eddie hadn't seen her for more than a year. His mistress had become too demanding, so Eddie had discarded her when she'd refused to be controlled by him.The plot develops slowly and the story is told out of sequence at times, featuring odd and intentionally comical edits, but we eventually learn about Eddie's other demons. For instance, his immigrant father Sam (Richard Boone) had been a successful merchant that fought with Eddie's mother over her son's education. Sam had always wanted Eddie to assume the family business but his protective mother had sent him to become college educated instead.But as Sam is dying, Eddie is the one that his father wants by his side. He's reunited with Gwen, who's living with a dependable man that protects her (though she gets her sex elsewhere) and her newborn child, which looks a little like Eddie. Additionally, the Anderson's lawyer Arthur (Hume Cronyn) manipulates Eddie during his vulnerable time to gain financial advantage for Florence, for whom the lawyer carries a secret torch. There are other characters, but most will recognize Harold Gould plays Florence's therapist Dr. Leibman and Michael Murphy as the "last rites" Father Draddy.

MartinHafer Eddie Anderson (Kirk Douglas) is rich, successful and losing his mind. You can tell this because as he's driving to work in his fancy convertible, he deliberately smashes his car--nearly killing him. Following this, he's distant and uncommunicative--slipping deeper and deeper into a fantasy world. He's dreaming of his lover (Faye Dunaway)--a woman who left him a year and a half ago. In the meantime, his wife (Deborah Kerr) is beside herself--she has no idea what to do. Through the course of the film, you see a man on the edge of sanity--a man having perhaps the world's world mid-life crisis. Because he's reached this age and hates who he is and what he's become--that's why this crisis is so intense.While I felt this was a painful and unpleasant film (much of it because you don't like ANYONE in the film--especially the leading man), this is not to say the picture is without merit or style. Director Elia Kazan (from his novel) creates a bizarre portrait of a man in crisis--and does it in very, very strange and creative ways. Very often through the course of the film, it becomes more and more difficult to determine what is real and what is not--and Douglas' character has conversations with himself (using a split screen), walking back in time to his childhood and examining his relationship with his parents and even runs around in the buff! It's all very artsy, surreal and strange--though not exactly something I enjoyed. It's also very adult and a film that most folks would find challenging at best, though the film would probably speak best to someone in mid-life--someone who is questioning who they are and what they are. Strange to say the least--and more like an Ingmar Bergman film than one you'd expect from Kazan. In fact, I liked the film's style much more than I liked the actual story. Worth seeing as a failed but intriguing experiment.By the way, the clip of the father on the boat coming to America is from another Kazan film, "Amerika, Amerika" (1963).

JasparLamarCrabb Two hours-plus of Kirk Douglas having a nervous breakdown. If that appeals to you then you're likely to enjoy Elia Kazan's idiotic adaption of his own novel. Presumably the book had some sort of deep meaning (at least to Kazan), but this film is a mess. Douglas is a highly regarded advertising exec will all the trappings of success: money; a beautiful home; 3 cars; Deborah Kerr as a wife. Playing 44(!) but actually closer to 54, Douglas is woefully miscast. His angst is never anything but comical and it manifests itself in the form of sexy Faye Dunaway (a free spirited girl who awakens in Douglas the need to find himself). Douglas grits his teeth a lot, Kerr is very under-utilized as his wife, Dunaway is never anything but angry and, as Douglas's father, Richard Boone comes across as if he were auditioning for the title role in a community theater production of "Zorba the Greek." Boone's casting is particularly baffling considering the fact that he's actually a year younger than Douglas! Despite offering up a lot of cinematic pyrotechnics like flashbacks, flash forwards, freeze frames and more, Kazan's film is silly rather than compelling. Hume Cronyn, Barry Sullivan and Michael Higgins are among the supporting cast. The high gloss cinematography is by Robert Surtees.

moonspinner55 Old-fashioned melodrama longing to be flashy and modern. Director Elia Kazan, adapting his own bestseller, has assembled a terrific cast in story of a 44-year-old married advertising executive with a mistress who attempts suicide. Cold and detached, the film wants us to sympathize with a lot of people we might normally recoil from: the rich and privileged who live in a well-heeled vacuum. As Kirk Douglas' other woman, Faye Dunaway, who was featured in a slew of pictures from 1967-1969, was perilously at risk of being overexposed. She's gorgeously coiffed and manicured here, but her impassive face and personality don't involve the audience--and all of Douglas' striding up and down over her seems like a wasting disease. Kazan wants us to see the unsavory nature of these people, the office sharks and their suffering wives at the mercy of their whims, but the bitter 'truth' behind his portrait is heightened--just as it was in pictures like "Peyton Place"--and after a while it all begins to seem like a rancid put-on. ** from ****