GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

joe-pearce-1 There are over 200 reviews here, almost every one of them disagreeing in one way or another with the other 200 or so. This is that kind of film! Cooper is brilliant, Cooper is awful; Neal is ridiculous, Neal is too sexy or intelligent to live; it is Massey's best role, how could Massey have been induced to take it?; the screenplay is over the top, doesn't make any sense, makes sense only to people with high IQs, couldn't possibly appeal to an unreconstructed idiot; the music is overwhelming, the music is bottom-drawer Steiner; it is a director's film, the film resists any attempt at direction; the photography is fantastic, it is fantastic that anyone can consider this photography. And on and on it goes. Much to my chagrin, I agree with everybody's opinion. As I said, It is just that kind of film! Which is what makes it one of my favorites, and one I return to every few years. I have done so again.So, this is my take on it. This is one of the most wonderfully overblown films based on a famous novel that I have ever seen. The four leading characters - played by Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey and Robert Douglas - are so far beyond the pale that they seem like visitors to Earth from another planet, and not necessarily one you would want to visit in return. In reality, Cooper plays the most gigantically-imagined role of his career, and although there is no real change in his laid back acting style from 40 or 50 other films (it was said that he once played a scene next to a Cigar-store Wooden Indian, and that the critics accused the Indian of overacting!), somehow the greatness of the character seeps through and you really believe him. (Supposedly, Cooper was late-in-life John Barrymore's favorite screen actor.) Patricia Neal, unbelievably only 22 when this was filmed, plays a woman who appears to have an IQ of about 180 and an emotional desperation almost as great, one who seems to have lived a huge life before every laying eyes on Cooper; it is not a well-written role, but she plays it like Goneril passing through Lady Macbeth on the way to becoming Joan of Arc. Wonderful. How can you be that good at 22? Messy writing or not, this is probably Massey's best two hours on screen, because, at least for me, you can't take your eyes off him when he's there. And Robert Douglas, the late 1940's/early 1950's epitome of swashbuckling villainy (did he ever meet a sword he didn't like, a dagger he could not embrace?) is here once again the true villain of the piece, but one of an essentially non-physical and effete presence and delivery. All the other actors are as good, just not as noticeable. The photography and direction are the initial calling cards here. We do not ever get to see most of the architecturally grand buildings Cooper wants to build, or does start to build in time, but the views we do get of them on paper, in cardboard construct, in planning stages, or in distance shots, are so well lighted, photographed, angled, etc. that we can have no doubt that Cooper's character is just as great as he thinks he is. And make no mistake about it: Howard Roark is as certain of his purpose and as intent upon achieving it as anybody we have come across since Captain Ahab, and he's even tougher when confronted by opposition than is Ahab. Ahab at least believes in God, even if only as his non-swimming nemesis; I would posit that Roark believes in nothing in this world except Howard Roark. (Funnily enough, I would never have thought of Cooper for this role any more than I would have thought of Gregory Peck for Ahab. So why are you reading this, since I obviously don't know what I'm writing about?) As for the direction, I get the feeling that Vidor was probably overwhelmed by what he saw on the written page and just went with the flow, figuring that if the writer is delivering cosmic situations and dialogue and the actors are intent on playing them to the hilt, who is he to get in the way and prove himself cosmically challenged? So, there it is. I simply cannot explain my love for this film beyond a love for its total excesses in every category that means anything to me. The last film I saw that had this effect on me (granted, with cosmic dialogue in very short supply) was BURN AFTER READING. I had never seen so many 1s and 10s for the same film from IMDB reviewers, so it must have had either something to say to no one, or nothing to say to everyone. And that's pretty much what THE FOUNTAINHEAD says to me, but 60 years earlier. I will happily watch both films every couple of years until the trumpet sounds (maybe it did sound already, in both films, and I just missed it because all the kitchen sinks kept getting in the way!).

zetes What the Hell? Oh my God, what a God damned piece of crap this was. I mostly know Ayn Rand in a secondhand manner (I read Anthem in 8th grade but don't remember it being anything more than a 1984 retread), so I guess I'm kind of glad I finally got to experience her peculiar sense of morality (which should be easily identifiable to anyone with a shred of intelligence as evil). What particularly strikes me about this film (whose screenplay she did write, for the record) is not just that her morality is repugnant, but that she's an unbearably awful writer. First off, the dialogue that's spouted off doesn't sound like anything that could ever possibly come out of a human being's mouth. It's three steps beyond clunky and overly expository. Screw subtext, right? We're just gonna say everything on our minds, thank you very much. Second, I mean, how egotistical is Rand here? Clearly, at least part of the protagonist (Howard Roark, played by Gary Cooper) is autobiographical, you have to imagine, and we just think we're the hottest thing ever, don't we Ms. Rand? Oh, you're an individual and such a genius that the only reason anyone can ever disagree with you is because they think mediocrity is the way to go. And, finally, you all saw that he did it, right? He blew the Hell out of that building and surrendered right next to a plunger. It's a pretty open and shut case. I don't care how awesome your courtroom speech is - it's not, by the way - it has nothing to do with the case at hand and I'm surprised there wasn't one objection raised, especially given how much movie lawyers love to do so. And then there's some really dumb stuff with the Raymond Massey character too, but I was too flabbergasted by what had just happened in court to care about that. King Vidor, who was personally chosen by Rand, does what he can with the material, but it's utterably unsalvageable. Patricia Neal is quite attractive and it was nice seeing Cat People's Kent Smith in the film, but it's objectively garbage.

eichler2 I just caught this movie on one of the free cable movie channels. Other reviews have already picked it apart and listed all the reasons why the film is a stilted, sophomoric, pretentious, preachy, melodramatic mess. All I can add is that, if you've never read any Ayn Rand, you should see this movie. Not because it's good (it's definitely not), but at least you'll only waste two hours of your life having Rand's silly "every man for himself" philosophy and "every woman needs a strong man to dominate her" sexual agenda bashed into your head over and over and over. As someone who had the misfortune of spending way too many hours slogging through Atlas Shrugged on the recommendation of a friend, I wish I had just watched this movie instead. It would have warned me off anything with Ayn Rand's name attached to it.On the other hand, if you watch this and think it's brilliant (and the current 7.1 rating it enjoys on IMDb indicates that there must be a lot of people who think so, considering all the 1 and 2 star reviews it's gotten), then by all means run out and buy Rand's collected works. You'll love them.

tles7-676-109633 This movie should have been made 10 years later without Rand writing the screenplay and starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodword. Neale and Cooper had an affair in real life...I hope it was more steamy and natural than this stiffly-acted, miscast mess. Massey is the only performance worth writing home about. The dialog is putrid and preachy. Supposedly the audience at the premiere couldn't look Neale in the eye while exiting the theater. The critics unanimously panned it. The "hero" is selfish and most of all obnoxious and boring. Unfortunately, Cooper looked the part more than he could successfully deliver the lines. The courtroom scene was ridiculous.