2h 8min | Drama, Music, Romance | 22 December 1965 | Color, ws
Director: Robert Mulligan
Stars: Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Ruth Gordon, Roddy McDowall.
Herbert Ross ... musical numbers staging
Howard Jeffrey ... assistant to choreographer
7 songs in the Soundtracks, only 2 performed (by NW).
Doesn't really qualify as a musical, but it is about a musical star.
I don't understand why H'wood makes these self-loathing studies. To be clear: it is H'wood that hates itself, not a particular person. They've made countless films about how horrid a showbiz career is, and this one targets the movie industry itself. Maybe with full disclosure about how badly you'll be treated if you join the H'wood industry, they can continue the abuse?
NW comes from a dysfunctional home. Mother RG is not quite sane, her husband left 7 years earlier, and NW (b. '38) is 15 when we meet her. She makes a record, sends it to a movie studio, and they send for her (she lives in a run-down Santa Monica-like pier district). The year is '36.
I won't recount all that happens to her, and it's not as abusive as it could be, but it's still pretty bad.
The ending is sort of hopeful, but in a very dark way.
Warner, dir. Mulligan; 7
