THE LAST TYCOON (1976, Elia Kazan)

 

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The day-to-day challenges faced by a movie producer. Not as interesting as that sounds.

Starring  Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Donald Pleasence

Written by  Harold Pinter   

Produced by  Sam Spiegel

Duration  123 minutes   

 

 

Are older movies slower? Are they, dare I say it ... more boring?

So, recently I was watching HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH with an audio commentary by writer/director Tommy Lee Wallace. At one point Wallace reflects on what he would change about the movie. "I'd make it faster," he says. "By today's standards, it just feels so slow."

Now, HALLOWEEN III came out in 1982. That commentary was recorded for the 2022 special edition Blu-ray. That's a 40-year gap in expectations of film pacing. So what does that mean for ones made even further back? Fifty, 60, even 70 years?

I don't personally mind the pace of HALLOWEEN III. My 10-year-old son might struggle; we'll see, when he's old enough for his proper cinema education to begin. And I'm certainly not saying that the kind of hyperactive 'content' (shudder) his generation enjoys is an improvement.

But yes, I do often struggle with old films, anything earlier than about 1960.

Look, you've got your CITIZEN KANEs and your CASABLANCAs; your 12 ANGRY MENs and ON THE WATERFRONTs. No issues there. But the majority of so-called classics do test the modern viewer's patience.

THE LAST TYCOON is a little more recent than those I just mentioned, coming from 1976. But the movie actually positions itself further into the past. This is a feature in common with many older movies: not only were they made a while ago, they're set in bygone eras.

I'm talking about things like:

– SINGIN' IN THE RAIN: released 1952, set in 1927 (25 years prior). 

– GONE WITH THE WIND: released 1939, set in 1861 (78 years prior).

– THE SEARCHERS: released 1956, set in 1968 (88 years prior). 

– BEN-HUR: released 1959, set in 26AD (1,933 years prior!)

No wonder those movies feel so slow; they're not only old now, they were old back then! Whereas the likes of KANE, CASABLANCA etc all take place in their contemporary period.

LAST TYCOON, meanwhile, is set sometime in the 1930s, the so-called 'Golden Age' of Hollywood. And I'm afraid it does nothing to disprove my old-is-slow theory. One-word review: snoozefest.

The plot, such as it is, follows studio executive Monroe Stahr (Robert De Niro), a much-respected 'production genius'. Stahr has several hassles: demanding writer Donald Pleasance; ambitious starlet Theresa Russell; and many other movie studio problems, none of them very compelling.

At one point, Jack Nicholson turns up and attempts to inject some life into proceedings, but even he can't provide THE LAST TYCOON with a pulse. 

This was the final release from ON THE WATERFRONT director Elia Kazan. You can practically feel the old guy falling asleep behind the camera; it's a wonder the frame never suddenly tilts down as Kazan slumps out cold onto his Panaflex.

Yes, this movie is slow. Slooo-ow. Much of TYCOON follows Stahr romancing a young actress. Their courtship has all the energy of a movie left on pause overnight. She's British, so of course is posh, inert and frigid – right up to the moment she suddenly takes all her clothes off. Stahr responds in kind, somehow removing his shirt, tie and jacket in one motion, a moment that recalls Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebbin.

De Niro, who I usually love, is tragically miscast: his intensity weighs this lead balloon down even more. The movie is crying out for a lighter touch, some easy-going charm. Robert Redford would have been perfect. Or Warren Beatty? Hell, even Burt Reynolds might have pulled it off.

But things do happen in THE LAST TYCOON, surely? Well, of course. De Niro repeatedly walks around his half-built beachside house, a metaphor for ... something. Bob and Jack play an aggressive game of outdoor table tennis. Head exec Robert Mitchum's daughter opens his closet and a naked woman topples out. De Niro gets drunk on scotch and soda then throws up in his own swimming pool (not sure we've ever seen Bobby D hammered before; possibly in MEAN STREETS?)

The whole movie-exec-in-strife thing is handled much more entertainingly in the later HAIL CAESAR (2016). Heck, even 1992's THE PLAYER is more compelling, and that followed TYCOON by less than two decades.

F Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel upon which this movie is based, and I mentioned his amusing short stories about fictional screenwriter Pat Hobby in a previous review. 

Except, old F Scott never actually finished that TYCOON novel, dying of a heart attack first. Quite why uber-producer Sam Spiegel elected to option an only three-quarters-done book is beyond me. 

But let's just say that if the movie had remained unfinished, the world wouldn't have missed out on much.

Two stars out of five.
 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Who is supposed to be the last of what here? Is it Stahr, and is he really a 'tycoon'? Overall, confusing.

What would a movie called THE FIRST TYCOON be like?  There's a biography out there called The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, by TJ Stiles. Maybe someone should film that? Hey, it could be the directorial debut of Zoe Kazan, Elia Kazan's granddaughter. Synergy!

Previously:  THE LAST RIGHT

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST RIGHT (2019, Aoife Crehan)

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A man discovers that the old fellah he just met on a plane has died and named him next of kin. 

Starring  Michiel Huisman, Niamh Algar, Samuel Bottomley, Colm Meaney, Brian Cox

Written by  Aoife Crehan

Produced by  Paul Donovan, Pippa Cross, Casey Herbert

Duration  106 minutes   

 

Here we have a movie with a pun in its title. The story is about death; more accurately, someone dying, which might prompt a priest to read the last rites. But 'rite' has been replaced by 'right'.

Does the pun make sense? Not really. It does communicate the movie's blackly comic tone. But it doesn't have a genuine double meaning or really relate to the story, and so I don't think we can include THE LAST RIGHT within the annals of classic pun-tastic titles. 

Is the film about doing the right thing? Sort of, but aren't they all? Is it about having the right to do something, as in the permission? That's even more tenuous. Is it about taking a right turn instead of a left? Well, there is a lot of driving, but still ... Best thing I can say is I don't think I've ever come across this particular pun before. But maybe there's a good reason for that.

For the record, here are some good examples of punnage in movie titles (without necessarily endorsing the flicks themselves): 

– MAID IN MANHATTAN

– MADE OF HONOR

– INSIDE MAN

– FACE/OFF

– CODA

– RATATOUILLE 

– CHOPPING MALL

– CHICKEN RUN

And for balance, here are some that don't quite work for me: 

– KNIGHT AND DAY

– BEE MOVIE

– RAT RACE

– LEGALLY BLONDE

– GOOD WILL HUNTING

– COP OUT

Fortunately, THE LAST RIGHT manages to transcend dubious wordplay to be a nice little find.

We meet our hero, Daniel, flying from New York (where he relocated many years ago) to County Cork (where he's from) to bury his mother. Worse luck: he's been seated next to a boring old man. 

I wondered at this point whether not wanting to listen to a stranger droning on was going to be a negative characteristic that our protagonist needs to overcome. That never really happens, though he does learn to be less self-centred, more accepting of others, etc. But in this first scene, Daniel's irritated reaction made me sympathetic. Leave the man alone, old timer, he just wants to spend his eight hours flying across the Atlantic in peace!

The old guy – played by Jim Norton, best known as a stern Bishop on Irish sitcom Father Ted – takes a liking to our Daniel. Unbeknownst to Daniel, he names the young fellah as next of kin on his landing card. Then an hour later he's dead, leaving Daniel to deal with his corpse.

It's a bit like when you joke that if you volunteered in an old folk's home, maybe one of them would leave you millions in their will. Hmm, maybe I should look into that, actually ...

Back in his home country, Daniel has to deal with not only transporting the corpse from the bottom of the Republic of Ireland to the top of Northern Ireland, but also reconnecting with his autistic younger brother, Louis.

It becomes a road movie, with our heroes meeting a succession of colourful and eccentric characters along the way. The siblings are joined by Mary, a worker from the funeral home who tags along – I didn't pick up exactly why. She acts as a mediator between Daniel and Louis and potential love interest to the former. Also, actress Niamh Algar really resembles Jenna Fischer, The Office's Pam. Which is a plus.

The trio haven't been travelling long before Mary delivers the line "You know, the two of yous are kind of like RAIN MAN!" Thus lampshading what I myself was thinking. Then, when they find out that Daniel is really Louis' father, Mary exclaims, "This is more Eastenders now than RAIN MAN!" It made me wonder whether these were actual comments made in script meetings that they then added to the dialogue. This kind of meta stuff can be cloying, but I welcomed the self-awareness on this occasion.

I realise now that the scenario of a big city guy returning for a funeral and being re-charmed by his home town's ways was also done in LAST CALL. So, I guess that's a last-movie trend? Probably it needs to happen at least three times to be a trend. Ah, well.

Another thing it shares with another entry on this blog is that it’s a Christmas movie. Or rather a covert Christmas movie – one where the season isn't central to the plot but adds some kind of thematic weight. Randomly, I keep watching movies at the moment that turn out to be set during the Yuletide; in fact, after ROBOCOP 3 (underrated), BABYGIRL (overrated) and now this, that's three in a row! So that's definitely a trend, right?

(Other covert Christmas movies include RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD and BETTER OFF DEAD. You want more? How about ROCKY IV? THE BOURNE IDENTITY? THE APARTMENT? EASTERN PROMISES? TANGERINE? TRANCERS? Are you happy now? Are you? OK, that's enough.)

Overall, THE LAST RIGHT is a sweet picture. It overcomes its RAIN MAN-aping central relationship to be both funny and touching. I really liked how it ends, with Daniel deciding to set up a charity for people who die without a next of kin.

A couple more observations. What with its director and two of the stars, this movie does pretty well for featuring hard-to-pronounce Irish names. So you've got Aoife (ee-fuh) Crehan, Niamh (nee-av) Algar and Colm (col-um) Meaney. Well played; I only wish they could've fitted in Saoirse (seeuh-shuh) Ronan and Siobhán (shih-von) McSweeney, for a full-house.

A word on one of your actors there. It's not a real Irish movie unless Colm Meaney turns up. Here he plays a senior police officer, like he did in INTERMISSION. The erstwhile Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien is always a welcome addition, whether over in Hollywood (UNDER SIEGE, CON AIR), back in his homeland (THE COMMITMENTS, THE VAN) or in the UK (LAYER CAKE, THE DAMNED UNITED). Not to mention featuring in long-running science-fiction franchises (as O'Brien on both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine).

Maybe old Colm should have played the protagonist here, and then they could have called the movie STOP BEING SUCH A MEANEY. Hey, just a thought!

Three stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  It’s a pun title that doesn’t make sense, so search me. 

What would a movie called THE FIRST RIGHT be like?  If it was an American movie about their First Amendment, it would revolve around “Protection of the freedom of speech, religion, the press, and making complaints and requests to the government”. So I guess ... a screwball comedy?

 

Previously:  LAST SEEN ALIVE

Next time:  THE LAST TYCOON 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com