Evans Evans, Constance Ford, Barbara Baxley AND Madame Spivy! All in one movie. Wow! Okay, I know, they're not the stars. It's a Warren Beatty movie, and he's okay, in a sort of sub-James Dean way, and he's easy on the eyes. But the movie belongs to Brandon DeWilde who is an excellent actor and also adorable.
The script is not up to the level of another of William Inge's films starring Beatty: "Splendor in the Grass," in which Beatty is much better. But it's interesting, as Inge always is. Perhaps nobody does tormented, despairing MidWesterners better than Inge.
The movie also stars Angela Lansbury and Karl Malden as Beatty's parents, if you can believe that. Lansbury also worked with director Frankenheimer about the same time in "The Manchurian Candidate." Her relationship with her son in that film is not dissimilar to her relationship with Beatty here.
We're not really shown Beatty and Eva Marie Saint falling in love, which is the crux of the film. It's as if something's missing. There's also an awkward cut to Beatty waking DeWilde up from a bad dream, as if the dream were filmed, but cut from the release print.
The street that Lansbury and Malden live on seems to be the "Meet Me In St. Louis" street, which would have still been standing on the MGM backlot in 1962.
There's not nearly enough of Baxley, Evans, Constance Ford or Spivy (who was a tough cabaret owner in NYC and also appears in "Manchurian Candidate"), but they make the most of their moments. Baxley has a little more to do than the others. I don't think she appeared in a lot of films. She shines in "Nashville," of course as the Kennedy lover. And I think she's Sally Field's mother in "Norma Rae." What became of Brandon DeWilde? He's one of those child actors that could really act and seemed to be making the transition from child to adult actor beautifully.
The script is not up to the level of another of William Inge's films starring Beatty: "Splendor in the Grass," in which Beatty is much better. But it's interesting, as Inge always is. Perhaps nobody does tormented, despairing MidWesterners better than Inge.
The movie also stars Angela Lansbury and Karl Malden as Beatty's parents, if you can believe that. Lansbury also worked with director Frankenheimer about the same time in "The Manchurian Candidate." Her relationship with her son in that film is not dissimilar to her relationship with Beatty here.
We're not really shown Beatty and Eva Marie Saint falling in love, which is the crux of the film. It's as if something's missing. There's also an awkward cut to Beatty waking DeWilde up from a bad dream, as if the dream were filmed, but cut from the release print.
The street that Lansbury and Malden live on seems to be the "Meet Me In St. Louis" street, which would have still been standing on the MGM backlot in 1962.
There's not nearly enough of Baxley, Evans, Constance Ford or Spivy (who was a tough cabaret owner in NYC and also appears in "Manchurian Candidate"), but they make the most of their moments. Baxley has a little more to do than the others. I don't think she appeared in a lot of films. She shines in "Nashville," of course as the Kennedy lover. And I think she's Sally Field's mother in "Norma Rae." What became of Brandon DeWilde? He's one of those child actors that could really act and seemed to be making the transition from child to adult actor beautifully.