I watched this 1957 television version of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's unfinished novel after seeing the 1976 film version starring Robert DeNiro, directed by Elia Kazan, and written by Harold Pinter. The Kazan version is more polished and begins well. But it hasn't dealt well with the ending, which, obviously, needs to be supplied since Fitzgerald's novel has no ending.
The kinescope quality of the 1957 version is a drawback. But it is amazing work for a live television show. It has amazingly inventive direction by John Frankenheimer before his films The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The Train, and Ronin. Jack Palance may seem an odd choice to play Monroe Stahr, but he was also an odd choice to play the lead in the 1955 film version of Clifford Odets' The Big Knife. John Garfield had originated the part on Broadway, and I think Palance, who had a lot of Garfield's touch guy, boxer style of acting, was fine in the film. As Stahr, Palance's saturnine appearance lends authority and a bit of menace. Peter Lorre is effective as a washed up director that Stahr saves. The bid difference between the 1957 and 1976 versions is that the latter just has Starh battling the New York office while the former has him pitted against the New York office and his own mortality. The 1957 version was written by Don Mankiewicz, whose father was Herman Mankiewicz, the co-writer of Citizen Kane. Mankiewicz appears to have taken the Hollywood lore he picked up from his father and used it to fill in the gaps Fitzgerald left. I recognized Stahr's assertion that he knew the film was too long because his butt started hurting as something Fritz Land reported hearing Darryl Zanuck say after a screening.
The 1957 version is well worth seeing.
The kinescope quality of the 1957 version is a drawback. But it is amazing work for a live television show. It has amazingly inventive direction by John Frankenheimer before his films The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The Train, and Ronin. Jack Palance may seem an odd choice to play Monroe Stahr, but he was also an odd choice to play the lead in the 1955 film version of Clifford Odets' The Big Knife. John Garfield had originated the part on Broadway, and I think Palance, who had a lot of Garfield's touch guy, boxer style of acting, was fine in the film. As Stahr, Palance's saturnine appearance lends authority and a bit of menace. Peter Lorre is effective as a washed up director that Stahr saves. The bid difference between the 1957 and 1976 versions is that the latter just has Starh battling the New York office while the former has him pitted against the New York office and his own mortality. The 1957 version was written by Don Mankiewicz, whose father was Herman Mankiewicz, the co-writer of Citizen Kane. Mankiewicz appears to have taken the Hollywood lore he picked up from his father and used it to fill in the gaps Fitzgerald left. I recognized Stahr's assertion that he knew the film was too long because his butt started hurting as something Fritz Land reported hearing Darryl Zanuck say after a screening.
The 1957 version is well worth seeing.