The Cobweb

The Cobweb

Like a roadside accident, it's difficult to turn away from this bizarre melodrama. Seriously, what were they smoking? The whole movie is like a Saturday Night Live skit that never ends. How was it possible for these actors and actresses to go onto the set each day without cracking up about the absurdity of this story? I suppose it was a different culture back then, but how did they not break down in laughter acting these parts? Or maybe they did. Everything is so completely over the top, the high pitched emotional performances, the strange sets and paintings on the walls, the saturated color and dramatic lighting. It's almost like this movie is taking place in a weird little world far away from the edge of the universe. My greatest disappointment is that the issue of the drapes was never resolved. Really a huge bummer, and it's probably what kept this movie from becoming an enormous hit.

With this rather cobwebby drama director Vincente Minnelli and producer John Houseman proceeded with their partnership, which has already resulted in a birth of a remarkable film The Bad and the Beautiful prior to the regrettable `miscarriage' which The Cobweb unfortunately is. Luckily enough, the authors carried on unshaken by total failure of the film at the Box Office as well as among the critics and delivered quite a pleasant Lust for Life biographical film on the life of Vincent Van Gogh a few years later. The Cobweb is based on a novel by William Gibson who also wrote some additional dialogs to the film. The story follows the troubled life of two groups of people one of them being the patients of a mental hospital and the other - doctors who try to run the hospital along with their rather disturbed families. Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) has introduced a new method of curing the mentally ill on the grounds of a Hospital whose medical director is Dr. Douglas Devanal (Charles Boyer) who isn't quite supportive of the project. The curing method consists in giving the patients maximum freedom (`I'm a doctor, not a jailer' says Dr. Stewart in the film) and engaging them in healthy activities they have inclination for. What the majority of them productively do by making drapes for the Hospital's library. The story of one of the patients not involved in this healthy enterprise and who also happens to be the most troubled of them - Steven (John Kerr) we follow throughout the film. He is a talented want-to-be painter with suicidal tendencies who is given a freedom to paint and exhibit his works on the Hospital's grounds, what he successfully does meanwhile entering a romantic relationship with another patient, a shy girl Sue (Susan Strasberg) who had never ever left the premises of the mental institution and is quite fearful of the outside world. The relationship between the two of them is probably the most touching element of the film that could actually save it from being a complete bore in the relationships field which happens to be the very thing film is about, but unfortunately it never gets to be developed enough while other characters we are left with are utterly helpless to make the viewer care about them in a long and tedious journey through their miserable lives inside the `human cobweb' in search of the solution for `the drapes for the library' problem. A rather disappointing drama from Vincente Minnelli that stands poorly compared to his other works. 5/10

"The Cobweb" is an example of many examples of movies that feature strong, sometimes noteworthy performances and high points, but unfortunately are shattered and slowed down drastically by a murky plot and very little to interest the audience. It stars Richard Widmark as a doctor working at a mental institution whose life becomes in turmoil due to family problems and a rather ludicrous and overworked conflict that really seems like no big deal at all. The plot is preposterous. Its time for the institution to get new drapes for the library windows. One old woman wants to have her drapes put over them, but a lot of the patients want to make their own. And somehow, this ridiculous and unintentionally loony conflict breaks out into the point where lives are in danger and families start to fall apart. It sounds more like a conflict that would occur between very young children. The questioning of the logic of the plot and whether it could really happen is so massive that one wonders if only a real-like lunatic could buy it. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the acting. The cast following Widmark is composed of other great actors, many of them Academy Award-nominees and winners. And there is occasionally a moment in the film that works out brilliantly, but it always excludes the stupid plot about window drapes. Unfortunately, there is too much about the doggone drapes and thus, the movie slows down. A lot of the takes are long and done from one camera viewpoint, adhering to the slow pacing and lack of viewing interest. In a short analysis, "The Cobweb" is an unrecognized film and it becomes obvious why to the viewers basically as soon as the plot comes into focus, which it does pretty quickly. It just really doesn't sound like much fun to watch and I tell you that it is not much fun to watch.

Just wanted to clear up a rather glaring error put forth by Mr. Michael E. Barrett, in the second review posted on here (of 6 November 2001), who claimed that Ken Kesey's landmark novel and similarly-themed "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" predated "The Cobwebs" by five years. Not quite, "Cuckoo's Nest" was published in 1962, seven years AFTER "The Cobweb". I was surprised at the low rating of this film and overall lukewarm-to-bad reviews. It is indeed one of those "50's melodramas" -- but, does that automatically make it BAD? I suspect a lot of reviewers on here simply don't like 50's melodramas. I liked the movie. It certainly wasn't a masterpiece, but it reminded me in editing and mood, of other films of the era such as "Some Came Running", "Picnic", "Rebel without a Cause", "Peyton Place". People who like this genre will probably like the movie; those who obviously do not (like the majority of the reviewers who have thus far bothered to review this!) will not.

Well what was that?! Cockamamie confection isn't even psychiatry lite just some nonsense that's all about the DRAPES!!!! Truly odd film is loaded with great actors and a ludicrous story. How it ever got the green light from the studio is mystery number one, that Vincente Minnelli said okay to directing it is the second although that would explain why so many great actors allowed themselves to be involved. Everybody gives overheated performances except Lauren Bacall who keeps a low-key dignity amongst the melodrama and Susan Strasberg offers a restrained quiet portrait of a shut-in who is making her first tentative steps towards reemerging into the world. The rest of the players aim for the rafters to varying degrees from Richard Widmark's impassioned but distracted doctor who is merely agitated then there is Lillian Gish who chews a bit of scenery as a bitter spinster as well as many other respected actors who show little restraint. The real standout though is Gloria Grahame as Richard's hot mess of a wife, she seems to realize how silly the whole thing is and pitches her performance to that tempo, she's jittery, flouncy and fun plus she looks great. Laughable take on mental health but good for one fun viewing as a camp catastrophe.

This film just goes to prove that not every film made during the glory days of Hollywood is worth seeing. Just because you've got an excellent ensemble cast doesn't mean that this can overcome a script that was probably written by a chimp! Think about it--the film featured Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, Charles Boyer, Gloria Graham, Lillian Gish and Paul Stewart and yet it still was a bad film! The basic premise of the film isn't bad--a private psychiatric hospital where the staff are more screwed up than the patients! Also, the subplot involving the overworked husband and wife (Widmark and Graham) had a lot of promise. However, the script was handled with all the finesse and deftness of a drunk buffalo--with bellicose and way over the top scenes again and again in the film. In fact, it was less like a drama and more like a very bad episode of "General Hospital". Subtle, this film ain't!! Realistic, this film ain't!! While most of the reason this film reeked was the awful script, but I also blame the producers as well for miscasting and misusing come veteran actors. For example, Paul Stewart may not be a household name but this character actor had exceptional talent--especially when playing gangsters in Film Noir movies. Yet here, Stewart is cast as a very nondescript psychiatrist with some bizarre European accent--it just didn't work since this was well outside his acting range and his character was totally undeveloped and one-dimensional. Also, Charles Boyer just seemed hopelessly miscast and totally out of place. Seeing this fine romantic actor as a psychiatrist in the heartland of America just seemed bizarre. Overall, this is a rather awful film. It is very watchable in a train wreck sort of way but it certainly isn't very pretty. My wife and I disliked much of the movie but also felt it could have been very good had the writing been competent. PS--In a case of art imitating life, Oscar Levant played one of the patients. In real life, the brilliant Levant spent much of his life in and out of mental institutions.

This movie, based on a novel, was made when expensive private mental hospitals provided months or years of psychoanalytically-oriented treatment for small numbers of affluent patients. None of today's antipsychotic or mood-stabilizing pharmaceuticals was yet in use. (One scene shows a patient in a hydrotherapy tub - used for sedation.) Dr Devenal, when things are falling apart, ruefully looks at the book he has written – "The Theory and Practice of Milieu Therapy." This was an important movement in the 1950's, proposing that the patient community was a significant element of the treatment. Patient governments voted on many aspects of institutional life and even, at times, on treatment decisions that properly were the responsibility of professional staff. Conflict over new drapes seems today to be a foolish plot element, but, although exaggerated, it fit the context of the time.

Richard Widmark is a psychiatrist in "The Cobweb," also starring Lauren Bacall, Lillian Gish, Charles Boyer, John Kerr, Susan Strasberg and Gloria Grahame. It's quite a cast, especially when you realize that they were directed by Vincent Minnelli. It's an absorbing story of the patients and the doctors at a mental institution. Widmark has basically taken over from the troubled Boyer - though Boyer retains his title, Widmark's contract gives him more power. Bacall, a recent widow, is a doctor on staff, and Lillian Gish is an administrator. The patient most focused on is Stevie, played by John Kerr. He is making good progress with his recovery, and in fact, some of the better patients are given control over designing their lounge. The sticking point becomes the draperies which become a political football. Widmark's wife, Gloria Grahame, wants to impose herself onto the institution that is taking her husband away from her by working with a board member on the drapes; Lillian Gish wants to save money and go the cheap route; and the patients have their own ideas. This is a very good drama with good acting from all involved. Grahame is a brunette here and has never been more beautiful, plus she gets to wear some beautiful clothes. She, along with the others, gives a terrific performance. The one with the best role is Lillian Gish, and she is fantastic. What an actress and what a career. Who could have believed she could play such a perfect bitch? Well worth watching if the plot is a little thin.

You can see what attracted Minnelli to this story, as it's partly about a conflict over decor. Maybe this worked in the novel, but it's hardly the stuff of compelling screen drama. Of course the choice of drapes is symbolic of independence to the patients, and symbolic of her power to Miss Inch, and it's actually a realistically mundane conflict such as might actually occur anywhere. It just seems to be much ado about nothing when it's acted out. Minnelli uses a bit of the soundtrack of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, here (the picture that trumped his own Brigadoon at the box office) - in a scene at the movies. Guess he had no hard feelings. One of Minnelli's interesting misfires. Even though it doesn't really work, I've seen it three or four times. The acting is good, overall. Richard Widmark (as the director of the clinic) has two leading ladies, Lauren Bacall and Gloria Grahame. This is one of the few times I've ever really seen Grahame miscast. She had a wide range, after all she played everything from Violet Bick in It's A Wonderful Life, to Rosemary Bartlow in The Bad And The Beautiful, to Ado Annie in Oklahoma. But I think you will agree her role defeats her best efforts here. She starts out very well but I'm not sure I always understood where she was coming from as the film wore on. Bacall plays a simple, sensible girl, and does a good job. Lillian Gish plays the unpredictable Miss Inch, Charles Boyer the self-destructing Dr. Devanal, John Kerr the young and artistic Stevie (a role originally announced for James Dean). Oscar Levant is called upon to go outside his usual comfort zone and I'm not sure he makes it. Susan Strasburg is excellent in a small role.