The Iceman Cometh

source: The Iceman Cometh

This is a fabulous film about human nature IMHO, written by someone who knew suffering all too well, all his characters are just so rich and recognisable. They easily transfer to a modern age, as sadly trying to push down feelings of discontentment, unhappiness and guilt with alcohol or chemical abuse and lies you half believe, told to yourself, is just as much a modern hobby. The film see's everyone waiting for the arrival of Hickey (Lee Marvin), why because Hickey is fun, he makes everybody feel better, not only by supplying the booze and therefore artificial joy that brings, but also because he can further enhance the delirium with his gift of knowing just what people want to hear. Harry's bar provides the setting for this drama, throughout the film we never leave this dark claustrophobic environment. To it's inhabitants though, it's a haven, a place where they can exist one day at a time, without having to ever face the real world. They all firmly believe that a wonderful life is just waiting outside the door, wishing they would come out, eager for their participation, and just happy to hang on for them to be ready to decide too participate. Well maybe they don't firmly believe this, when the effects of the alcohol subsides and they have not got someone like Hickey to blow on their tiny little embers of self delusion with words of hope, cold moments of reality, rattle at their consciousness, as the truth attempts to rear it's ugly head. The occupants of the bar are like a self support group of agoraphobic's, fellow sufferers provide distractions and so less moments of clarity too nag at their guilt ridden souls, asking for a reckoning regarding what a waste they are making of such a precious thing as a human life. However when Hickey turns up, it's not the Hickey they all know and love, his long awaited arrival, lacks it's usual comforting effect.

One reviewer opines that Jason Robards' Hickey is better than Lee Marvin's. I couldn't disagree more. I have DVD's of both versions and I believe Robards is playing Robards as much as he is playing Hickey. Also, Robards strains in The Iceman that you can see he is "acting." Marvin, on the other hand lets Hickey be Hickey. One other thing makes the Iceman Cometh with Marvin far superior is the supporting class. Robert Ryan, Bradford Dillman and Frederic March give magnificent, believable performances. I think Robards believed all the reviews that said he was the ultimate O'Neill actor. By way of contrast, see Robards in Long Days Journey Into the Night where he doesn't let his persona get in the way of his role. Also, in Long Day's Journey we have an ensemble play/movie that doesn't require Robards to strain to be the great O'Neill actor.

This is more of a question than a comment. I recently taped the 1973 film version of THE ICEMAN COMETH from the Encore cable film channel. The movie, which is excellent and highly recommended (though seeing a production of the play is even more effective), was vastly shorter (by an entire hour!) than I had remembered it being when I saw it twice back in the 70's and 80's. I am almost certain that this three hour version aired by Encore is something doctored up by the studio to offer a more palatable running time to cable channels and art houses. My question is: does anyone know if the four hour version still exists; and if there is anyway of getting my hands on it? The many, MANY, internal cuts in the three hour version (probably unnoticeable if you're not familiar with the play or the longer version of the movie) seriously undercuts the power of O'Neill's great play.

In 1973 when the American Film Institute's repertoire played in selected U.S. city theaters, "The Iceman Cometh" was a series standout. The film retains its effectiveness today, due to O'Neill's insightful script, John Frankenheimer's excellent direction, and a fine cast, headed by Fredric March and Robert Ryan. We are fortunate to have so beautiful a production of this classic American play preserved on film.

This movie is a rich 4 hours long. Lots of talk very little action. Yet I was transfixed by the dialogue and the acting. I have seen two productions with Robards in the title role and this hold up very well. How it is not on videotape escapes me.

As a spectacle designed originally for a theater stage this was superbly translated to the 'smallscreen' I am more than well seasoned in the art of sitting in judgment and I have to say it is so well constructed that I watched it from start to finish with no interruptions. My guess is that in the theater presentation one would have enjoyed at least one toilet break!... Each and every character added their own ingredients to a thoroughly satisfying theatrical experience. Another small point for me was to see the wide range of actors strutting their stuff - possibly their ages spanned over sixty years from March to Bridges yet their convictions came through in such a way that I felt I was in that barroom with them and after all, is this not what theater should be. My congratulations to all involved, the camera work enhanced the drama extremely well. I will be watching this again.

The Iceman Cometh is one great film to go out on for not one, but two of the best players ever. This turned out to be the last performances for both Fredric March and Robert Ryan. In the case of Ryan he knew he was terminal and his performance has real poignancy. Of course you can't beat the material that was given to them and the rest of the cast. It's been argued that The Iceman Cometh is the greatest work from the pen of America's greatest playwright Eugene O'Neill and I'm not going to argue the point. Some would give the honor of O'Neill's greatest play to Long Day's Journey Into Night. That particular play was Eugene O'Neill's remembrance of his childhood and family. The Iceman Cometh is also about a family of sorts, the community that's been established around Harry Hope's waterfront bar and SRO flophouse. It's owner Harry Hope played by Fredric March, is a former Tammany politician who's not set foot outside his establishment because he's in mourning over his late wife Bessie. The whole usual crowd of boarder/drinkers is awaiting the arrival of one of the regulars who apparently likes to go slumming there. It's Hickey, a gladhanding traveling salesman Lee Marvin who spends like a Diamond Jim Brady and is generally the life of the party. But it's a new and somber Hickey that comes to bar that day. A stranger arrives that day also, Jeff Bridges a young anarchist is on the run he says from the Pacific Coast where his mother among others has been picked up. He's looking for an older leader of the movement Larry Slade who is played by Robert Ryan. Ryan is a beaten and tired man and of all the people in the bar he's the one with the most realistic assessment. It's the last stop for this crowd before the Grim Reaper. But the somber Marvin, still full of salesman's guile gets them all to reassess themselves and their 'pipe dreams' even for a little while. He also reveals a terrible secret about himself and Jeff Bridges has even bigger cross to bear and Bridges can't bear it. I was blown away by the performances of everyone in the cast. Marvin came in for some criticism at the time, attempting to serious a part and one that Jason Robards, Jr. was given acclaim for as his career role. But there was nothing wrong in Lee Marvin's performance that I could find. Young Jeff Bridges more than held his own with the veteran cast. My favorite among the supporting parts is Bradford Dillman who plays a lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law and for whatever reason, broke down and is now here. One member of the cast in this production was in the original Broadway cast when The Iceman Cometh premiered on Broadway in 1946. That was Tom Pedi who played the bartender Rocky Pioggi who also doubled as a pimp for some prostitutes who hang out there. Next to Ryan, the women who we don't learn anything about really, seem to have the most realistic ideas about the patrons there. Pedi's performance in a part he grew to own is pretty special also. Bridges is the outsider, he had a cause, a revolutionary cause and O'Neill in his youth hung around with that crowd as we learned in Warren Beatty's Reds. We also learned that while O'Neill liked the people he was less than optimistic about the beliefs they had. If Bridges is a failed John Reed, O'Neill in Ryan's character of Larry Slade is looking back over the years when he drank in such places as Harry Hope's. The rest of the cast is no doubt modeled after people he knew back in the day. In his own way, O'Neill loved these people a whole lot more than he did his own family. And it's to them and for them he wrote The Iceman Cometh. And it's for us to see a small part of New York in 1912, some folks who might have passed unnoticed by time, but for the fact that a literary genius passed among them.

I have to confess right off the bat that I love O'Neill and this play is certainly one of the grandest of them all, but I am also one of those that would have preferred to see Jason Robards in the Hickey role. I did see Robards play it on kine scope and thought he was about as right as it gets. Having said that, Lee Marvin does admirably in this huge role. My expectation were low but I was not disappointed. I even thought he brought a level of menace to the part that might have been missing with another actor. It is a grim play. Nothing cute about this bunch of burn outs and hardcore drunks. Not easy to view and experience and very long! (I watched it in 3, count them, 3 sittings! Special praise goes to Robert Ryan, in one of his best roles ever and a very young and vibrant Jeff Bridges who comes through against a long array of seasoned performers. I do not think I have ever heard the word "pipedream" more. It occurs again and again and with purpose and sadness. Although this work has a half a ton of drunks and losers, it is not for the partying JERSEY SHORE crowd. This is highbrow epic stuff. Bravo!!

One of the brownest movies ever made -- brown walls, brown furniture, red-brown faces of the drunken patrons of Harry's Bar -- and somehow that feels appropriate, as a lot of it is about autumnal regrets and faded dreams. One in the series of the AFI's American Film Theatre series, it's a very faithful rendering of O'Neill's great play, with one original Broadway cast member (Tom Pedi's bartender) and loads of good casting throughout. John Frankenheimer's camera is thrust right up at the actors' faces, and you keep looking for artifice or melodrama, but, with the exception of Sorrell Booke's sodden Hugo, there's very little. Fredric March's deluded Harry Hope, Robert Ryan's despairing ex- revolutionary Larry, Jeff Bridges' guilt-ridden student (a very difficult role for a young actor, especially in company as august as this) -- all have the ring of truth, and once you get used to the deliberate pacing, repetitive arguments and apologies, and startlingly frank language for a 1946 play, you're hooked. As to Lee Marvin's Theodore Hickey: I was convinced up to his famous Act Three monologue, but he stumbles here, launching into badly calibrated fits of temper and back again. Compare it against Jason Robards Jr.'s interpretation in the 1960 Sidney Lumet-directed TV version, and you'll see the difference between a good actor overreaching and a master in a role he was born to play. (I also saw Kevin Spacey's attempt on the stage a few years ago: He played Hickey like Professor Harold Hill, all bluster and forced charisma, and it didn't work.) A depressing four hours, but worthy, and a rich sample of the actor's art.