The Last Tycoon

The Last Tycoon is strictly one of my favorite films because of the performance of Robert DeNiro. The scene where he performs an idea for a film script is one of the best scenes ever. Also, because it is a scene about "making movies" is simply profound. Brilliant!

At one time a film that had Robert Mitchum, Ray Milland, Tony Curtis, and Dana Andrews all in the same cast would have blown some studio's budget. But all of these guys who were leading men in the past are in support of a young Robert DeNiro in F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished, The Last Tycoon. This film was one of the few failures of Robert DeNiro's career. I don't think he was able to get inside his character mainly because I don't think F. Scott Fitzgerald ever really fleshed him out in the first place. In fact as legend has it, Monroe Stahr is based on Fitzgerald's friend, movie executive Irving Thalberg. But I think there's just as much on that other boy genius over at MGM, David O. Selznick. There's no way Irving Thalberg would have ever gotten drunk and try to duke it out with the bargaining agent for the newly formed Writer's Guild. But Selznick was perfectly capable of that. Selznick was also the guy who did marry the boss's daughter, Louis B. Mayer's daughter Irene was his first wife whom he left for Jennifer Jones. This was Elia Kazan's last film and sad that he went out on a career note of middle C. Theresa Russell made a nice debut as the Irene Selznick character here. The real Irene was not quite the naive school girl that we meet in The Last Tycoon. I liked also what Tony Curtis and Jeanne Moreau did as a pair of neurotic married stars. Best in the film however is Jack Nicholson who is the agent from New York organizing the Writer's Guild. Remember Elia Kazan's background as a friendly witness at the House Un-American Activities Committee. Believe it or not, there really were Communist party members trying to organize in the labor movement back in the day. This was Kazan's last attempt at explaining his actions. Anyway Nicholson who only comes in for the last 10 minutes of the film, makes his brief scenes with DeNiro really count. The Last Tycoon did get an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design and the film certainly did look like the Thirties in Hollywood. Maybe if Fitzgerald had ever finished his story, The Last Tycoon might have been better.

This film is best forgotten. I doubt if there is anyone who is a greater fan of Kazan than I, and it pains me to write this, but this film is simply horrible. I don't blame just Kazan; the story and characters are illogical and very boring. The sub-plot of Curtis, Andrews and Moreau adds nothing, in fact, is a negative. The point of DeNiro's role is never made. The important theme evident in Kazan's films (Pinky, Gentleman's Agreement, Waterfront, Panic in the Streets, etc.) is completely missing in this film. The greatest fault lies with Fitzgerald, one of most overrated American authors and with Pinter, also overrated. These two, loved by critics, have given this film a halo. If the screenplay was written by John Smith based on a book by Fred Jones, the movie would be rated 2 stars out of ten, if the raters were generous. DeNiro and Russel are good (Although Russel's character is very annoying.) and Nicholson is Nicholson. The rest of the cast is mediocre. Boulting is not good at all, and in fact, she never went anywhere in her career after this film. Kazan didn't do a bad job, considering with what he was given to work.

How can a film starring Robert De Niro, Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, Jean Moreau, Donald Pleasance, Ray Milland, Dana Andrews, and Jack Nicholson. adapted by Harold Pinter from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and directed by Elia Kazan not be good? Well watch this and you will see a perfect example of how not to make a film. As hard as the actors work, they could never overcome such an achingly dull and banal script. Add to that Kazan's flat and uninspiring, pedestrian direction and a dreadful score from Maurice Jarre you have possibly one of the worst "quality" movies I have ever watched. I just had to ask the question "why", and I think you can perhaps argue that Kazan hadn't really done much since the early sixties, and the movie business had changed. The New Hollwood of Coppola, Scorcese, Polanski, Spielberg et al was making inroads; Movies like Chinatown, The Godfather, Taxi Driver and Jaws were taking movie making in a new direction. The story, script, direction and soundtrack of The Last Tychoon were old Hollywood. Definitely one to miss. Even though, as I read somewhere, this is a mess of a movie with a classic struggling to get out, it really isn't worth investing the time to find out where that classic has gone.

Then here's your chance! I continued watching this movie to see if it continued to be as bad as the early scenes were. It was. Awkward dialog was rampant throughout the film. De Niro -- an actor I highly respect -- was wooden. The plot...once you figured out that it had one...meandered along. Elia Kazan was a great director, with the emphasis being on "was". He was beginning to lose his touch, and although he had some nice cinematic shots, the story stumbled along. If you're wondering if I didn't find anything good about the movie...well, it's a very lavish production. visually, the film looks great. Among the other actors, Tony Curtis was fine as a star with tremendous insecurities. Robert Mitchum and Ray Milland were fine as studio executives, though some of their dialog was questionable. Jeanne Moreau...a great actress...in other films. Jack Nicholson was interesting in a smaller role. Donald Pleasence was good as a misplaced screen writer. It was good to see Dana Andrews (as a floundering director), Peter Strauss, and John Carradine (as an old tour guide). This film had potential, but Elia Kazan flubbed it. It's never good when you watch a film to see just how bad it is.

It's impossible to describe just how bad THE LAST TYCOON is. Elia Kazan's last film is an empty-headed, snail-paced version of F. Scott Fitzgerald unfinished novel. Working from Harold Pinter's ice-cold, overly wordy screenplay, Kazan's direction is, at best, inert. Robert DeNiro is an Irving Thalberg-like studio wunderkind with women troubles. In a role screaming for the likes of Catherine Deneuve or Isabelle Adjani, Kazan cast Ingrid Boulting, an actress whose lack of talent is challenged only by her lack of personality. The complete absence of chemistry between DeNiro and Boulting destroys the film. To make matters worse, Kazan cast Jack Nicholson, Robert Mitchum and Ray Milland and has nothing for them to do. The casting of Jeanne Moreau and Tony Curtis as movie stars is borderline camp. They're both way past their prime and look silly. Curtis in particular proves definitively that he can't act. Two bright spots: Theresa Russell as Mitchum's carefree daughter and a brief appearance by John Carridine as a studio guide. Unfortunately, they're not enough to compensate for all that is wrong with THE LAST TYCOON. It's a terrible movie. One is tempted to think that Fitzgerald's unfinished novel should have remained an unmade movie.

Robert De Niro is handsome, slim, and elegant as "The Last Tycoon," a 1976 film with a screenplay by Harold Pinter and directed by Elia Kazan. The original story is by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Some background: After Norma Shearer retired, she wanted Tyrone Power to film "The Last Tycoon," which she planned to produce. Fitzgerald modeled the main character, Monroe Stahr, after Shearer's late husband, Irving Thalberg. The film never happened. Like Hemingway, Fitzgerald is difficult to put on film, though for different reasons. Fitzgerald was a true poet, and his words did everything. There's not much action. Thus is the case in "The Last Tycoon," where nothing happens for what seems like hours. The film sports a fabulous cast of old-timers: Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, Jeanne Moreau, Ray Milland, Dana Andrews, and John Carradine; and it introduces us to Theresa Russell, Angelica Huston, and Ingrid Boulting, who now teaches yoga in Ojai California and looks exactly the same as she does in this film. Don't ask me how. Jack Nicholson has a small role, as does everyone except De Niro and Boulting. The rest jump in and out like pop tarts. This is a somewhat fictionalized version of Thalberg's life at MGM. He is involved in a romance with Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting) who seems to be playing mind games with him. She says goodbye when she means hello, tells him that she can't see him again and then shows up, writes him farewell letters five minutes after she sees him, that kind of thing. Cecilia (Theresa Russell), the daughter of the studio head Pat Brady (Mitchum) is madly in love with him, but he doesn't even notice as he's so fixated on Kathleen, who is engaged to someone else but keeps coming around. Brady, modeled on Louis B. Mayer, resents Stahr, as Mayer resented Thalberg, but Brady only says he resents him. We never see him REALLY resent him. No one really does much interacting. Tony Curtis sports a mustache as Rodriguez, a sexually confused leading man who is playing opposite the temperamental Didi (Jeanne Moreau) in a Casablance ripoff that has Moreau in Ingrid Bergman's same hat and coat, and Curtis playing the piano. P. S. Moreau can sing about as well as Ingrid Bergman hummed "As Time Goes By" -- not well. There is a moment of humor when, as the film ends with Moreau saying 'Nor do I,'there is a moment of silence. Then Brady says, "The French actresses are so...compelling." Silence. Stahr says, "'Nor do I. Nor do I.' When has anyone ever said to you, 'nor do I?' The scene has to be completely reshot, it's awful. I want four writers assigned to it tonight." De Niro is perfection as Monroe Stahr, from the way he sits at his desk wearing his horn-rimmed glasses, to his posture. Boulting is exceedingly dull. I never thought Theresa Russell could act her way out of a phone booth, though she had a few decent moments in "Black Widow." Most of the actors are completely wasted. One interesting thing: Viewing this film today, one becomes aware of how un-used we are now seeing older actors sans face lifts, big lips, and botox. All in all, I found this film disappointing. Pinter's script is slow and long, there's no excitement, let alone much story. Elia Kazan was a great director, but there probably wasn't much that he could do. "The Last Tycoon" has been lauded by some as an unappreciated masterpiece, but one of the reviewers on IMDb also felt Theresa Russell gave a brilliant performance. I didn't see what some of these enlightened viewers saw, nor have I been haunted by the movie. In fact, I find it easy to forget.

Elia Kazan methodically directs Harold Pinter's limp adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's last (and unfinished) novel about a workaholic movie mogul (named Monroe Stahr, who bears a literary resemblance to Irving Thalberg) under pressure in 1930s Hollywood. As played by the gaunt, seemingly still-green Robert De Niro, this tycoon never comes to life, and since he is at the center of the piece, it simply plods along to a soulless conclusion. Great supporting players (including Jack Nicholson, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jeanne Moreau, Dana Andrews and Anjelica Huston) end up just standing around, while the film's period-flavor disappoints and the golden-toned cinematography never envelopes us (nothing in the film is visually lyrical, which may be why Kazan resorted to some 'classy' * shots to spike the action). One may sense the production is a heady one, with a great deal of prestige behind it, but it never builds a head of steam and is mainly aloof and alienating. ** from ****

Horrible film. We get two hours of droning conversations about how evil the big Hollywood studios are and how gallant the communist writer's unions are. And I don't use the term communists as a jab, because in this film the screenwriter's union leader, played by Jack Nicholson, is a proud "open" communist (who probably makes a lot of money) and he gets to punch the evil tycoon, played by DeNiro, in the face and then say "I always wanted to hit ten million dollars." Hurray for the little guy! Oh silly Hollywood, you always choose your champions and it's just amazing that this kind of drivel gets green-lighted. And it's such a shame that the only time we get two legends, DeNiro and Nicholson on screen together, it's for a propaganda film that only shows one side of the coin clearly. Which is the only side Hollywood likes to show, and when it shows, it glistens. This movie was a waste of time. It was horrible. I never read the novel and I don't even want to. Sam Speigel produced it and Sam, so I've read, was liken to a tycoon; Kazan directed it and didn't he "rat" on actors who were interested in communism, or who were accused of attending meetings? Maybe there's some guilt going on; two big-wigs "giving a little back to the working class", so to speak. Oh just avoid this hog-wash of a film. And the saddest part is, DeNiro sleepwalks through the role. He's boring, uninteresting, and in my opinion much too young looking for the part. Horrible. Horrible.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing is beautiful, very lyrical but his character's words are not to be taken at face value. His description is vivid though he does not use fancy - or too many - words. He has a clear point of view or opinion about the people he writes about. But if his writing appears matter-of-fact, fly-on-the-wall, etc. it is anything but that. In THE LAST TYCOON he wants to tell us about his problems with alcohol and women, the effect of communists unionizing Hollywood writers, and - like always - the unique agonies of the very wealthy class. Like his other fiction, dialog is a minor inconvenience serving to support the overall description of what's happening - better conveyed by mood, atmosphere and pretense. Not in spite of but as a result of FSF's talent, his writing can simply put blunt description in his characters mouth and allow it to melt with his narration. His ability to convey mood is that compelling. Translating such to film creates a problem. The scenes in TLT are comically bad. Irony is given new definition when Stahr rejects a scene on the basis that 'People don't talk that way". People don't talk like the characters in TLT. Allow me to suggest that a successful adaptation of an FSF story would contain limited dialog, even to the extent such requires omitting what dialog the novel or short story contains. Sometimes a literal interpretation is not necessarily faithful.