Two Weeks in Another Town

source: Two Weeks in Another Town

This movie is truly one of the worst movies ever made. Every moment of it, every gesture, is wrong and ill-considered. It makes movies like HEAD and SKIDOO and HOT RODS TO HELL look like clever, insightful "Le Bad" masterpieces. I think Vincente Minnelli had been watching not only LA DOLCE VITA, but also Godard's LE MéPRIS. Somehow the idea was hatched to make an "arty" new European-style picture... but it's only pure American cliché transplanted to Cinecitta. This was that moment in American cinema in which the old studio system was creaking and crashing, supplanted by television, and ultimately by the new breed of 1960's young turks who would re-script it. But meanwhile you could see old Hollywood making desperate gropes in the dark for some kind of old-school monumentality, McLuhan-defined "hotness". Kirk Douglas is reaching his sell-by date here, no longer convincing as the romantic lead. This is one of those 1960's-style "Viagra" movies, like 1968's PETULIA, or 1969's THE ARRANGEMENT: middle-aged man gets his life's potency back by having a fling with a young honey, all the while reciting his various existential angsts. An old-school symphonic-strings score (which a Fellini or Godard would never dream of including) swoops and shrieks and wails, always obtruding, never vitalizing the on screen action. The naked truth is, Americans, with few exceptions, have never been good at making arty Euro-style films, and this movie is a glaring example. This movie is like the play put on in WAITING FOR GUFFMANN: the players unwittingly make disparaging comments which, as far as the audience can see, can easily apply to the very entertainment they're watching. And that's embarrassing. If you're going to make a bad movie, then at least let the audience savor its badness...a-la a John Waters or Andy Warhol flick. But this film takes itself terribly seriously, even though all the plot points are disjointed, untrue, calculated. Maybe 1962 lacked the censor's freedom to depict an authentic "movie-about-moviemaking" story; to see this same basic story told authentically, convincingly, we would have to wait until 1973's LA NUIT AMERICAINE by Truffaut.

The film industry swallows actor Jack Andrus, (Kirk Douglas in his Van Gough mode), up into a mental depression. He gets a call to join a film crew in Rome and ventures out into a world of Hollywood egos and movie mongrels, pushing him that little bit further over the edge. Based on an Irwin Shaw book you know that you are in for some campy moments and lousy dialogue that sounds as if taken straight from the book. But it has some interesting moments in the human condition at war with the film world!

I first viewed this movie upon its initial release while I was in elementary school in a small West Virginia town where there was one theater and one drive-in meaning limited choices and frequent luck of the draw in terms of movie selection. This was probably the most boring film I ever saw in my youth although my parents also described the film as terrible and pondered the question of what it was even about. Decades passed, maturation happened along with some possible sophistication so I thought I would give this movie another shot, after all, what does a hick family from the hills know about cinema? The second viewing was more enlightening in making the movie appear dull, self indulgent, cheesy, melodramatic and essentially baffling in addition to my previous assessment of it as boring. Glossy slick color envelops the unlikable characters who spend most of their time bitch slapping and yelling at each other. Kirk Douglas and Edward G Robinson are apparently involved in some sort of love-hate relationship that merely seems schizophrenic as opposed to complex. While the story does show Kirk with a leave of absence from a nut house, he mostly seems angry rather than mental. He gets to go to Italy for a $10K per week paycheck ( in 1962 dollars ), a Maserati 3500 Spyder Vignale rag top ( which has a back story that's more interesting than this movie ) and then meets Daliah Lavi as a love interest and that's enough to make anyone mad. Hey, I wanted a stick, not an automatic dammit! Apparently much of the angst is sourced to Cyd Charisse who provided the only entertaining segment of the film when she's throws herself around like a bag of groceries while Kirk's eyes bug out behind the wheel in an ostensible moment of lunacy. Steering like a madman in front of a backdrop of a previously filmed gyrating landscape, the scene is intended to suggest frenzied, maniacal, out of control speed, yet comes off as laughable. I issued a spoiler alert although I'm not sure that's an applicable concept to a film that has no point to begin with. As far as movies are concerned, this flick had a really cool car.

If you liked the "Bad & The Beautiful" with Kirk Douglas,( Jack Andrus) this picture is pretty close to the same story line, however, there is plenty of color, drama and romance. Great actors appear in this film, Edward G. Robinson,(Maurice Kruger), "The Red House" puts his heart and soul into the role and yells and screams his head off as a big shot movie director. Kirk Douglas still plays the role as an abusive drinker who is reformed and is placed in some rather difficult situations from actor to assistant director. Cyd Charisse, (Charlotta) adds plenty of sexy charm to the various scenes and George Hamilton, (Davie Drew) gives a great supporting role. For some reason over the years, I seemed to have missed viewing this film and found it quite enjoyable and also seeing how very young all the actors appeared in 1962. Enjoy

This is surprisingly dull and tedious, considering it was directed by Vincent Minnelli. Supposedly another expose about filmmaking, it is a sort-of sequel to "The Bad and the Beautiful," and there are even a few scenes shown from that much-better movie. There is little about movie making in "Two Weeks in Another Town," however, which is ostensibly about a movie being filmed in Rome (a center of movie making in the 1960's) but is mostly about ex-wives and girl friends. Most of the women are bitchy and interchangeable (Claire Trevor, Cyd Charisse), most of the men are cardboard characters (Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson) and some of the scenes are ridiculous, such as the one where a woman gets a slap in the face at a glamorous event. This movie gives us that cliché soliloquy from an actor playing an actor about the pain and loneliness of being an actor. So ironic, so theatrical, so moving! And then there's dull Dahlia Lavi. Some of us are old enough to recall Dahlia (who later changed the spelling to Daliah) gracing the covers of almost every magazine as Hollywood's most glamorous new discovery, only to quickly disappear. The movie also looks surprisingly trashy, with garish colors and vulgar sets, a child's idea of glamor.

Imagine a film with Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, George Hamilton, Cyd Charisse and Claire Trevor being miserable. It's hard to believe but it's true. The best scenes are when we see clips of Douglas's 1952 "The Bad and the Beautiful." That was a picture. This garbage deals with Douglas as an actor getting over suicide and being brought to Rome to work for director Robinson. There he meets his ex-wife Carlotta, played in a *-like manner by Ms. Charisse. She is way out of her league in this one but her days of dancing with Fred Astaire were long gone. Interesting to see the teaming of Robinson and Trevor, this time as man and wife. They made such a great duo 14 years before in Trevor's Oscar-winning gem "Key Largo." As was the case with the latter, Trevor is once again a drunkard but with no reason as she had in 'Largo.' The picture is a rip-off of "The Sun Also Rises" as it deals with emotionally unbalanced people. At age 22, George Hamilton, as an actor, is already over the hill. Douglas wants to reenact his hitting of a wall this time in Rome as he had done in L.A. during his drunken suicide attempt. He and the others really hit the wall by making this awful film.

You gotta love the title "Two Weeks in Another Town." It's fabulous. As for the movie...it's a big budget, sprawling color extravaganza that's either a sequel or a prequel to "The Bad and the Beautiful" depending upon whom you speak to. Kirk Douglas stars as Jack, a has-been, alcoholic actor who, fresh from the asylum, is summoned to Rome by his guru, the director Maurice Kruger (Edward G. Robinson). Also in Rome is the wife that drove Jack into an alcoholic stupor, the seductive Carlotta (Cyd Charisse). Initially all Jack is to do is direct the dubbing of Kruger's film so he can finish on time and satisfy the Italian producer - but things become more involved. I can't agree with one comment that this is the veiled story of Tyrone Power, Linda Christian, and Darryl F. Zanuck, with circumstances changed to protect the guilty. Certainly the promiscuity aspects are similar; Ty took up with Anita Ekberg, magazine editor Mary Roblee, etc., and Linda, well-known for her exploits like the Cyd Charisse character, had an affair with Edmund Purdom. And Power was certainly tied to Zanuck. However, the story is pretty Hollywood generic; one could probably make the case for other actors' marriages and connection to directors and/or producers. "Two Weeks" is also way over the top, which is what Minnelli intended: old Roman gluttony. It's a feast of scenery, big acting, and a wild, dramatic story, which peaks with Douglas and Charisse in a fast car careening through Rome. Kirk Douglas is great as an actor returning to his past, only to find there's nothing there of use. Robinson turns in a excellent performance as a tough yet insecure director who cheats on his emotionally abusive and abused wife yet depends on her like a child its mother. Trevor as the wife is appropriately hurt, angry, and downright vicious. George Hamilton plays an up and coming actor - as one comment noted, this is a stretch; he doesn't really register. Charisse gets costar billing but doesn't have much to do but laugh evilly, wear glamorous clothes, and look seductive. She succeeds. "Two Weeks in Another Town" is certainly worth a look, though it was hard for this viewer to connect with any of the characters. I think it stands alone as neither a prequel or sequel to "The Bad and the Beautiful" as a story of what it's like to make films in another time - and in another town.

Some screenplays are simply unfilmable, and even if they are filmable, become laughable because the acting simply becomes banal either through over-direction or misguided emotions by actors trying too hard. In the case of this supposed follow-up to "The Bad and the Beautiful", the first "B" in that title, certainly fits, not the second. It's an embarrassment on all levels with such talents as Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Cyd Charisse, George Hamilton and especially Claire Trevor chewing up every word of the dialog. It's a major shame to have Trevor pretty much vomit every line she says as if she was getting revenge on Robinson for mistreating her in "Key Largo". The story is difficult to figure out from the very beginning with everybody ranting and raving at Kirk Douglas for being a has-been drunk actor, and the efforts director Robinson makes to get the movie completed. To make matters worse, a clip from "The Bad and the Beautiful" is used, showing how things went from an outstanding piece of art where everything came together, to this huge house of cards where a sudden gust of wind came along, making the entire deck impossible to put back together again. Luxurious photography can't hide the fact that what is actually present on the screen is probably one of the most confusing pieces of trash ever committed on celluloid. Even director Vincent Minnelli's final film, the major flop "A Matter of Time", outshines this one in spades. While film history resources indicate that rash editing lead to the film's failure, the script is also filled with massive inconsistencies, utilizing sudden psychotic mood swings in many scenes for pretty much every character. The film is practically impossible to get through, a sad example of so much talent tossed together in what really comes out to be a compost heap. The film also touches on the perverted, such as a scene where the aging Robinson appears to be being fondled by an Italian starlet (while harpy wife Trevor rants and raves like a patient from a nut house). The worst slap in the face comes for poor Trevor, playing one of the most hateful characters on-screen, only rivaled by the vile nasty rich wife that Eleanor Parker played in "An American Dream", another dreadful disaster made just a couple of years later. This one, however, could be called Vincent Minnelli's "An Italian Nightmare".

I hadn't seen this one since its theatrical release and note that it's not available on video. But Turner Classic Movies unearthed it a while ago, letter-boxed as it deserves and as they so reliably do with widescreen titles. No one was better than Minnelli when it came to taking pure "camp" elements and turning them into the kind of cinematic excess that had to be seen to be believed. This one is a prime example. As a Cyd Charisse devotee, I wasn't even disappointed that she didn't get to unfurl those legendary legs and dance across the CinemaScope screen. Made up, coiffed and gowned to look like Delphine Seyrig in "Last Year at Marienbad"(1961), she looks exactly like the sort of vamp who could drive Kirk Douglas to absolute distraction. With Claire Trevor, at her best, sparring bitterly with the immortal Edward G. Robinson; George Hamilton doing an earnest impression of a Method actor (none too good, I'll agree); and Leslie Uggams crooning a siren song whilst reclining amidst the ladies of the evening in a deluxe Roman brothel...well! It just HAS to be seen to be (dis)believed! Luvved it!