Category: 1960s

This reminded me a lot of Not as a Stranger, both stories focusing on the lives of doctors. This film is a lot more focused in story, centering on a hospital’s old pathologist played by Frederic March who is less than eager to train his replacement, Ben Gazzara. Instead of getting bogged down in the melodrama of the doctors’ personal lives, it keeps the drama close to the hospital, following a couple of different cases that all intersect with the pathology department. The production won’t blow anyone’s mind, but is entertaining and includes some smaller performances from Dick Clark, Eddie Albert, and George Segal all as doctors.

The plot of this film is so batshit crazy that I think it could only have been made during a singular time and place. Alan Arkin is a widowed Puerto Rican living in poverty with his two young boys. He is weighed down by all of his responsibilities: being away all day working multiple jobs, wanting a better place for his family to live, trying to keep his boys from a life of crime, loving his girlfriend but knowing if they wed that there would eventually be even more mouths to feed. So he concocts the most dangerous and ridiculous plan possible in order to give his sons the better life that is otherwise impossible for him to give them. Arkin brings a needed manic energy to his role that, while not necessarily making the story believable, makes his actions understandable. The kids are cute and their chemistry as a family works. Rita Moreno is the voice of reason and sanity in the whole endeavor, so sadly her role is small.

There’s a dark undercurrent throughout this film that is palpable even in its lighter moments. James Stewart brings an old aged cynicism to his role as a Texas marshal who is coerced by the Army into attempting a recover of kidnapped whites from a tribe of Native Americans. I’ve seen it compared to The Searchers and while it holds a similar theme, I liked this one much better. All sides are a bit more fleshed out, making them feel more realistic. There are few winners in this business and this film doesn’t pretend that there are.

I really don’t know what to think of this film. It’s rather odd, occasionally amusing, and often feels very contemporary. The pre-credit scene does a great job of setting up Putney Swope as the new head of an advertising firm and then the rest of the film is all quite a bit of mayhem. I thought to myself that if someone wants to reflect on some of the odder choices Robert Downey Jr. has made in his career, that he came from the same genetic material as this film. Kudos for the odd, but intriguing choice to dub over Arnold Johnson’s voice with Downey Sr.’s deep tone; downvotes for the excessively long ad for Lucky Airlines.

It’s really hard to believe that someone watched this and thought what the world needs is to make this film into a musical. I don’t normally enjoy colorizations of black and white films, but I don’t think Audrey Jr works without color, even if the colorization I watched did occasionally include people with grey hands. In comparing to the musical, this version also has a handful of minor characters that didn’t make it in the future adaptations. While they sometimes add interesting background, particularly in the case of Seymour’s mother, they do muddy the overall plot a bit and pull the attention away from Audrey Jr.