Jessica Tandy Movies
Possessing a great dignity tempered by the humorous sparkle in her clear blue eyes, Jessica Tandy was among the grand dames of stage and screen. Like many of her peers, her distinguished acting career stretched back to the early 1930s, though rather than make her name on film, Tandy won much of her fame with her work on the stage.Born in London in 1909, Tandy studied drama at the Ben Greet Academy of Acting. She was sixteen when she made her professional stage debut in London, and just twenty-one when she took her first bow on Broadway. In 1932, Tandy made her first film appearance in Indiscretions of Eve (1932), but due to her extremely busy stage schedule did not appear in her second film, Murder in the Family, until 1938. In 1942, she married Canadian stage and screen actor Hume Cronyn (she had previously been married to actor Jack Hawkins from 1932 until 1940), and they remained professional and personal partners until Tandy's death in 1994.
The couple moved to the States shortly after their marriage, and made their Hollywood debut together in Fred Zinnemann's The Seventh Cross (1944). For a long time, Tandy had her greatest success on the stage, beginning with her Tony-winning portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the first production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. Despite the acclaim she received, she was passed by in favor of Vivien Leigh for the play's screen version. Tandy continued to work on the stage and appeared in a few more films through 1951, after which her film career became sporadic. One of her rare appearances was in Hitchcock's The Birds in 1963.
It was after she won her second Tony while appearing with Cronyn in The Gin Game (1978) that Tandy's film career was renewed with a supporting role in John Schlesinger's Honky Tonk Freeway in 1981. The following year she appeared in The World According to Garp, and then starred in Merchant Ivory's The Bostonians in 1984. In the meantime, she won her third Tony for her work in 1983's Foxfire (she would win an Emmy in 1987 for the same role in the play's televised version). Tandy's film career then experienced a complete resuscitation in 1985, when she and Cronyn co-starred in Ron Howard's Cocoon; four years later, the then-80-year-old Tandy won an Oscar for her feisty performance as a Southern lady who befriends her black chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy. She went on to have notable roles in films like Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991 and 1992's Used People. Before succumbing to ovarian cancer in September of 1994, Tandy completed the made-for-TV movie To Dance With the White Dog, in which she starred with Cronyn, and Nobody's Fool, the latter of which was dedicated to her memory. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1996
Africa is revisited by a real-life Hollywood couple in this made-for-television documentary. Hume Cronyn and wife Jessica Tandy traveled to East Africa in 1966. In 1996, Hume and the couple's daughter (Jessica passed away in 1994) traveled back to Africa to remember the previous trip and examine the current state of the environment. Famed cinematographer Simon Trevor captured the mystical terrain on film, and Jessica's recorded musings on the previous trip are featured. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi
- 1994
- PG
When an elderly woman dies, she decides to take possession of a stray dog's body so as to keep an eye on her widowed husband in this wonderful tale based on the novel by Terry Kay. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi
Jessica Tandy made one of her final screen appearances in this comic road movie. Freda (Bridget Fonda) is a would-be singer and songwriter who would like a career as a performer but lacks the courage; it doesn't help that her husband Vincent (Elias Koteas), a graphic artist, keeps insisting that her interest in music is merely a hobby. Hoping to put some spark back into their marriage, Freda and Vincent take a vacation to Georgia, where they meet Camilla (Jessica Tandy), who lives in the main house near their cottage. Freda discovers that Camilla was once a musician; she claims to have enjoyed a stellar career as a concert violinist in her native Canada, and she knew only the best people (although Freda isn't sure that she believes all Camilla's stories, especially Ghandi's fondness for enemas). While Vincent gets involved in a business deal with Camilla's son Harold (Maury Chaykin), who produces sleazy exploitation films, Camilla regales Freda with stories about her greatest triumph, performing the Brahms Violin Concerto at Toronto's Winter Garden Theater. When Camilla discovers that the Brahms concerto is to be performed soon at the Winter Garden, Camilla and Freda decide that this is something they should see, and the pair hits the road to the Great White North, meeting a remarkable variety of people along the way. Tandy's husband and frequent co-star Hume Cronyn has a supporting role as one of Camilla's former beaus; it was their last picture together. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jessica Tandy, Bridget Fonda, (more)
Paul Newman earned an Oscar nomination (and won citations from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Berlin International Film Festival) for his performance in this well-drawn comedy-drama. Sully (Newman) is a 60-year-old man who emotionally seems to have never quite emerged from adolescence; scraping by on part-time work in construction, Sully has built a life around avoiding responsibility. He hasn't spoken with his ex-wife (Elizabeth Wilson) in years, he lives in a rooming house owned by his eighth-grade teacher Mrs. Beryl (Jessica Tandy), his best friend is a mildly retarded handyman, Rub (Pruitt Taylor Vince), and he has a crush on Toby (Melanie Griffith), who is half his age and married to Carl (Bruce Willis), who sometimes gives him work. One day, Sully nearly runs into his son Peter (Dylan Walsh) and discovers that he has a grandson he never knew about; for the first time, Sully finds himself thinking that he ought to start behaving like a grown-up -- or at least get to know his family before it's too late. Nobody's Fool also features Gene Saks as Sully's lawyer Wirf, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the overly-enthusiastic Officer Raymer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, (more)
- 1992
- PG13
Todd Graff wrote the screenplay for this eccentric romantic comedy in the spirit of Moonstruck that exchanges pasta for matzo balls. The film takes place in Queens in 1969, where Pearl Berman (Shirley MacLaine) has just arrived back from the funeral of her husband. As her dysfunctional family kvetches in the living room, the dapper Joe Meledandri (Marcello Mastroianni) arrives. It seems that Joe has admired Pearl from afar for a number of years, ever since he met her husband in a bar and persuaded him to return to his wife. He invites Pearl for coffee, provoking the wisecrack from her mother (Jessica Tandy): "She got picked up at her own husband's funeral." As Pearl is wooed by Joe, she has to deal with her lonely, overweight daughter Bibby (Kathy Bates) and her prettier daughter Norma (Marcia Gay Harden), who suffers from such a lack of self esteem that she assumes the personalities of Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, and Bonnie Parker. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Kathy Bates, (more)
A woman learns the value of friendship as she hears the story of two women and how their friendship shaped their lives in this warm comedy-drama. Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) is an emotionally repressed housewife with a habit of drowning her sorrows in candy bars. Her husband Ed (Gailard Sartain) barely acknowledges her existence, and while he visits his aunt at a nursing home every week, Evelyn is not permitted to come into the room because the old women doesn't like her. One week, while waiting out Ed's visit, Evelyn meets Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), a frail but feisty old woman who lives at the same nursing home and loves to tell stories. Over the span of several weeks, she spins a whopper about one of her relatives, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson). Back in the 1920s, Idgie was a sweet but fiercely independent woman with her own way of doing things who ran the town diner in Whistle Stop, Alabama. Idgie was very close to her brother Buddy (Chris O'Donnell), and when he died, she wouldn't talk to anyone except Buddy's girl, Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker). Idgie gave Ruth a job at the cafe after she left her abusive husband, Frank Bennett (Nick Searcy). Between her habit of standing up for herself, standing up to Frank, and serving food to Black people out the back of the diner, Idgie raised the ire of the less tolerant citizens of Whistle Stop, and when Frank mysteriously disappeared, many locals suspected that Idgie, Ruth, and their friends may have been responsible. Evelyn finds herself looking forward to her weekly visits with Ninny, and is inspired by her story to take a new pride in herself and assert her independence from Ed. Fried Green Tomatoes was based on the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by actress-turned-author Fannie Flagg, who makes a cameo appearance as the leader of a self-help group. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, (more)
In this made-for-TV drama, Jessica Tandy plays Grace McQueen, an elderly woman who has grown bored and restless following the death of her husband. Grace has always loved telling stories to children, and as a way of keeping herself occupied she comes up with an idea for a public access television series in which she will read great children's books aloud. The show becomes a local favorite -- enough so that a pair of advertising executives approach her with the idea of selling the show to a major network. Grace agrees, but when the marketing experts and network brass are finished with the idea, the simple format of "The Story Lady" has been transformed into a garish program called "Granny Goodheart," and Grace must decide if she should pursue the money and success that's being offered to her or stand up for her ideals. The Story Lady also features Stephanie Zimbalist, Lisa Jakub, Richard Masur, and Ed Begley, Jr.; Tandy Cronyn, Jessica Tandy's daughter, is appropriately cast as Meg, Grace's daughter. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
In this historical drama based on Carlos Fuentes' novel, Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda) is a naive woman who, hoping to broaden her horizons, accepts a job as a governess in Mexico in 1913. However, Harriet unknowingly finds herself thrown into the middle of the Mexican revolution, where she attracts the attentions of two very different men: an elderly American gentleman (Gregory Peck) who has come to Mexico to die, and Tomas Arroyo (Jimmy Smits), a general with Pancho Villa's army of rebels who is fighting for the freedom of his people. The American's attraction to Harriet is more intellectual (though he unmistakably finds her attractive), while Arroyo holds a greater romantic allure to Harriet, who is still a stranger to the ways of love. In time, she gains a new sense of freedom and self-knowledge in Mexico, but while the victories of Villa's forces bring out an unseemly arrogance in Arroyo, Harriet makes a surprising discovery about the Old Gringo -- that he is in fact the fabled author Ambrose Bierce, who vanished years before. Old Gringo was the first American film for director Luis Puenzo, and the next-to-last for star Jane Fonda. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, (more)
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Alfred Uhry, Driving Miss Daisy affectionately covers the 25-year relationship between a wealthy, strong-willed Southern matron (Jessica Tandy) and her equally indomitable Black chauffeur, Hoke (Morgan Freeman). Both employer and employee are outsiders, Hoke because of the color of his skin, Miss Daisy because she is Jewish in a WASP-dominated society. At the same time, Hoke cannot fathom Miss Daisy's cloistered inability to grasp the social changes that are sweeping the South in the 1960s. Nor can Miss Daisy understand why Hoke's "people" are so indignant. It is only when Hoke is retired and Miss Daisy is confined to a home for the elderly that the two fully realize that they've been friends and kindred spirits all along. The supporting cast includes Esther Rolle as Miss Daisy's housekeeper and Dan Aykroyd as Miss Daisy's son, Boolie (reportedly, playwright Uhry based the character upon himself). Driving Miss Daisy won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actress (Jessica Tandy), Best Screenplay (Uhry), and Best Makeup (Manlio Rochetti). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, (more)
Cocoon 2: The Return, like most sequels, relies a bit too heavily on one's familiarity with the first film. Without dwelling too long on Cocoon #1, we can observe that it ended with a group of senior citizens heading for the distant planet of Antarea, hoping to find a new, rewarding and elongated life. Cocoon 2 picks up the action five years later: The Antareans return to earth to check on the damage caused to their life-regenerating cocoons by earthquakes. Coming along for the ride are the elderly couples whom we met in the first film. Also carried over from the first Cocoon are young ferryboat captain Steve Guttenberg and gorgeous Antarean Tahnee Welch, who resume their interplanetary romance. Oldster Jack Gilford, whose beloved wife died in Cocoon, likewise finds romance in the form of Elaine Stritch. A secondary plot involves an insidious secret government plan to exploit the Antareans, which is foiled by sympathetic researcher Courteney Cox. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, (more)
Yes, there are commies under the bed. But are there Nazis there too? Emily Crane (Kelly McGillis) is a modestly successful Life photo editor living in 1950s New York, until she is called before the Senate Un-American Activities Committee to testify about her "communist" associations. When she refuses to divulge the names of friends in her civil liberties group, she loses her employment and her friends. In desperation, she takes a job reading books for Miss Venable, a somewhat crotchety lady (Jessica Tandy) who lives in a quiet residential neighborhood. Then, while taking a break in Miss Venable's back yard, Emily overhears something from the house behind that compels her to investigate and leads her eventually to conclude that it is the headquarters of a group smuggling in ex-Nazi scientists for some mysterious purpose. Meanwhile, she is being harassed by two FBI men, on behalf of the Senate Committee, as well as by a sinister, McCarthyite, Senate investigator named Salwen (Mandy Patinkin). One of the FBI men, Cochran (Jeff Daniels), takes a liking to Emily and humors her by agreeing to investigate her suspicions. This quiet mystery is a nostalgia piece. It's '50s backgrounds are authentic and the plot device -- an innocent becoming entangled in an unbelievable conspiracy -- is closer to one of Hitchcock's masterpieces of that period (e.g., North by Northwest) than to Reservoir Dogs or Speed. The people seem to be from a simpler time, too, when the distinction between good and evil was clearer. Emily shines with idealistic integrity and the naive Cochran is so honest that he finds it impossible to deceive the target of his investigation. There is even a terrifying, "acrophobe's nightmare" scene played out in a dome high above Grand Central Station. For those tired of endless shoot-em-ups and car chases, this is the mystery to choose. ~ Michael P. Rogers, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kelly McGillis, Jeff Daniels, (more)
- 1987
- PG
Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, stars of the Broadway drama Foxfire, recreate their stage roles in this TV-movie adaptation. Tandy plays a 79-year-old Georgia mountain woman, whose highly prized independence is threatened when she sells her land. Cronyn plays Tandy's husband, who though long dead offers her comfort, criticism and advice in spectral form. The story's continuity straddles both past, personified by Cronyn, and present, represented by the domestic travails of Tandy's folk-singer son John Denver. Co-written by Cronyn and Susan Cooper, Foxfire first aired as a Hallmark Hall of Fame special on December 13, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are among the impoverished residents of a slum tenement threatened with demolition by evil land developers. Only a miracle can save Cronyn, Tandy, and their friends -- and that miracle manifests itself in the form of a "family" of extraterrestrial flying saucers, who need the electricity provided by the tenement to survive. The grateful humanized spaceships repay their earthbound hosts by doing battle with the villains' henchmen. When the building is engulfed in flames, all seems lost, but the aliens have a few more tricks up their metallic sleeves. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, (more)
Cocoon is a warm-hearted science-fiction fable that avoids becoming overly corny thanks to the performances of its mostly senior cast. Wilford Brimley, Don Ameche, and Hume Cronyn are three old-timers who sneak out of their retirement home a few days a week to swim in the large pool on an abandoned estate next door. When the threesome begins to feel curiously younger, they discover strange pods on the floor of the pool. These pods are alien cocoons, which are being pulled from the ocean by a team of extra-terrestrials in human form led by Walter (Brian Dennehy), who has hired a local charter operator (Steve Guttenberg) to assist him. Walter explains to the seniors that energy from the cocoons is restoring youth and vigor to the older men every time they go for a dip. The aliens agree to let the men continue to swim in secret, but of course they can't keep their discovery to themselves. Soon the pool is swarming with retirees, with the notable exception of Bernie (Jack Gilford), who has no interest in prolonging life any longer than necessary. The aliens ultimately prepare to return home and offer the retirees eternal life if they leave Earth behind as well. Director Ron Howard treats his old-timers with care and dignity, and they respond with deeply sympathetic performances (Ameche won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar); the film's science-fiction trappings ably sustain the story's all-too-human ruminations on youth, aging, life, and death. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
- Starring:
- Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, (more)
- 1984
D.L. Coburn's1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Gin Game was originally directed by Mike Nichols. This taped TV version was staged by Terry Hughes and performed before a live London audience in October 1979. The scene is the sun porch of a nursing home. Longtime resident Hume Cronyn has avoided close contact with the other patients thanks to his crotchety nature. Newcomer Jessica Tandy (Cronyn's wife, who won a Tony award for her performance), hospitalized for diabetes, timidly walks onto the sun porch, and before long she and Cronyn are playing a quiet game of gin rummy. During their next several games, Cronyn and Tandy's relationship dwindles down to one long argument, culminating with the two players dredging up their most painful memories. The Gin Game was telecast on March 7, 1984 as an entry of PBS' American Playhouse. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by Henry James, Merchant/Ivory's The Bostonians is set among the Back Bay uppercrust of the 19th century. Basil Ransom (Christopher Reeve), bored by his opulent lifestyle and his "proper" friends, is fascinated by his cousin, outspoken suffragette Olive Chancellor (Vanessa Redgrave). Basil and Olive's mutual friend is likeable, gregarious Verena Tannant (Madeleine Potter). Soon a triangle develops, albeit an unorthodox one: Basil and Olive both find themselves pursuing Verena, Basil because he is in love with her, and Olive because she wants to exploit Verena's social connections and gift for public speaking to promote her own political ideology. Lurking in the background is Verena's true love, poor-but-honest attorney Henry Burrage (John Van Ness). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christopher Reeve, Vanessa Redgrave, (more)
- 1982
- PG
In Still of the Night, a mystery thriller written and directed by Robert Benton, a psychiatrist falls in love with a woman who is suspected of the murder of one of his patients. Dr. Sam Rice (Roy Scheider) is treating a married museum curator. When the man is killed, Sam is visited by his dead patient's mistress and co-worker Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep) who wants him to return a watch -- that was left at her home -- to the patient's wife. Sam is immediately attracted to the cool, aloof Brooke, who has been discussed during numerous therapy sessions. When he hears about the mysterious death of Brook's father, and he himself is stalked by a woman who resembles Brook, he begins to both desire and fear her. Despite its rather leisurely pace, and some dream sequences which distract from the suspense, Still of the Night is an effective thriller despite a contrived surprise ending when the killer is revealed. Scheider is believable as the doctor in love, but Streep is rather strained in a role that demands a sexual allure and eroticism which she seems uncomfortable portraying. Benton's cinematography is moody and frightening, particularly when Scheider is followed through Central Park. Despite its flaws, Still of the Night should please fans of psychological thrillers. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Meryl Streep, (more)
We'd rather not speculate over how much of Best Friends is autobiographical. We'll just note that this story of a male-female screenwriting team was written by real-life married scenarists Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin. Lovers as well as collaborators, scriveners Richard Babson (Burt Reynolds) and Paula McCullen (Goldie Hawn) decide to make their union legal. Predictably enough, they discover that their relationship goes straight downhill after they say "I do." The stars are far less interesting than the supporting cast, including Jessica Tandy and Barnard Hughes as Hawn's parents, Audra Lindley and Keenan Wynn as Reynolds' folks, Ron Silver as an avaricious producer (no names, please!), and Richard Libertini as a Mexican justice of the peace. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Goldie Hawn, (more)
The 1982 film version of the John Irving novel The World According to Garp attempts to captures the quirky spirit while condensing the Irving original. Robin Williams plays the title character, the son of unmarried, unorthodox feminist Jenny Fields (Glenn Close, in her film debut). Every effort made by Jenny to broaden Garp's outlook on life -- she even arranges for him to spend the night with a hooker (Swoosie Kurtz) -- crams more fears and phobias into his psyche. Aspiring to become a novelist, Garp succeeds in this goal at the same time that his mother publishes her first feminist manifesto. Though successful and happily married to college sweetheart Helen Holm (Mary Beth Hurt), Garp remains envious of his fearless mother, who has taken in the radical "Ellen Jamesians," a group named after a young woman who had her tongue cut out by a rapist. Mutilation, in fact, becomes something of a leitmotif in Garp's life, climaxing (in every sense of the word) in an auto accident brought about by Helen's tryst with Michael Milton (Mark Soper). There is, of course, much more to the story than this: standing out amongst the dozens of offbeat supporting characters is John Lithgow as Roberta Muldoon, a transexual ex-football jock. John Irving appears as a referee during a college wrestling match, while director George Roy Hill plays the pilot whose low-flying plane crashes into Garp's new home. The World According to Garp didn't attract as large an audience as other, more conventional Robin Williams vehicles, though Close and Lithgow would both be nominated for Best Supporting Actor statues. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, (more)
In this involved send-up of two American icons -- the automobile and the tourist trap -- the tiny Florida town of Ticlaw strives desperately for success after it has been denied the most essential of all tourist amenities -- a freeway exit. The insane, and mostly successful, schemes of the mayor (William Devane) and other distinctly unbalanced citizens interrupt, often hilariously, the lives of various eccentric travellers forced into a place they never intended to be. Critics disagree violently on whether this is a neglected classic or sophomoric nonsense. The winning record of director (John Schlesinger) (Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man, Cold Comfort Farm, etc.,) and first-class performances by William Devane, Beau Bridges, Beverly D'Angelo, Hume Cronyn, JessicaTandy and a plethora of great character actors -- not to mention the water-skiing elephant and the wild rhino -- argue that it's worth a look. ~ Michael P. Rogers, Rovi
- Starring:
- Beau Bridges, Hume Cronyn, (more)
The American Film Theatre has made movies of a number of significant theatrical performances, including Laurence Olivier's Othello. Another of these filmed theatricals is Simon Gray's Butley, which was brought to the screen by playwright Harold Pinter, and which features an astonishing performance by Alan Bates. The story focuses on one very bad day in the life of Butley (Bates), a feisty, sharp-tongued, lazy and pathetic professor of English. His professional ascendancy is challenged by a slick, accomplished woman many years his junior; his ex-wife gives him conniptions when she announces her remarriage to someone he cannot bear; and his male lover of several years chooses this time to announce that he is leaving him for a sweeter-tempered but very ordinary man of the sort Butley despises. Bleak though this sounds, Butley's unconquerable wit and biting repartee transform this otherwise tragic tale into something of a celebration of survival. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alan Bates, Jessica Tandy, (more)
- 1972
Even while on the lam from the Feds, brash bank robber Larry Kulhane (Gerald O'Loughlin) masterminds another major heist. This time, Kulhane's prospective victim is elderly Ardyth Nolan (Jessica Tandy), who has recently come into possession of $200,000. Planning his caper with meticulous care, Kulhane has installed one of his accomplices as Ms. Nolan's butler, and another as the bofriend of the woman's impressionable granddaughter. The final stage of the plan is to murder the feisty but frail old lady--unless Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) can get to Ms. Nolan first. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The story begins as an innocuous romantic triangle involving wealthy, spoiled Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), handsome Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), and schoolteacher Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette). The human story begins in a San Francisco pet shop and culminates at the home of Mitch's mother (Jessica Tandy) at Bodega Bay, where the characters' sense of security is slowly eroded by the curious behavior of the birds in the area. At first, it's no more than a sea gull swooping down and pecking at Melanie's head. Things take a truly ugly turn when hundreds of birds converge on a children's party. There is never an explanation as to why the birds have run amok, but once the onslaught begins, there's virtually no letup. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, (more)
- 1962
The "official" title of this film is Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man; its screenplay is adapted from semi-autobiographical "Nick Adams" stories written by Ernest Hemingway. Played by Richard Beymer (West Side Story), Nick Adams is a young Michigan boy who sets out in the early 1900s to learn about life and to pursue a journalistic career. No sooner is he on his way than he gets his first taste of "real life" by being thrown off a train by a railroad agent. He attempts to secure newspaper work, but is laughed out of the office due to his inexperience. He gains valuable insight on the human condition while serving in the Italian army during World War One, where (in Farewell to Arms fashion) a star-crossed romance develops between Nick and a Red Cross nurse (Susan Strasberg). Nick returns to America determined to pursue his destiny by writing of his now-vast experiences. Long and somewhat poky, Adventures of a Young Man is enlivened by the cameo appearance of Paul Newman as a pathetic, punch drunk boxer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Beymer, Diane Baker, (more)
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