Rebecca West Movies
The returning soldier is amnesia victim Alan Bates, who remembers nothing of his life before suffering shell-shock--not even his long-term marriage to snooty Julie Christie. Spinsterish Ann-Margret, who has long harbored a fondness for Bates, hopes to take advantage of his memory loss. But both Christie and Ann-Margret are challenged by a third woman, Bates' childhood sweetheart Glenda Jackson. Poor Bates deals with all of this by not dealing with it. A fairly faithful rendition of the Rebecca West novel on which it is based, Return of the Soldier ambles along at its own languid pace to a inconclusive conclusion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Christie, Alan Bates, (more)
Few filmmakers other than Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on screen in a series of unsubtle and prejudicial broad strokes. The film begins in 1915, when Reed (Beatty) makes the acquaintance of married Portland journalist Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). So persuasive is Reed's point of view--and so charismatic is Reed himself-- that Bryant kicks over the traces and joins Reed and his fellow radicals. Among the famous personages depicted herein are Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton), Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson) and Max Eastman (Richard Herrmann). The second half of this nearly-200-minute film skims through the years when Reed, now a Russian resident, becomes disillusioned by the harsh realities of Bolshevism. Despite the celebrity line-up of real-life "witnesses" to the events depicted in the film (ranging from novelist Henry Miller to comedian George Jessel!), historians took Reds to task for its oversimplification of events and its laundering of the notoriously promiscuous Louise Bryant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, (more)
- 1963
Joan Fontaine, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock's first American film, Rebecca, and subsequently won an Oscar for her performance in Hitchcock's Suspicion, is here cast as Alice Pemberton, a well-meaning busybody. Unable to keep her nose out of other people's business, Alice has become a pariah in her neighborhood. The only person willing to put up with Alice's meddling is her husband, John (Gary Merrill), but even he has a breaking point -- and it is John who comes up with a rather blunt method to bring his wife's buttinsky behavior to a permanent end. "The Paragon" is based on a story by prolific novelist Rebecca West. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Fontaine, Gary Merrill, (more)
