Anne Bancroft Movies
A dark-haired, earthy beauty and a versatile actress, Anne Bancroft has actually had two film careers. The first, which took place during the 1950s, was generally undistinguished and featured her in films that usually failed to fully utilize her talents. The second, which began in the early '60s, established her as an actress of great acclaim in films like The Miracle Worker and granted her screen immortality with roles such as that of the iconic Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate.A first generation Italian-American hailing from the Bronx, Bancroft (born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano) was four years old when she began taking acting and dancing lessons. Billing herself as Anne Marno, she began appearing on television in 1950. Two years later she signed a contract with Fox and launched a six-year career in second-string Westerns and crime dramas that began with Don't Bother to Knock in 1952. By 1958, Bancroft had enough of Hollywood and turned her attentions to Broadway, where she spent the next five years. She proved her mettle as a serious dramatic actress by winning a Tony for Two for the Seesaw in 1958. Two years later, she won her second Tony and a New York Drama Critics Award for her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. Armed with these triumphs, Bancroft returned to Hollywood to appear in the movie version of The Miracle Worker (1962), reprising her role opposite Patty Duke who played Helen Keller. Her performance earned her an Oscar for Best Actress; unable to attend the ceremony because she was performing on Broadway in Mother Courage, she was presented with the award by Joan Crawford a week later on the Broadway stage.
Bancroft followed this victory with a string of emotional dramas that included The Pumpkin Eater, which was released in 1964, the same year she married filmmaker/comedian Mel Brooks. Just when it would look like she would be typecast in such dramas, Bancroft showed up in Mike Nichols' seminal comedy The Graduate, playing Mrs. Robinson, the ultimate "older woman," to Dustin Hoffman's confused Benjamin Braddock. Her role in the landmark film won her an Oscar nomination, to say nothing of a permanent dose of notoriety. Although Bancroft seemed destined for a stellar career and she remained one of the more well-respected actresses in Hollywood, a long string of so-so films kept her from reaching major stardom. Still, Bancroft turned in a number of memorable performances in films such as The Turning Point (1977), The Elephant Man (1980), To Be or Not to Be (her 1983 collaboration with husband Brooks), Agnes of God (1985), 84 Charing Cross Road (1986), and Torch Song Trilogy (1988). In 1980, Bancroft made her debut as a director/screenwriter in the darkly comic Dom DeLuise vehicle Fatso.
Throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, Bancroft continued to be visible onscreen, appearing in films like How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Home for the Holidays (1995), and Keeping the Faith (2000). Sadly, she became stricken with uterine cancer and succumbed to the disease in 2005. Her last performance would come postumously with a voice-role in the animated adventure Delgo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
When it comes to love, Paul Matthews and Diane Farrow, two highly educated and talented scientists don't know a thing. Looking at their geeky demeanor's it's easy to see why. Despite the fact that both are neighbors, share the same interests and both are psychobiologists who study primates, neither is really aware of the other romantically until Paul, who is terribly shy around women, goes to gypsy Madame Ruth in desperation and asks for help. She reads his palm and tells him that he needs a woman; she then hands him Love Potion No. 8 which will attract women like flies to honey. This romantic comedy chronicles what happens to him (and Diane) when, after experimenting on animals, they decide to try it on themselves. Though the changes only last four hours per dose, they are truly remarkable and the two agree to separate for three weeks and then come back together to compare results. The time passes quickly and wonderfully for them and when they finally reunite both have changed for the better. Just for fun, they decide to go out with each other. They do not drink the potion, but still have a wonderful and passionate night. This leads Paul to propose to Diane. Unfortunately, she thinks she loves another, a man who is really more interested in exploiting the potion for money than he is in her. He ends up buying up all of Madame Ruth's latest batch. Paul goes back to her and explains his problem and that is when Ruth hands him the potent Love Potion No. 9, which can manifest true love. Quickly, he takes it and sets off to find Diane before she makes a terrible mistake. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tate Donovan, Sandra Bullock, (more)
- 1992
The 1986 stage hit Broadway Bound is the third entry in playwright Neil Simon's "autobiography trilogy". Unlike the cinemadaptations of Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound was filmed for television, where it debuted March 23, 1992. Brighton Beach Memoirs star Jonathan Silverman returns as Neil Simon's alter ego Eugene Jerome, while Corey Parker plays Eugene's brother Stanley (based on Simon's brother and early writing partner Mel). The year is 1948: Eugene and Stanley have begun writing comedy sketches for the Catskills resorts, hoping that this activity will be the first step on the road to fame and fortune. As they seek out funny material, the boys' home life is rapidly disintegrating. The crises at hand include their parents' constant quarrelling (brought about by their father's philandering) and a seemingly insurmountable dilemma involving their aged uncle. Just as WASPish Blythe Danner scored as Eugene's Jewish mother in Brighton Beach Memoirs, so too do non-Jewish actor Anne Bancroft and Hume Cronyn effectively essay Hebraic characterizations in Broadway Bound. Following its American television premiere, the film was released theatrically in Europe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Corey Parker, Jonathan Silverman, (more)
After making a deathbed promise to his mother that he would never marry, Jack Singer (Nicolas Cage) finds that resolve challenged when his girlfriend, Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker), begins making noise about wanting to start a family. Worried he might lose her, Jack makes the rash decision that they should fly to Las Vegas that weekend to tie the knot. Feet still cold, Jack spurns Betsy's idea to get married the moment they step off the plane, preferring to procrastinate for a few hours over a game of poker arranged by notorious gambler Tommy Korman (James Caan). Peddling the game as a get-to-know-you thrown by the hotel, Korman steadily raises the stakes on Jack until the novice is in for 65,000 dollars of the house's money on a hand he's sure he'll win -- a straight flush to the jack. When he loses the fixed hand, the flabbergasted Jack has a major problem on his hands. Korman offers an unusual solution: If Betsy, whom Korman spotted in the lobby because of her resemblance to his late wife, will spend the weekend with him, Jack's debt will be forgiven. Betsy initially refuses, considering it a ploy by Jack to postpone the wedding, but soon agrees to fly to Hawaii with Korman, in part because it will teach Jack a lesson. When she finds herself charmed by Korman's smooth and sensitive shtick, her desperate fiancé goes to incredible lengths to win her back, including jumping from a plane with a troop of skydiving Elvises. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Caan, Nicolas Cage, (more)
- 1989
- R
Tony award-winning British musical comedy star Robert Lindsay makes his first important American film appearance in Bert Rigby, You're a Fool. Lindsay, of course, plays the title character, a coal miner who dreams of becoming a big showbiz star. Only problem is, there's very little demand for Bert Rigby's impersonations of Buster Keaton and Gene Kelly. Undaunted, Bert heads to Hollywood, where, while working as a butler in the household of movie mogul Jim Shirley (Corbin Bernsen), he must fend off the advances of Shirley's hot-to-trot wife, Meredith (Anne Bancroft). Befitting the old-fashioned nature of Bert Rigby's behavior and tastes in entertainment, director Carl Reiner adopts a "retro" approach to his material; at times, the film looks as though it was made in 1939 rather than 1989, despite its R-rated sex, profanity, and body-function jokes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Lindsay, Cathryn Bradshaw, (more)
Harvey Fierstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit was adapted for the screen by Fierstein himself. The playwright also repeats his stage role of female impersonator Arnold Beckoff, aka nightclub entertainer "Virginia Hamm." The three-part plotline, whittled down to accommodate the film's 117-minute running time, concerns Arnold's seriocomic efforts to find a lasting relationship. We first meet Arnold in 1971, when his heart is broken by his bisexual lover (Brian Kerwin). Next we find Arnold in 1973, enjoying short-lived happiness with his true love (Matthew Broderick). The final act takes place in 1980: Arnold, still grieving over Broderick's sudden death and struggling to raise the young boy that the couple had adopted, has a long-anticipated showdown with his uncompromising mother, superbly played by Anne Bancroft. A witty film that is by turns touching and outrageous, Torch Song Trilogy works well despite its somewhat soft-pedaled approach to the material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Matthew Broderick, (more)
Helene Hanff's book 84 Charing Cross Road had previously been a TV program and a stage play before it was converted into this 1986 film. The scene is New York, 1949: Anne Bancroft plays a struggling writer and passionate bibliophile, who answers an advertisement from a rare-volumes bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road in London. Thus begins a two-decade romance by correspondence between Bancroft and Briton Anthony Hopkins, the man in charge of the overseas department of Marks and Company. Though several meetings are arranged, Bancroft and Hopkins never come face to face thanks to mitigating circumstances. But Anne finally makes it to London, and finds that much has changed. 84 Charing Cross Road was produced by Mel Brooks, the husband of star Anne Bancroft. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, (more)
- 1986
- PG13
'Night. Mother was adapted by Marsha Norman from her own harrowing Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Outwardly normal Sissy Spacek calmly informs her mother Anne Bancroft that she's about to commit suicide. Thus the stage is set for a war of nerves between the determined Spacek and the distraught Bancroft, who uses every emotional and psychological device at her disposal to stave off the inevitable. The film's tension grows not from its plot development--we know from the outset how it's going to end--but from whether or not we're going to learn all the reasons for Spacek's decision. She's an epileptic, an alcoholic, and supremely miserable, but she always holds a little something back, prompting the viewer to lean closer to the screen in hopes of ferreting out more answers. In the original play, the outcome was never predictable; perhaps understandably, there are many who prefer the staged 'Night Mother to the screen version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sissy Spacek, Anne Bancroft, (more)
Agnes of God is an "opened up" adaptation of the minimalist stage play by John Pielmeier. Meg Tilly plays a young nun who secretly gives birth to a baby; the child's body is later found strangled to death. Court-appointed psychiatrist Jane Fonda is sent to the convent to investigate, a task made difficult by the weathervane behavior of mother superior Anne Bancroft. To draw out Tilly, who remembers nothing of the birth, Fonda suggests that hypnosis is called for. Playwright Pielmeier poses many questions--is Tilly a pure-and-simple murderess, or was there something "divine" in her act?--but offers frustratingly few answers. The evocative photography is by longtime Ingmar Bergman associate Sven Nykvist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, (more)
- 1984
- PG13
This bittersweet comedy is, among many other things, a tour de force for the marvelous Anne Bancroft. The star is cast as Estelle Rolfe, an unconventional divorcee who resides in New York, in close proximity to her grown son Gilbert (Ron Silver) and his wife Lisa (Carrie Fisher). Though his wife yearns to move back to her home state of California, Gilbert cannot quite cut the silver cord that binds him to his mother. Upon learning that Estelle is dying, her dutiful son offers to honor her last request to meet the reclusive actress Greta Garbo. The rest of the film plays wonderful variations on this theme, involving such peripheral characters as a gay Garbo fan (Harvey Fierstein), an elderly Shakespearean actress (Hermione Gingold), a "female Joe Papp" director (Denny Dillon), and an ageing papparazzi (Howard Da Silva). Without giving away the ending, it is worth noting that the divine Garbo shows up in the person of playwright/lyricist/ performer Betty Comden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Ron Silver, (more)
- 1984
This live appearance by Mel Brooks includes songs, skits and jokes. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1983
- PG
Mel Brooks and his real-life wife Anne Bancroft play Frederick and Anna Bronski, musical comedy stars in 1939 Poland. The highlight of the Bronskis' act is Frederick's imitation of Adolf Hitler, but he is forced to eliminate this turn for fear of offending the Nazis. Meanwhile, Anna enters into a harmless flirtation with Polish bomber pilot Andre Sobinski (Tim Matheson). The pilot's nightly signal to visit Anna in her dressing room is "To Be or Not to Be," spoken by Bronski during the Shakespearean portion of his act. When the Germans march into Warsaw, the Bronskis and the rest of their troupe are forced into hiding (notably the homosexual Lupinski, played by Lewis J. Stadlen, who is forced to endure the humiliation of wearing a pink star). Flying for the Polish resistance in England, Sobinski asks kindly Professor Seletzky (Jose Ferrer) to deliver his "To Be or Not to Be" message to Anna. When Seletzky doesn't seem to recognize the name of Anne Bronski, Warsaw's biggest star, Sobinski suspects that something is amiss. Sure enough, Seletzky is a Nazi spy, heading to Warsaw to help Col. "Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt (Oscar-nominated Charles Durning) destroy the underground movement. Parachuting into Poland, Sobinski enlists the aid of the Bronski troupe to foil the Nazis. What follows is an uproarious series of disguises and deceptions, capped by Bronski's impersonation of Der Fuhrer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, (more)
- 1982
Thirteen months and ten million dollars were lavished upon this ten-hour, four-part TV miniseries about legendary globetrotter Marco Polo. Newcomer Ken Marshall played the title character, a 14th century Venetian explorer who, among other accomplishments, firmly established the "silk route" between Europe and the Orient, introducing such precious commodities as spaghetti and fireworks to the Occidental world. In addition to featuring the usual polyglot of major British and American stars in cameo roles (including Denholm Elliott, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Leonard Nimoy, and Burt Lancaster), the production represented the first Western production to be filmed on location in China since WWII -- not to mention the first English-language appearance of celebrated Chinese stage and film actor Ying Ruocheng, superbly cast as the mighty Kublai Khan. An American-Italian-Austrian-French-British co-production, Marco Polo received its first U.S. showing when it was telecast by NBC from May 16 through 19, 1982. A "condensed" version, running approximately 270 minutes, was later made available in Europe and South America. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Marshall, Denholm Elliott, (more)
John Hurt stars as John Merrick, the hideously deformed 19th century Londoner known as "The Elephant Man". Treated as a sideshow freak, Merrick is assumed to be retarded as well as misshapen because of his inability to speak coherently. In fact, he is highly intelligent and sensitive, a fact made public when one Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) rescues Merrick from a carnival and brings him to a hospital for analysis. Alas, even after being recognized as a man of advanced intellect, Merrick is still treated like a freak; no matter his station in life, he will forever be a prisoner of his own malformed body. Unable to secure rights for the famous stage play The Elephant Man, producer Mel Brooks based his film on the memoirs of Frederick Treves and a much later account of Merrick's life by Ashley Montagu. The film is lensed in black and white by British master cinematographer Freddie Francis. Though nominated for eight Academy Awards, the film was ultimately shut out in every category. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, (more)
In this dark and sometimes sad comedy, Dominick -- an extremely obese man -- is pushed by his sister Antoinette to shed a few pounds lest he end up dead like his cousin. To do so, she helps him enroll in the fanatical weight-loss group, the Chubby Checkers, who will do anything to keep fellow members from over-eating. Another incentive for Dominick is his love for Lydia, a women whom Dominick fears has deserted him because of his obesity.The process of weight loss is torture, and he is left with a painful choice (one that the naturally thin don't always understand), suffer the pain and lose the weight or somehow learn to live with it. After his initial attempts to lose weight end in failure, and he goes on a gigantic food bender (one of the great binge scenes in movie history), in the end, Dominick learns that Lydia loves him for who he is, and he decides that he should do himself the same favor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dom DeLuise, Anne Bancroft, (more)
- 1979
- R
Poet Sylvia Plath wrote an immensely popular roman à clef, The Bell Jar, which chronicles a woman's descent from functioning as a highly educated, motivated, and capable young woman to being completely incapacitated at the hands of mental illness. Sadly, Plath committed suicide at age 30, and did not have a chance to enjoy the success of her novel, which wasn't officially published in the United States until the early '70s. In this tragic tale, Esther Greenwood (Marilyn Hassett) is the central figure, a college student on a publishing internship with a woman's magazine in Manhattan. As she begins to experience psychological difficulties, her troubles are compounded by the incredible insensitivity of the people around her. On one occasion, her boyfriend condescendingly berates her for taking an overdose of pills. Critics complained that this movie, which did not do well at the box office, failed to capture the evocative emotional tone of the novel. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marilyn Hassett, Julie Harris, (more)
Because director Franco Zeffirelli noted publicly that he intended to depict Jesus Christ as a human being rather than a religious icon, his expensive made-for-TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth fell victim to protestors long before its April 3, 1977, debut. Despite the pullout of several sponsors, Jesus of Nazareth was aired as scheduled, sweeping the ratings in the process. In avoiding the usual overproduced Hollywood approach to the Gospels, Zeffirelli offers one of the most sensitive and reverent portrayals of Jesus ever seen on film. In the title role, Robert Powell heads a huge international cast, which includes Olivia Hussey as Mary, Peter Ustinov as Herod the Great, Christopher Plummer as Herod Antipas, Michael York as John the Baptist, James Farentino as Simon Peter, Donald Pleasence as Melchior, James Earl Jones as Balthazar, Ian McShane as Judas, Anne Bancroft as Mary Magdalene, Rod Steiger as Pontius Pilate, James Mason as Joseph of Arimathea, Anthony Quinn as Caiaphas, Laurence Olivier as Nicodemus, Ernest Borgnine as the Centurion, and Claudia Cardinale as the Adulteress. Filmed in England, Tunisia, and Morocco, Jesus of Nazareth was scripted by Zeffirelli, Anthony Burgess, and Suso Cecchi D'Amico. It originally aired in two three-hour segments, telecast Palm and Easter Sunday of 1977 as part of NBC's Big Event anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Powell, Olivia Hussey, (more)
One of a cycle of '70s post-Women's Liberation "women's pictures," Herbert Ross's drama uses the ballet world to examine the conflict between family and career. Former dance colleagues Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) are reunited when Emma's New York ballet company stops in Oklahoma City for a performance. Having dropped her career for marriage and motherhood, Deedee envies prima ballerina Emma's limelight life; aging Emma, realizing that her days as a star are numbered, wishes that she had the fulfillment of a family like Deedee's. Tensions simmer when Deedee's talented teenage daughter, Emilia (Leslie Browne), moves to New York to join Emma's company. As Emma maternally bonds with Emilia, and Emilia falls in love with womanizing dancer Yuri (Mikhail Baryshnikov), Deedee feels that she's losing her place even as a mother. After Emilia's triumphant debut, Deedee's and Emma's resentments boil over into an all-out catfight that ends when they realize they can unite in happiness for Emilia's future. Splitting the desires to nest and to work between two characters, Ross and writer Arthur Laurents reveal the difficulty faced by women in a world of expanding options. As in Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's seminal ballet film The Red Shoes (1948), dancing and a personal life don't mix, even as the films display ballet's seductive power here in the gracefully integrated numbers by dance stars Browne and Baryshnikov. Despite reservations about its melodramatic aspects, The Turning Point earned box-office success and eleven Oscar nominations (but no wins). Even if its wife/work struggle seems a bit old-fashioned, Deedee's and Emma's final bond suggests that the next generation may not have the same regrets. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
- 1976
- PG
Silent Movie is just that: a totally nonverbal comedy, save for one single line. Director Mel Brooks stars as a once-famous comedy director, who with his faithful assistants Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman return to Hollywood with plans for a comeback. Brooks wants to return to the good old days by producing a silent movie (he explains this via subtitle). Producer Sid Caesar is agreeable, provided Brooks can line up top stars. In a series of vignettes better seen than described, Brooks persuades Burt Reynolds, Liza Minelli, Paul Newman, James Caan and Anne Bancroft (Brooks' real-life wife) to star in his project. The only holdout is mime Marcel Marceau, who after a few moments of walking against the wind shouts the film's solitary line: "No!" Meanwhile, the crooked executives of the Engulf and Devour conglomerate want to take over Caesar's studio and are worried that Brooks' film might be so huge a hit that Caesar won't be interested in selling. To prevent this, the conglomerate dispatches sexy Bernadette Peters to lure Brooks into drink and ruination. The film's climax is lifted from the 1943 Olsen and Johnson film Crazy House). Featured in brief comic cameos are Harry Ritz as the man with half a suit, Charlie Callas as the blind man, Dom DeLuise's wife, Carol Arthur, as the incredibly pregnant woman, Fritz Feld as the headwaiter (whose trademarked "Pop" is conveyed on a subtitle) and Henny Youngman as the diner with a fly in his soup. Co-writers Ron Clark, Rudy DeLuca and Barry Levinson also show up on screen as three of the Engulf & Devour minions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, (more)
Lipstick is a cheap exploitation film pretending to make a social statement about rape and revenge. Chris (Margaux Hemingway), a fashion model is raped by Gordon Stuart (Chris Sarandon) her sister's music teacher. When he tries to rape her sister Kathy (Mariel Hemingway), Chris kills him. She is tried for the crime and defended by Carla Bondi (Anne Bancroft). Margaux Hemingway, in her film debut, is dreadful, giving a wooden performance which is only matched by that of the usually interesting Chris Sarandon. Despite some discussion of this film by feminist film critics, its only saving grace is the performance of Mariel Hemingway, who is also making her debut and gives the mature and nuanced performance she would again give in Manhattan. Lipstick, trite, bloody and dishonest, pretends to condemn rape but instead sensationalizes and exploits it. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margaux Hemingway, Chris Sarandon, (more)
"The German Air Force is not at all what it used to be," says Anne Bancroft's Countess, about 16 minutes into The Hindenburg, pausing and then adding, "But then, nothing is these days." That seems to sum up the ponderous, irony-laden script and plot of Robert Wise's movie, which is posited -- in true post-Watergate fashion -- upon notions of conspiracy and cover-up behind the destruction of the German airship. The movie opens with a handy Universal newsreel that gives a vestpocket history of lighter-than-air flight, and that carries us to 1937 Germany. Colonel Franz Ritter (George C. Scott), a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, finds himself assigned to the flight of the Hindenburg as chief of security; reports and rumors about the destruction of the zeppelin have circulated both in Germany and America, and the Nazi government takes these very seriously. What Ritter walks in on is a "Grand Hotel" of the air, several dozen passengers and crew whose ranks contain enough red herrings to keep Ritter (and us) jumping through hoops for most of the first half of the film, when we're not watching glorious shots of the zeppelin in flight. The answer to the script's presentation of the plot against the airship,and theidentityof the bomber and his motivations, are actually presented in the first 15 minutes, but there are so many false leads, subplots, and blind alleys put before us that the solution will probably pass by unnoticed. In the meantime, Ritter dances around with his ex-paramour (Bancroft), scheming businessmen (Gig Young), and passengers with skeletons in their closets (Alan Oppenheimer), an entertainer (Robert Clary) with a knack for offending loyal Nazis, several officers and crew with known "political" differences with the Nazi Party, a Gestapo man (Roy Thinnes) who's got an agenda of his own, and two genuine mystery men (Burgess Meredith, Rene Auberjonois) who don't seem to have any reason for traveling on this particular voyage. It's all a little tiring, or would be, if the setting and special effects weren't that interesting, and the cast wasn't so entertaining to watch in these relatively thankless roles. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, (more)
A lesser but still entertaining Neil Simon work, The Prisoner of Second Avenue was adapted to film in 1974. Jack Lemmon takes over the role played on Broadway by Peter Falk: Mel is a New York-based advertising man who goes through hell when he loses his job. The gods seem to conspire against him as he tries to cope with his unemployed status; he is particularly depressed over the fact that he must now subsist on the income of his wife (Anne Bancroft). There are laughs in The Prisoner of Second Avenue, but it's the laughter of desperation and despair; it might not be advisable to watch this film after a bad day at the office. Watch for Sylvester Stallone as the "human punch line" of an old urban legend about a pickpocket. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, (more)
- 1972
This historical drama is an account of the early life of Winston Churchill (Simon Ward), including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simon Ward, Robert Shaw, (more)
"Just one word: plastic." "Are you here for an affair?" These lines and others became cultural touchstones, as 1960s youth rebellion seeped into the California upper middle-class in Mike Nichols' landmark hit. Mentally adrift the summer after graduating from college, suburbanite Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) would rather float in his parents' pool than follow adult advice about his future. But the exhortation of family friend Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) to seize every possible opportunity inspires Ben to accept an offer of sex from icily feline Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). The affair and the pool are all well and good until Ben is pushed to go out with the Robinsons' daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) and he falls in love with her. Mrs. Robinson sabotages the relationship and an understandably disgusted Elaine runs back to college. Determined not to let Elaine get away, Ben follows her to school and then disrupts her family-sanctioned wedding. None too happy about her pre-determined destiny, Elaine flees with Ben -- but to what? Directing his second feature film after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols matched the story's satire of suffocating middle-class shallowness with an anti-Hollywood style influenced by the then-voguish French New Wave. Using odd angles, jittery editing, and evocative widescreen photography, Nichols welded a hip New Wave style and a generation-gap theme to a fairly traditional screwball comedy script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham from Charles Webb's novel. Adding to the European art film sensibility, the movie offers an unsettling and ambiguous ending with no firm closure. And rather than Robert Redford, Nichols opted for a less glamorous unknown for the pivotal role of Ben, turning Hoffman into a star and opening the door for unconventional leading men throughout the 1970s. With a pop-song score written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel bolstering its contemporary appeal, The Graduate opened to rave reviews in December 1967 and surpassed all commercial expectations. It became the top-grossing film of 1968 and was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress, with Nichols winning Best Director. Together with Bonnie and Clyde, it stands as one of the most influential films of the late '60s, as its mordant dissection of the generation gap helped lead the way to the youth-oriented Hollywood artistic "renaissance" of the early '70s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, (more)
- 1966
John Ford's final film is set in China in 1935, where a group of American women, led by Agatha Andrews (Margaret Leighton), work as missionaries. One of the women, Florrie (Betty Field), is pregnant and accompanied by her husband, Charles (Eddie Albert), while the others are single and on their own. The mission has become crowded after a cholera epidemic forced several outsiders to flee a nearby British mission and seek shelter with the American group, while a Mongol warrior, Tunga Khan (Mike Mazurki), has assembled troops who are sacking the area. When a female doctor, Dr. D.L. Cartwright (Anne Bancroft), enters the picture, she attempts to bring humor and civility to the group, but her tough yet compassionate nature clashes with Agatha's by-the-book approach, and when Cartwright is willing to put her own safety at risk to gain the attentions of Tunga Khan and slow his onslaught, the group is strongly divided -- most of the women admire the doctor's bravery, but Agatha (who seems to have a non-professional interest in Cartwright herself) considers her foolish and reckless. Seven Women was originally planned to star Patricia Neal as Dr. Cartwright, but when she suffered a stroke during filming that put her acting career on hold for several years, Anne Bancroft was recast in the role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Sue Lyon, (more)
