1964 - THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT, a good film about adolescent girls

A charming film about a couple of adolescent girls caught up in a crush on a concert pianist played by a rather restrained Peter Sellers for a change.  This is a rare film that focuses on the kids rather than the adults who seem to have made a mess out of their own lives.  The director George Roy Hill did an excellent job handling the girls played by Merrie Spaeth (who grew up to become a Republican party hack) and Tippy Walker (who ended up involved in a year long affair with the 44 year George Roy Hill during her senior year in high school).  

The rest of the cast is pretty darn good.  Paula Prentiss a comedian who I guess had a decent career, is a married woman contemplating an affair with Sellers. Phyllis Thaxter plays Spaeth's divorced mother.  Tom Bosley and Angela Lansbury are the parents of Tippy Walker who have a very troubled marriage.  Lansbury was at this point in her career where she played a lot of bitchy and at times nasty women.  She's essentially the villain in this film.

It would be interesting to know how Peter Sellers ended up in this film.  For a big "ham" like him it's basically a supporting role. But even in a smaller part he's still a master of accents, he's definitely got the NYC sound down.

 

The film appears to have been mostly filmed in New York City.  It does seem to have a feeling for what it's like to be an adolescent girl growing up with some very flawed parents.  The film was written by Nora Johnson the daughter of veteran screenwriter Nunnally Johnson who contributed to the screenplay.  Dare I say Nora Johnson's female perspective probably contributed to the tone of this enjoyable film.

The film runs 106 minutes.

1969 - BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID - a slick film

 20th Century Fox's big hit.  It was directed by George Roy Hill a fairly decent director.  William Goldman wrote the script which he sold for $400,000 dollars, one of the highest paid scripts at the time.

The film is supposed to be the story of two real life bank robbers and it sort of follows the facts of their lives. Goldman added a lot of humor to the story and at times the film has a real case of the cutes.

Paul Newman mugs shamelessly, Robert Redford finally becomes a leading man in Hollywood and Katherine Ross looks pretty but doesn't really make an impression as Etta Place, who is playing the Sundance Kid's girlfriend.

 

All and all this is a very slick film extremely well made and kind of heartless.  Everyone is having so much fun goofing on this story that maybe a little more substance would have been nice.  Still the film does have a lot of the entertainment qualities that made it an audience favorite back in the late 60's

Running time 110 minutes.

1972 - SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, giving it the old college try.

Since George Roy Hill's previous film had been Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and had made a lot of money, it probably gave him the clout to take a shot at a Vonnegut novel,  Slaughterhouse Five.

The story follows the protagonist Billy Pilgrim as he relives his life which includes the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, his infatuation with a porn star, and his life on a planet named Trafalmadore, in a non sequential timeline.

I have to give the filmmakers credit considering all the jumping back in forth in time from scene to scene, they did a very good job of keeping the focus of the film on the personal journey of Billy Pilgrim.

Editing is everything in a film like this since it is extremely important to keep all the various film threads clear so the audience  can  follow the overall Vonngeut theme of how fate affects mankind.

The cast is mostly character actors for a change, no major star to take the focus off of the story.  Parts of the film were shot in my home state of Minnesota (the winter parts naturally).

Slaughterhouse Five is probably not a film that would appeal to everyone and I doubt a major studio, much less Universal Studios when even consider making a film from a book by a writer as cultish as Kurt Vonnegut in the present Hollywood environment.

Slaughterhouse Five is a more than decent attempt to make a though provoking film out of a novel that probably had a specialized following at best.  Apparently Vonnegut was pleased with the adaptation of his book.

104 minutes. written by Stephen Geller.