The Great Gatsby (1974)

Nicolson as Gatsby? NO.

I love this movie. Redford, Farrow and Waterston are perfect,

Fuck you OP.

I liked it when it came out. Redford was gorgeous. Farrow captured Daisy's essential callowness so well—an aspect of the character missing from many interpretations.

Alec Baldwin and his wife are like Tom and Daisy Buchanan: They come in and destroy things and then retreat behind their money. Instead of Daisy mowing down Tom's mistress, Baldwin shoots and kills the "Rust" camerawoman.

The only problem I really had was the casting of Jordan and Tom's mistress. They looked too much alike. At times, it was too tough to tell them apart. I think Jordan could've been replaced by a blonde.

R4 That's a very long reach you got going on there.

Brooke Adams is an extra in one of the party scenes. The camera moves down a long table of guests and then you think, “Oh, that’s Brooke Adams!”

Waterston never seemed particularly heterosexual to me.

I saw it for the first time on TCM last week. Sam Waterston was quite fuckable back then. The movie wasn't the trainwreck I thought it would be and the cast was great.

Lois Chiles did a series of high profile movies in the 1970s before people noticed she could barely act.

I watched it last night too but found it kind of airless and dull. I was struck by how handsome I thought Sam Waterston was, though his looks weren’t conventionally attractive. I thought he, Dern and Wilson gave good, direct performances, but Farrow and Black were self-conscious and prone to over-doing their scenes. And the extras in the party scenes acted like extras appearing in a madcap1920s party scene instead of people having fun in a period that happened to be the 1920s. Those scenes of supposed glamour seemed tacky more than anything else, but maybe that was the point.

Redford was at the height of his beauty but I’ve never considered him a very interesting or powerful actor and he isn’t here. I never believe his yearning for Daisy, he’s always too inscrutable and never seems vulnerable, just hesitant. He has the elusiveness of Gatsby down but not the naivete and deep emotion.

The whole thing felt dead and muffled despite the opulence. On balance, I prefer the Baz Luhrmann version from 2013.

People noticed very quickly Lois Chiles couldn’t act but she was beautiful, had a husky voive and was apparently pleasant and easy to work with so she got a few jobs trading on her looks after this, but nothing major. She’s perfect as Lynette Ridgeway in “Death on the Nile.”

She was smart enough to get out of the business and marry the wealthy Richard Gilder, a stockbroker and philanthropist — their names are all over the New York Historical Society. Gilder died in 2020, and she has kept a tastefully low profile since, though she is reportedly an artist shuttling between NYC and Houston. And per Wikipedia, she has given acting lessons, if you can believe that. Maybe she tutors beautiful daughters of the rich in elocution.

Redford sexy? HA!

The darker hair Redford had in this movie is close to his REAL color. The blond stuff came out of a bottle.

R13 - Babs Brolin

R15 = Robert Redford’s ugly German wife

Lean, dark Sam Waterston might have made a good Gatsby. You can believe that, no matter how polished his exterior, he might be a gangster, and someone with intense passions.

I the casting was spot on with the exception of the always “extra” Karen Black and the always inscrutable Robert Redford.

Dern and Waterson were the best.

Lois Chiles expected to be cast as Daisy and flipped out in anger when she wound up as the golf cheat Jordan (which is still a great role!).

I remember this from a thread about Robert Evans’ book, The Kid Stays in the Picture, but I can’t find it now. Does anyone remember the details?

Maggie/Josette from Dark Shadows also had a small part in the mistress's apartment scene. I love this movie. I thought the Leo version was shit. All flash and no substance and didn't like Gyllenhaal as Nick or that other one who played Daisy.

Tobey Maguire was Nick! Opposite Elizabeth Debicki (excellent) as Jordan.

Carey Mulligan was Daisy, and she was very dull. Mia Farrow’s inherent oddness and fragility with a hard metallic core made her much better casting.

I was such a weird movie kid. While my friends were all out playing I was in a movie theater watching films none of them wanted to see.Costa-Gavras' "Z" at eight years old by myself at a Saturday matinee. I saw Gatsby three times. Of course it was before VCRs and cable wasn't mainstream yet so if you liked a movie you had to go to the theater to see it again.

[quote]Redford sexy? HA!

You betcha.

Agree that this is a much better film than the 2013 Baz Luhrmann debacle.

Redford’s natural hair color was closer to red than blond, but a Hollywood law had it that women didn’t like redheads, so natural redheads like Danny Kaye and Redford had their hair dyed blonde until age naturally dulled the color. Now Redford walks around woth his hair a weird dark auburn. I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling at 88.

And when you see him in his big hits from the ‘70s and ‘80s, it’s so obvious he’s a bottle blond, it’s ridiculous that no critics remarked on it. It proves that his withholding Don’t Look At Me routine was a cover for his intense vanity and self-seriousness.

Lois Chiles was quite good in her brief role in Broadcast News.

Karen Black won the Golden Globe but was surprisingly snubbed for the oscar. A rare instance where only one Globe nominee went on to be nominated for an oscar, (though Madeline would be nominated for her role in Blazing Saddles).

Karen Black – The Great Gatsby as Myrtle Wilson

Beatrice Arthur – Mame as Vera Charles

Jennifer Jones – The Towering Inferno as Lisolette Mueller

Madeline Kahn – Young Frankenstein as Elizabeth

Diane Ladd – Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore as Flo Castleberry

Karen Black was terrible in “The Great Gatsby,” chewed the scenery and mostly in closeup, which made her performance look even worse. She was probably nice to the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press and posed for individual photos with each member. That’s about all it took to get a nomination then.

I blame director Jack Clayton for his uninspired direction. And for a man who was one of the most talented Technicolor cinematographers in the history of movies, the images in this are often muddy, soft and the color design doesn’t pop at all.

[quote]R26 Lois Chiles was quite good in her brief role in Broadcast News.

Yes, well, that was almost a decade and a half later, and luckily she’d enrolled in Roy London’s acting class.

She’s interviewed for this - that might be her doing the voice over

There’s a heartless fashion model in Judith Krantz’s 1978 novel SCRUPLES who’s described as “killingly beautiful.” I always imagined Ms. Chiles as that character.

Lois Chiles spent most of her career being William Paley's mistress.

This movie is about clothes, or should I say wardrobe. Beautiful wardrobe.

Robert Redford is totally miscast in this movie because is is incapable of conveying emotion. He's never good with women on anything but the most superficial, they should have known that. Nice clothes, though.

Mia Farrow is actually pretty good as the flighty Daisy. She and Redford make absolutely no connection at all, as if they were filmed separately and spliced together.

Bruce Dern is an actor I've always felt a bit sorry for because he was usually stuck in edgy psycho roles. I really liked him in romantic comedy - in Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot.

What really makes me hate this movie is the hair on the men. Totally wrong, not close to the way men really wore it at the time its supposed to take place.

Loved Dern in Silent Running.

Good God, this film was dull. I've never made it through the whole thing.

[quote]I saw it for the first time on TCM last week. Sam Waterston was quite fuckable back then. The movie wasn't the trainwreck I thought it would be and the cast was great.

This is exactly what I said above. I can't believe how sexy and fuckable Waterston was in the movie, with such an understated, quiet performance. He said so much with his eyes and facial expressions, more than scripted words could say. He deserved an Oscar nomination.

[quote]Mia Farrow is actually pretty good as the flighty Daisy. She and Redford make absolutely no connection at all, as if they were filmed separately and spliced together.

When the movie was panned by critics, this is one of the things they pointed to - no chemistry between the two stars. Farrow admitted this was true, and blamed Redford. She said he was very cold and distant towards her off-camera, so they never got to know each other on a personal level. He would retreat to his trailer and watch the coverage of the Watergate investigation which was unfolding at the time, instead of mingling with the cast and crew. Of course, his next movie was 'All the President's Men'.

[quote]I think Jordan could've been replaced by a blonde.

No! Chiles was perfect in this role, as was her wardrobe. I think the book describes Jordan as being all in the colors of autumn leaves.

Not true, R36. There were two movies before All the President's Men - a stupid film about plane wing walking called The Great Waldo Pepper that came out in 1975, also Three Days of the Condor. In Condor, Redford has the same problem with DL fave Faye Dunaway as he had with Mia Farrow - no chemistry at all, he seems to have very little real interest. In some movies, Jane Fonda or Barbra Streisand can provoke feelings out of Redford, but it's mostly them doing all the work, he phones it in. As Jane Fonda said after their last collaboration, he has a problem with women.

I liked Jordan Chiles in this movie.....and I loved the music. I only wish they had somehow been able to use the final words of the novel:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

OP, I think it followed the novel pretty closely.

Lois Chiles stopped acting when she married Wall Street financer Richard Gilder.

When he passed, she moved back to her native Houston.

I didn’t hate the Paul Rudd/Mira Sorvino version (ducks).

Passed what?

Now Redford walks around with a haystack wig on his head...

Don’t think he can walk anymore, R44.

Redford presents hole at r23!!! 😃

Mia’s wig always troubled me in this film. Party City?

The music! I forgot how cornball all the Myrtle musical cues are — so old-fashioned and melodramatic.

R25, DL favorite Pauline Kael wrote in her review of The Sting that Redford had gone beyond platinum blonde into ——- a word I can’t recall. A little help Paulinettes?

[quote]R47 Mia’s wig always troubled me in this film. Party City?

She wrote in her memoir she hated that wig, calling it “stiff.”

Plutonium. And he looked great with plutonium hair.

I watch this film on mute. I find it visually stunning, but I care not for the film itself. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books, but it never seems to translate well to the screen. This 70s version is such a beautiful production though, from the fashions (as mentioned) to the cinematography to the cars (classic car collector) to the mansions, the set design and on and on. I love to view it, but that's all.

The Baz Luhrmann treatment looks like a hooker's visual recounting of a recent acid trip. I suppose his motto is: More is more.

R52 Baz's take would've been a LOT better if they didn't use that terrible anachronistic soundtrack. Aside from the DH Orchestral Version of Lana del Rey's Young and Beautiful, the whole thing sounds like shit.

[quote] (the 2.5 hours fly by).

Said no one ever.

R40 Many thought too closely.

I remember it was widely reported that Mia Farrow had a temperature (the flu?) when she tested for Daisy.

Seeing this in 1974, at the beach where we went on vacation (either shortly before or after seeing Mame, at the same theater), I remember people laughed at some of the wrong places. Maybe since it's now an "old movie," an old movie that is set in an even older time period, it doesn't provoke the same reactions. It seemed, at the time, pretentious and slightly unreal--and overacted by some of the cast. As well as slow and dull. But then the seats in that old barn of a theater were wooden, with no padding.

This is another film almost ruined by Redford. He’s so stiff and delivers lines like set pieces. He’s awful in Out of Africa and not much better in The Way We Were. Bryant Brown should been opposite Streep in “Africa”. Redford is much more talented as a director and producer. There are exceptions when he’s carefully cast (Butch Cassidy).

I liked Redford in Barefoot in the Park. He was funny. Later (like Gregory Peck) he seemed to just get more and more wooden.

Redford character in Barefoot in the Park = stuffed shirt

Perfect casting.

Redford was an LA kid who surfed at Hermosa Beach. Skipped school a lot, and I think was known for doing some dangerous stunts with his buddies. Not sure he was a stuffed shirt, even though he played one on Broadway and in the movies.

Robert Redford #1 Bleached redhead:

Robert Redford #1 Plutonium blond

Redford was always ghastly.

And, him winninng the directing Oscar over Scorsese was ludicrous. Ordinary People is a fine movie but it's a well cast Lifetime movie with a budget.

Buck would have never called Ordinary People a Lifetime movie!

There was no such thing as a Lifetime movie when OP was released. So Lifetime movies are just low rent versions of “Ordinary People”.

Robert Redford was originally offered the role of Guy in ROSEMARY’S BABY.

It would have been very creepy to have someone so wholesome looking playing a villain.

[quote]Redford was always ghastly.

R63 = Gloria Upson

[quote]Skipped school a lot, and I think was known for doing some dangerous stunts with his buddies

Where did you get that info, R60? Redford was known for being a drunk, not a surfer. He was kicked out of college for his drinking.

What the heck did Beatty and Nicholson have against Ali McGraw?

R68 I got it from the Hermosa Beach Daily Breeze newspaper, covering an appearance he made there.

I don't really understand the comment that he wasn't a surfer, he was a drunk. How are those two things related? He was too drunk to surf?

The article in question.

I liked Farrow, Chiles and Black. Even as a kid I enjoyed watching them. Redford being blond was was good. He was OK. Gatsby is cipher so that works. One of the points of the novel is that nobody really knows Gatsby and we get to understand him as much as possible from everyone's different interactions. Any one character cannot know Gatsby because he is deeply inauthentic but touched by grace, and allure.

Redford darkened his hair to play Gatsby, if that hasn't already been mentioned. It was publicized a lot at the time. (And I'm old enough to remember it was a big deal.)

Some of the ties and the lapels (and maybe the collars) were too wide for the 1920s. They were wide in the 1970s.

R70 = dumb as a shrub

R73, dear, Redford skipped some of his bleaching sessions and let them do auburn for Gatsby. What was written at the time was PR. I’m old enough to remember too.

AI Overview

Yes, Robert Redford was known to have surfed during his high school years in Southern California

He grew up in and around Los Angeles and spent his teen years surfing.

.Details:

He is reported to have learned how to surf in Hermosa Beach.

He surfed and engaged in other sports like climbing high-rise buildings during his high school years.

He was also described as having lugged a 40-pound wooden surfboard up and down the cliffs of San Onofre.

Redford also prodcued the surf doc, Momentum Generation (2018). I'd say he had some interest in the sport.

[quote]R69 What the heck did Beatty and Nicholson have against Ali McGraw?

The fact that, while a box office star thanks to LOVE STORY, she had the acting ability of a tree stump?

[quote] And, him winninng the directing Oscar over Scorsese was ludicrous. Ordinary People is a fine movie but it's a well cast Lifetime movie with a budget.

“Lifetime movie” is code for feminine, as opposed to the masculine Raging Bull, about monosyllabic morons.

How is Ordinary People feminine? Because it's about a family?

Ordinary People reads as feminine because it’s domestic and about emotional frigidity; that’s why (male) critics have spent decades tarring it with phrases like “Lifetime movie”.

It has three major male characters and only one main female character, but okay.

Chiles was fine but imagine how much better Angelica Huston would have been in that part.

There needs to be an Epstein reboot of this classic

I've heard of this Israeli intelligence-agent child-rapist & trafficker cum elite-financier as a "Gatsby-like" figure so many times.

I want to see this movie

I know they needed a 'name star' for Daisy when the movie was going to be made, hence they were looking at the more popular women at the time: Ali Macgraw, Candice Bergen, Katharine Ross, Tyesday Weld (and I'm satisfied with Farrow - could never imagine any of the others).

Watching the movie, I couldn't help think if Donna Mills would've been a good choice ? She had grabbed a lot of attention opposite Clint Eastwood in 'Play Misty for Me' back then, and she was on daytime TV ('The Secret Storm') and breaking into prime time. Opposite Redford, playing the wealthy young lady, she could've been really good in this (IMO).

R28 I think you are getting Jack Clayton mixed up with the Technicolor master cinematographer Jack Cardiff (easy to do).

I don't remember Tuesday Weld being a big box office draw in that period. She was always well known, she was definitely working in some decent projects. Well-respected actress, but about on the same level as Farrow.

Why didn’t Sam Waterston have a bigger film career?

[quote]I don't remember Tuesday Weld being a big box office draw in that period. She was always well known, she was definitely working in some decent projects. Well-respected actress, but about on the same level as Farrow.

And Donna Mills (!) wasn't even on the same level as Tuesday Weld.

Just to give you an idea of what was going on at the time of the film's release (at least in New York):

[quote] Victim of its own publicity overkill, “The Great Gatsby” has become the movie to hate. Slaughtered by the critics, the film is also being insulted in the subways: “this movie stinks,” and less flattering evaluations, are scribbled on many of the ads. The picture has been dismissed as a desecration of a great American novel; it's been damned as insensitive, numbingly reverential, ludicrously miscast, stultifyingly dull.

That's the opening of a positive re-evaluation by Foster Hirsch, in the NY Times, following Vincent Canby's mixed, mostly negative review.

Sam Waterston was considered primarily an actor in theater, not the movies.

Waterston got a great review from Vincent Canby in the NYT

Waterston is more of a character actor in film. He's be dull as a leading man--a sort of lower voltage Gregory Peck.

MacGraw had no acting ability. You could say the same about Bergen at that point. Ross never made much of an impression. Weld would have been more interesting than Farrow.

Every adaptation has ptretty much failed on on its own terms. It’s a hard novel to nail down in a visual medium.

Waterson = too ugly to be a movie star of any kind

[quote] He's be dull as a leading man--a sort of lower voltage Gregory Peck.

Waterson was staid, but he was never wooden as Gregory Prck could sometimes be.

R20 Gyllenhaal didn't appear in the Leo Gatsby movie. Personally I preferred Leo's Gatsby. I like the colors and the energy, and the cast. Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, and Elizabeth Debicki were excellent. I've never been a Tobey Maguire fan, but he made it work, and Leo and Carrie Mulligan was perfect for Daisy and Gatsby. Sumptuous costumes and sets and the music worked! those party scenes were spectacular.

It would have been interesting if Beatty had been cast as Jay instead of Redford. And later DiCaprio. They looked like gleaming golden Hollywood gods. Jay Gatsby as a tacky Jewish criminal in a silver suit and a gold tie who thinks he looks like Leo and Redford is more interesting.

Gatsby (Gatz) was from North Dakota, a German farm community, he wasn't Jewish.

I’d be more sympathetic to Beatty and Nicholson judging McGraw’s acting ability if they didn’t also each possess an acting range that stretches all the way from 0 to 1

Tuesday Weld was very active in the 60s, establishing herself as a very serious dramatic actress. In the early 70s, when they were casting 'Daisy', she was already in three movies - 'I Walk The Line' (1970), 'A Safe Place' (1971), and 'Play It As It Lays' (1972). She got a 1973 Golden Globe nomination for 'Best Actress' for 1972's "Play It As It Lays". So yes, they took notice of her and audiences knew her.

What about Julie Christie for the Daisy role? Would she have been too old at that point?

I'm surprised they didn't ask Barbra Streisand to reunite with Redford on this !

R100, yes, Warren Beatty is an extremely limited actor. But if Warren is a C, Ali MacGraw is an F minus to the tenth power. Nicholson is much better, but completely wrong for Gatsby.

R103, Streisand would never done it if offered. She was preparing to act in the classic comedy, For Pete’s Sake.

Tuesday was the *first* Lylah Clare.

[quote]R87 I don't remember Tuesday Weld being a big box office draw in that period. She was always well known, she was definitely working in some decent projects.

Weld was always at the top of producers’ lists when they were looking for a pretty blonde. Decisions in Hollywood were made by men, and they’d all fallen in lust with her when she did the popular TV series “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” as a teen. She really had it all - traditional good looks with an offbeat personality, plus actual talent.

However, Weld was a conflicted person with mixed feelings about Hollywood and stardom (not to mention her leech of a stage mother) and for the next 20 years she turned down hit after hit - Lolita, Bonnie & Clyde, The Stepford Wives, True Grit, Rosemary’s Baby, Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice, Norma Rae, Poltergeist, Roman Polanski’s Macbeth… even The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Producers never stopped hoping they’d be the champion to unleash her in a huge hit and crown her a Box Office queen… but she thwarted their dreams. Unless she writes a book, we’ll never know what was really going on with her.

She seemed to disappear until her supporting role in Looking for Mr Goodbar, but my memory is faulty.

Tuesday Weld read as a DAME, a MOLL by the 1970s. She may have been a good Myrtle.

Honestly, Mia was fine. She was more than fine. Compare her acting in the scene where Daisy admits that she did in fact love Tom. I bought that her Daisy and Dern’s Tom had lived through shit together, and had a genuine connection.

A more interesting thought is who would be a better Jay and a better Myrtle.

You’re right! Weld would have been a GREAT Myrtle!

Incidentally, I’m remembering that Weld played Zelda Fitzgerald on TV a few years after THE GREAT GATSBY. She got good reviews.

NY Times: [italic]”What would Fitzgerald think of the movie as biography? (It is fairly accurate.) And I don't mean: What would he think of the acting? (Tuesday Weld as Zelda seems to me to steal the picture.)”

Were any of you around in 1974? Tuesday Weld was more or less a has been by that time.

“Has been”? A few years later she was nominated for an Oscar.

So?

She was never a has been, because she was so sporadic in her appearances - but she was always a name...one solely reserved by her.

R101 Right, but she wasn't a big movie star. Neither was Mia Farrow. They were both well known, but not big box office or getting offered the big movies.

R111 Yes, I was around then, and Tuesday was indeed considered (by the public, anyway) sort of a has-been. A name from the '60s. The Oscar nom was sort of a comeback. The year she didn't do Gatsby, 1974, she was in a TV movie. (The following year, she played Zelda Fitzgerald in another TV movie.) She wasn't an in-demand star who was doing all the big movie roles.

*And Farrow was also considered a has-been. (She was working, on stage and elsewhere, but she was not a big movie star at all. She was considered something of a surprising choice to play opposite Redford in one of the biggest films of the year.)

1974 was also the year That's Entertainment! came out, and was a top 10 hit. It has been credited with starting the nostalgia craze.

I mention it because I don't think a lot of people understand there wasn't a lot of nostalgia for the past before this. Unlike today, pop culture trends came and went fast, and in 1974 what people thought was fashionable in 1966 or '67 was already old. Including some of the stars from just a few years ago. That's how it used to be. In the early 70s we watched movies on TV from only 15 or 20 years ago (the '50s) and the fashions, music, and movies were like they were from another planet. That's just not as true today.

I don't think Mia was considered a has been but she was certainly seen as a kook.

A Star, but a kooky one who had odd relationships (Frank Sinatra, Andre Previn), and dabbled in guru shit in India, and had/adopted tons of kids.

She didn't seem to care. She did films here and there and theater and played "earth mama".

It suited her.

[quote]I’d be more sympathetic to Beatty and Nicholson judging McGraw’s acting ability if they didn’t also each possess an acting range that stretches all the way from 0 to 1.

They also probably didn't want to play second fiddle to The Producer's Wife.

Mia was a kook who'd had her day. In a very different way, so was Weld. Farrow needed a more charismatic leading man than Redford. Still, he was prettier than her.

I was born in 1959 and I remember Mia as r116 describes her. Not a hasbeen yet but fragile and eccentric. The Sinatra marriage was a huge tabloid story She was seen as what we might now call a hot mess. Sinatra was a dirty old man with so many winks and nudges.

R119 Well--after Peyton Place she did a couple of films, had a success with Rosemary's Baby, in '68, then screwed up appearing in True Grit by asking that Hal Wallis replace the director, Henry Hathaway. She then did Secret Ceremony and John and Mary with Hoffman (both '69)...I think she was off the big screen for five years when Gatsby came out. Maybe has-been is not the right word but other than Rosemary, she really hadn't been a big movie lead and the public was not seeing her on screen regularly. She seemed like a name from the past, to me.

After Gatsby, she played supporting or ensemble roles in Altman's A Wedding, a couple of disaster films, Avalanche, and Hurricane (which was a bomb), Death on the Nile...(also Peter Pan on TV with Danny Kaye, that didn't make anyone forget Mary Martin).

It was only when she started working with Woody Allen that she began starring in movies again regularly, and if it hadn't been for Woody, her second wave of stardom would never have happened.

R119, were you alive at the time or just guessing? Mia - the Mia character we knew from Peyton Place and Rosemary’s Baby - was just a memory by 1973. I was quite shocked that she got the job in Gatsby.

[quote] Mia - the Mia character we knew from Peyton Place and Rosemary’s Baby - was just a memory by 1973. I was quite shocked that she got the job in Gatsby.

Exactly.

Mia made history by being on the very first cover of the premiere issue of 'People' magazine on March 4,1974. There was a cover story to promote the movie dubbed 'the year's next big movie'), and it focused on her. She was stunningly beautiful. The magazine was 35 cents and 72 pages (all in B&W) long.

Mia is bitch.

I only knew of Tuesday Weld as a vague name from the past until Girlfriend came out in 91 - one of the sexiest album covers of that era.

Hey Tuesday Wednesday, whatcha doin' on Saturday?

Tuesday Wednesday

Hey Tuesday--see you next Tuesday.

Uh, no...Mia was still very much a "name". And, she wasn't "off the screen" for years. She did some odd films including "See No Evil" the creepy thriller where she's a blind girl being stalked in the English countryside. It was one of those films that was always popping up on the Late Late Show.

She was also busy breaking up Andre Previn's marriage, then getting knocked up and marrying him, all of which was much covered by the press. She did theater in London and some other films. She didn't "vanish" and she wasn't a hasbeen.

Now, the dismal failure OF Gatsby certainly didn't help her leading lady career but Mia never seemed to have been that interested in having that kind of career. She liked doing theater and having a huge family and making films here and there to pay for that huge family.

She really was/is a nut.

[quote](also Peter Pan on TV with Danny Kaye, that didn't make anyone forget Mary Martin).

Miscast Danny Kaye certainly didn't make me forget the delightful Cyril Ritchard,

[quote]Now, the dismal failure OF Gatsby certainly didn't help her leading lady career but Mia never seemed to have been that interested in having that kind of career.

TGG was nowhere near 'a dismal failure'. It was a box office hit, taking in nearly 4 times its budget. It was in the TOP 20 of all movies released in 1974. It scored Oscar nominations. Many actors and actresses would love to be part of that kind of 'dismal failure'.

It’s considered a failure. It had been the most commercial hyped film of the year.

What it's 'considered' and what are actual facts are two very different things.

Farrow really captured Daisy's silken, shallow diabolicality. I thought she was the best thing about the 74 movie.

That said, I'm one of the few who enjoyed Baz Lurhmann's "The Great Gatsby" movie, probably because I finally got around to reading the novel a couple of years before his movie came out.

I was dialed in to what Luhrmann was going for.

In the industry’s history, it’s an acknowledged failure.

That’s enough, R138.

I mentioned this before so I'll mention it again ...

I remember when this movie was being filmed in Newport in the summer of 1973. At the time, a new Sheraton hotel had opened in Newport, RI a few years earlier, on a smaller island called 'Goat Island'. In it's early days, the hotel would sell 'summer passes' to families to spend the day by the pool, and have a complimentary lunch (I believe they had hot dogs, hamburgers, and salads set up). They wanted to generate publicity as much as they could since this was one of the first 'resort' hotels in the area.

While we were there that summer, the cast and crew from TGG was staying there. When they weren't needed on the set, they would come back to the hotel. Most of them gathered under a tent not too far from the guests enjoying the pool, but they didn't really mingle with the guests (and no one bothered them back then). I distinctly remember Redford walking around with no shirt on and just a pair of shorts. I was 9 years old, and think I knew I was gay staring at his beautiful hairy chest and legs. He was gorgeous. He used to wave to his fans and wink and smile at us 'children' in the shallow end of the pool. I remember Farrow did the same - every now and then leave the tent and wave to everyone and smile at us children - she was beautiful, and always dresses in flowing white dresses and big hats (I know now she was pregnant, so she was never in a bathing suit). After seeing the movie this weekend, I wish my 9 year old self paid attention to Sam Waterston, too !

TRIVIA: All the male 'extras' in the big party scenes dancing away were actually guys from the nearby naval bases. The women were mostly wives and girlfriends.

I remember seeing Gatsby in the theaters in '74 and wondering who the hell would pine for bug-eyed Mia Farrow for 10 years? Of course, only Ali MacGraw would have been worse. But when she walked out on Robert Evans, Ali also walked out on the role of Daisy. I wonder if Faye Dunaway was considered?

Faye's fate has been mentioned.

Though beautiful and a southerner, Dunaway was too steely and wised-up to play Daisy, who intially must seem fragile. Farrow had that.

Young major movie stars weren't doing TV in the 1970s. Mia did the TV movie, Goodbye, Raggedy Ann, in 1970-something (wait, I'll look it up)...1971. (it gets a 5.8 on IMDB). She was in the British films, See No Evil (1972) (6.6), and The Public Eye (1972) (6.9), co-starring Topol, directed by Carol Reed.

Nobody is suggesting she wasn't a familiar name. But the truth is she hadn't starred in a big American film for 4 or 5 years. Most of the big box office stars at the time were male. In '73-'74, Redford, Newman, John Wayne, Burt Reynolds, Eastwood, etc.

Streisand, was in the top 10, but otherwise it was Ali McGraw, Goldie Hawn, Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli...you can see why Farrow was cast, because there wasn't anyone else right for it (some said she wasn't, either)...but that doesn't mean she was a big star at the time.

^ TRUTH about Mia Farrow. I didn’t even recognize her, she let herself go “natural” and looked like shit in that British movie where she played blind. Mia was only a star on the cover of Modern Screen at the newsstand while pregnant.

[quote]I've never been a Tobey Maguire fan, but he made it work

Isn't Nick supposed to be YOUNG and naive being brought into this rich man's world? Maguire was way too old.

She peddaled her pregnant puss around for the paps.

Did Maguire get the part because of DiCaprio?

Both Leo and Tobey were too old for their roles, as the characters were around 30.

Didn’t something come out about Tobey being a total demon during the shooting of a film? I can’t remember which one.

His whole shtick got old for me several decades ago.

Redford and DiCaprio were both 38. Maybe Gatsby is around 32, it's not that significant.

Alan Ladd was 35 or 36 in the rarely-seen 1940s version.

Redford looked at least 10 years older than he actually was.

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be--will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we----"

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California--" began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and----" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. "--and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization--oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.

Tom and Daisy would be celebrating ICE today

R156 You don't see Daisy's comment as ironic? I saw it that way when I was 17.

She’s literally winking, r156.

If Tuesday Weld had married the son of Fredric March she would have been Tuesday March The Second.

I think you've mis-read the character, of Daisy, R156.

I get that she would have been Tuesday March, but why The Second?

This thread has accomplished a miracle that I am about to destroy: over 150 replies and no one has said “Mia is bitch” yet

See R127 for a cold awakening.

So, what about Lois Chiles?

What about her? We’ve already discussed her quite thoroughly. Read the thread.

Has anyone mentioned Howard Da Silva?

R95 blasphemy!

Anyone have a problem with the vocals on the movie's songs? ENDLESS and pounding "meaning" into the audience.

Vincent Canby noted that the songs of the time, the records, were mostly small-band recordings, which was true...and the songs would have been played live by a smallish band. But Nelson Riddle's orchestrations are lush and full-orchestra.

The music used for The Sting - Scott Joplin ragtime - was popular 20 years before the movie took place, but it was well adapted and worked for the movie. In reality, the big bands were popular at the time The Sting was supposed have happened, late 1930s.

It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, or even 10% accurate. But it has to work without boring you into unconsciousness.

R170 I think he meant the diagetic music.

R170 The novel takes place in the summer of 1922. At that time, bands had 7 or 8 musicians. But the music they're all dancing to on the soundtrack at Gatsby's parties sounds more like the later, bigger bands of the '20s, Whiteman, for ex.

(Maybe not that big, but not a small ensemble.)

[quote]Whiteman

Whiteman in the earlier era had an much smaller band (1921):

[quote]Whiteman in the earlier era had an much smaller band (1921):

And a much smaller waistline, r175.

[quote]"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and----" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again.

What was the pause for? Are we supposed to think that Daisy and Nick might be Jewish?

This movie goes from one dull plot point to the next with nothing else but clothes. I admit Waterston is perfect but that's it. The book is gossamer, ineffable wanting and longing. Practicably impossible to put into dramatic form without losing its beauty like the ending quoted above. The only directors I can imagine making a film out of it were possibly Jean Renoir, Rene Clair or Max Ophuls. People who could make movies out of barely perceptible deep aching desire for what will always be just out of reach.

This movie is a block of concrete.

This is quite a coincidence…earlier today before I saw this post I watched a short documentary on the origin of the story. It was inspired by Fitzgerald’s college girlfriend from a very wealthy family in Lake Forest, IL—not New York. According to doc that’s when Fitzgerald became obsessed with the rich. Also, he overheard her father saying about Fitzgerald, “Poor boys shouldn’t marry rich girls” —a statement that made it into the book.

R177 Tom and Daisy were fucking with each other.

WTF???

[quote]R164 So, what about Lois Chiles?

[quote]R165 What about her? We’ve already discussed her quite thoroughly. Read the thread.

You know, I am suddenly remembering I actually read a good review she got once. It was in the Village Voice and they said her performance as a creepy children’s show host was effective.

[quote]R178 I admit Waterston is perfect but that's it.

Scott Wilson is also a wonderful, very believable actor but his role is small [bold]: (

Howard Da Silva and Edward Herrmann were pretty decent too.

Yes those are very good actors especially Wilson. But the leads except for Waterston don't getting withing hailing distance of their characters on the page. But could anybody? They almost seem uncapturable. As if they were dreamlike. And the direction is as if Clayton never read the book just some mediocre screenplay. Oh I get to direct attractive actors in great clothes, in great mansions and stage what I think of as some big jazz age parties with a big fat budget. The director wears army boots.

...DL fave Shelley Winters was cast as Myrtle in the '49 version, where she gets run over by sour puss Betty Field's Daisy! Shelley goes big in her big scene here...

Like I said, every version has failed on its own terms. Many great novels make for bad movies.

Do they ever show the versions pre-1974 ? I've never seen them listed on TCM or other cable stations. Were they not as well-received ?

They all failed! ^^

LOVE Betty Field!

So, what about Lois Chiles?

She’s fine, R191. She sends her love.

I remember her from that James Bond film with Roger Moore, or was it Sean Connery?

Ruth Hussey played the Lois Chiles role in '49.

Hollywood's never gotten "Gatsby" right. If they had made an all-star version in the '50s, Ava Gardner would have made a great Jordan.

The best version of Gatsby i ever saw was the theatrical production Gatz

Lois Chiles really was a good actress and a beauty

R195 Ava as a golfer? Nah

Ava as Daisy, Cyd Charisse as Jordan.

Didn’t even have an Instagram account. Not so great.

Gwyneth and Chloe sevigney would have been a good daisy/.Jordan combo in the 90s

Lois Chiles needs a comeback!

Now that it's a hit, will they make a movie version of the musical or tape it like "Hamilton" and Newsies".

“Tape it”? Okay, R203.

Also, what does your comment have to do with The Great Gatsby?

[quote]Also, what does your comment have to do with The Great Gatsby?

Why, I have no idea.

That doesn’t explain your use of the phrase, “tape it” Grandma.

I waited on Lois Chiles in 84 in Gramercy Park. She lived near the restaurant. She was still quite stunning and tall. She came in late for lunch with her agent or manager. She was very nice and reserved and wanted to smoke. She was a perfect Jordan in GG.

“We’re all white here”

[quote]“Tape it”? Okay, [R203]. Also, what does your comment have to do with The Great Gatsby?

VHS TAPE, YOU FOOL!

Love Lois Chiles!

[QUOTE] VHS TAPE, YOU FOOL!

No, no, no. It wasn’t question about what “Tape it” meant, dear. It was a comment on how fossilized you sound.

Shut the fuck up R211. Not R203.

"Taping" is a term that still persists in television production, even though the recording process has largely transitioned from physical videotapes to digital formats. Here's why this is the case: Legacy Terminology: "Taping" originated in the era of recording television shows onto videotape, explains Quora. While the physical medium has changed, the term stuck, much like referring to "filming" a movie even when shot digitally. Distinction from "Filming": In some contexts, "taping" is used to distinguish television production from cinematic movie production, which was traditionally recorded on film. However, this distinction is also blurring with the advent of digital cinematography and the use of digital cameras for both film and television. General Usage: "Taping" is often used as a general term for recording a television show, particularly in situations involving live audiences, according to Quora. So, while the technology has changed, the term "taping" remains a part of the lexicon in television production. It's an example of how language can persist even as technology evolves.

R179, that was Ginevra King. If you want to know more about how Scott saw her, read the Basil and Josephine stories. They're my favorite Fitzgerald works.

I usually don't like short stories but he really excelled in that form IMO.

The first the silent version is a lost film I believe.

Well, if the camera doesn't use tape *or* film, what does it use...digits?

[quote]r207 I waited on Lois Chiles in 84 in Gramercy Park. She lived near the restaurant.

I'm curious what she ordered.

I think if I were Lois Chiles I'd have a chef salad, no rolls, and a glass of white wine.

Then hot tea with a little honey in place of dessert.

Oh jesus h christ. Maybe you could take a media tech class at a community college extension centre in a strip mall near you.

Yes, the silent version is considered lost. I remember a review of the 1974 version in which the critic recalled the scene in the 1926 version where Gatsby is floating alone on his pool before being killed, and said it was better filmed than anything in the 1949 or 1974 adaptations.

Rex Reed? Is he that old? 1926?

The camera uses a sensor that records the pixel data on a storage card. The camera loader spends the day downloading the files from full camera cards onto bigger hard drives. Those drives get shuttled to the Lab twice a day where the files are copied onto servers for dailies color correction.

Those dailies files are then written onto LTO tapes - 1 master and one backup, and lower resolution files are sent to Editorial. Once digital checks are run to ensure that all the files on the LTO tapes are correct, the files are wiped from the camera cards and shuttle drives and they are reused. (You have enough cards & shuttles to last 3 - 4 shoot days before re-use).

The LTO tapes sit in the lab vault for months. ((They are considered the shows "negative" and the files on them are referred to as O-Neg (original negative) even though no physical film has been involved in this process.))

The LTOs / negative sit the until Production and then Editorial are complete. Then the shots used in the edit are taken off the tapes and put back onto a server for the whole finishing process - conforming the edit, creating visual effects, color timing the shots, beauty work, creating the masters, etc etc.

Even though everything is digital, many older analog terms are still used through out the process. A Lab is still a lab even though there are no photo-chemical baths used to process the dailies - etc.

A screenwriter wrote about seeing the silent version in 1947, so it was still kicking around 20 years after its initial release before disappearing forever.

[quote]R183 Scott Wilson is a wonderful, very believable actor but his role is small : (

[quote]R184 Howard Da Silva and Edward Herrmann were pretty decent too.

[quote]R185 Yes those are very good actors especially Wilson.

I knew Scott Wilson's wife and one day I was over at their house while he was going through old materials, and he had found or had just been given his old screen test for IN COLD BLOOD. We watched it together and I said, "Oh, you can tell why they picked you! You look great, so of course that's good. But you're just one of those people who are interesting to watch. Some people can be technically good actors but no one's really that interested in what they're going to say or what they're going to do while you're watching them. But through that whole scene... you're very real. You're just naturally charismatic! You're wonderful!"