Well Deserved Praise

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I wonder if Paul Newman ever got tired of playing "Paul Newman". It seems like he's always cast in the same role: rebellious but still seeking approval, parents don't like him, bad boy, a ladies' man, and a bit of an unlikable edge. However, unlike other Paul Newman movies where this type of character actually captures the audience's attention, From the Terrace is lousy.Paul Newman comes from an unrespectable family, but he wants to make something of himself. He wants to become a member of high society, so he can see the view "from the terrace". In his quest, he pursues high-class Joanne Woodward. In his overwhelming ambition, he works too much and leaves his wife alone too often. She turns to alcohol and humiliates him by having an affair. But why are we supposed to be surprised? When he met her, she was engaged to someone else. She cheated on her fiancé and left him for Paul Newman. Once a floozy, always a floozy! The plot is disjointed and boring, and despite Hollywood's repeated casting of Joanne Woodward in sexy roles, her aura reeked like she didn't know where the bedroom was, not like she spent all her time there. The costars were married by the time they made this movie, but if you really want to see their chemistry, you have nine other films to choose from.The only good scene in this movie is in the beginning. Paul Newman returns home from the war and witnesses an argument between his parents, drunken floozy Myrna Loy and stern Leon Ames. Go ahead and watch the first twenty minutes of the movie, then do yourself a favor and turn it off.

Joanne Woodward steals this lengthy movie. Cast as an unthinking bourgeoise daughter with no ambition other than comfortable marriage, she lands the handsome Alfred Eaton instead of her current love, a psychiatric doctor. But she's soon back in bed with him after being ignored for several years by the success-obsessed Eaton.Woodward is pretty and witty in this role, and beautifully dressed. Sadly, she is cast as the "bad guy" because she goes to bed with her ex-lover, although she tries all the time to get Eaton into bed with her. Finally, she tries a reconciliation, secretly knowing that Eaton is to be named a partner at his bank in her presence next day. But Eaton throws a testy scene, walks out and drives off to join his young love in Mountain City, somewhere in Nevada, and make a completely different life. Poor Joanne is left shouting "Alfred" after his taxi, a pathetic role for this actress who injected the only sense of fun and adventure into this ponderous yard. No way did I reject her: I felt sorry for her!

This is another film which, though a staple on Italian TV over the years, I somehow never bothered with until now (obviously included in my Paul Newman tribute) – mainly because it’s a glorified soap opera of a kind (accentuated by garish color and the Widescreen format) that was prevalent in Hollywood for about a decade, beginning from the mid-1950s.It’s based on a John O’Hara best-seller which, if the trailer is to be believed, was a “sensation” when it emerged; its impact, however, has been heavily diluted in the screen adaptation – not to mention by the passage of time since the film’s release! Still, the result is reasonably entertaining (often unintentionally so in view of the ongoing histrionics) and, thankfully, its hefty 144-minute duration isn’t an excessive burden. Besides, no expense has been spared with respect to production values (director Robson, screenwriter Ernest Lehman – both of whom would memorably reteam with Newman on the delightful Hitchcock pastiche THE PRIZE [1963; still bafflingly M.I.A. on DVD], cinematographer Leo Tover and composer Elmer Bernstein).On the other hand, casting is variable yet surprisingly adequate – this was Newman’s third teaming with wife Joanne Woodward: interestingly, she plays an unsympathetic role (whereas he’s typically brooding), so that the couple’s initially blissful relationship (compromised by his ambitious drive and her own faithlessness with ex-beau Patrick O’Neal) deteriorates and sends Newman into the arms of decent girl Ina Balin…all of which leads to an idealistic ending in which the disillusioned hero gives up his career in favor of true love. Myrna Loy, then, appears briefly at the start in the role of Newman’s perennially soused and whorish(!) mother; ditto Leon Ames as his steel-mill owner father (which Newman abandons after the old man’s death) – fixated on his other, dead son!; Felix Aylmer is an elderly tycoon whose grandson the hero saved from drowning – which wins Newman a position in his firm and later, satisfied by the former’s over-achieving performance, he even goads with a partnership…but the hero turns him down flat!; and Ted de Corsia is atypically featured as Balin’s modest businessman father, whom Newman had been sent by Aylmer to check on.

Newman meets Woodward at a party and is summarily rebuffed. The very next scene shows them canoodling on a sailboat. I actually stopped the DVD, thinking it had been manufactured with a dropped or mis-ordered scene. But no...the editors apparently decided it was unimportant for us to know how the two eventually got together. (See the discussion board for similar comments on this flaw.) I was shocked, considering this is an adaptation by the talented Ernest Lehmann. I made a conscious decision to not even finish watching the film. If you're interested in experiencing some of that Woodward/Newman magic, may I suggest "The Long, Hot Summer." Or with Newman in a director's role, the under-appreciated "Rachel, Rachel" which features Woodward in an outstanding performance,