the audience applauded

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Boring

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A super-star cast of great actors and excellent supporting actors in a story that makes no sense from beginning to end. It make sense if you understand that main story is about the lawyer's dysfunctional family. Even at the end, the lawyer is dealing with the bomb threat, while all he is thinking about is his family. The whole racial injustice story which takes up 85% of the film time has nothing to do with anything. It is just a whole bunch of disjointed scenes that are there for the actors to chew up, but none of that racial injustice story makes any sense at all. Even if you presume that all these New York liberals are the biggest racists on earth, there is no logic to anything that happens to the character played by Howard Rollins. I saw this movie in 1981 at the movie theatre, and it made no sense then. I have seen it about a dozen times since then, and it is still the most non-sensical movie that I have ever seen. Even from one scene to another, it is as if there are at least three different movies playing, and none of those movies makes any sense either.

It was a time of novelty, a time for stunts and a time for great men to become famous. Yes, it was a time for all things except, white society did not believe it was a change for the colored man. Despite all that was happening in the 1930's, everything about America was on the verge of exploding in all directions. That is, all but the notion that Black people were entitled to justice under the law. This movie is perhaps a memorable snap shut of American life in the 1930's. This film is called " Ragtime " and is an extraordinary example of what was happening in America in the 30's. Howard E. Rollins Jr. plays Coalhouse Walker Jr. a young black man who believes in being part of the emerging American dream. He has a job, a new car and a young wife. However, while driving home in his new car, Walker is confronted by Willie Conklin (Kenneth McMillian) a white racist and volunteer fireman who wants to make an example of a successful black man, by humiliating him. The bad joke, gets out of hand and eventually cost the life of Walker's wife. With a group of friends, Walker seeks justice and causes such a fervor, that the police Commissioner (James Cagney) gets involved when the joke becomes an explosive incident, involving death and destruction. A great and powerful drama ensues when noted actors like Brad Dourif, Moses Gunn as Booker T. Washington, Pat O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, James Olson and Mandy Patinkin are discovered to be part of the cast. A serious movie with all the wonders of the emerging American nation are profiled. Superior story written by Heinrich Von Kleist and directed by none other than Milos Foreman. Recommended. ****

A massive undertaking. RAGTIME is a mostly successful adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's tapestry of a novel. Director Milos Forman and writer Michael Weller condense a good portion of the novel, eliminating certain characters all together, while maintaining the book's ambiguities. RAGTIME centers on a typical early 20s American family and their interactions with real life personalities of the time, specifically Evelyn Nesbit, Harry Thaw, and Stanford White. Interwoven are the stories of a immigrant artist (Mandy Patinkin) and a piano player turned revolutionary (Howard Rollins). It's so well put together, it has to be admired. The art direction, costumes and cinematography (by the great Miroslav Ondricek) are all first rate, as is the score by Randy Newman. In fact, this is probably Newman's finest, least intrusive, least syrupy work. The acting is stellar. Mary Steenburgen and James Olson are ideally cast as the "mother" and "father" and Rollins is brilliant as the angry Coalhouse Walker. The rest of the cast includes Elizabeth McGovern, Brad Dourif, Norman Mailer as Stanford White and James Cagney (this was his now famous comeback after 20 years off the screen...he's very commanding as the fast-talking police chief).

I read the book years ago, and am glad I finally got around to watching the movie. It is an engrossing and well crafted story, beautifully set in the final years of the American Gilded Age. On the surface it appears to be a wonderfully happy and enthusiastic era, but the tensions created by the different racial groups and social classes of that time show that, aside from the wonderful architecture, manners and wardrobe of the well-to-do, most people of that period suffered the same challenges and woes as they always have. Same crap, better packaging.I was originally unhappy that they didn't do more with the character of Evelyn Nesbit, played by the captivating Elizabeth McGovern, but I finally understood that her character wouldn't let herself get involved with the many nasty situations that happened. She just floated away to the next soirée when things got ugly. All the other characters got sucked into the many interrelated subplots because they cared, and wanted to deal with the challenges and problems - not simply move on to greener pastures.Some of the less enthusiastic comments here indicate some viewers didn't care for the film because it didn't contain all the characters and sub-stories that were in the book, but to me that is irrelevant. The movie stands well on its own merits. It is a powerful and thoroughly enjoyable film, with a great ending. As Evelyn elegantly waltzes around in dreamy bliss with yet another beau, we see that all the efforts of most of the other key characters to solve their problems and find happiness have turned to doo doo. It ends with a shot of a newspaper headline announcing the start of World War I. The Gilded Age is over.