Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Despite David O. Selznick's omnipresence whenever his wife was involved in a film even if it wasn't his own, director Henry King managed to make a fine film adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald's celebrated autobiographical novel, Tender Is The Night. Jennifer Jones and Jason Robards, Jr. are nothing short of wonderful in the leads.A lot of the personal lives of both the leads went into roles of Nicole and Dick Diver. Jennifer Jones saw enough tragedy in her life for about five people and saw the inside of mental institutions a few times while on the mortal coil. And Jason Robards love of the grape was also well known.Robards purportedly is Fitzgerald himself who fell in love with a high flying millionairess Zelda Sayre and the easy living he became accustomed to sapped his creative energy. In this work Robards is a psychiatrist who forgot professional ethics and fell in love with his patient. Zelda Fitzgerald also saw the inside of an asylum, but no one ever affected a lasting cure for her.The two live in real luxury as American expatriates in Europe and 20th Century Fox spent no small expense turning the locations in Europe like the Riviera, Paris, and Zurich into what they looked like in the Twenties. Bernard Herrmann wrote a musical score that interwove more melodies from that era than I could count.Robards falls in love with the beautiful Jones as he helps bring her out of her mental illness. The Code was as omnipresent as David O. Selznick and the barest hint of the cause of her illness was made because talk of incest was still a big taboo. It would take Chinatown more than ten years later to bring that sin into the open on screen. One thing that wasn't included from the novel was a theme of miscegenation as well in deference to our Southern audiences still not the beneficiaries of the Civil Rights revolution. Fascinating as to what was considered worse by Hollywood box office standards in 1962.Joan Fontaine plays Jennifer's older sister and custodian of the family legacy. The father was one of those robber baron tycoons who committed suicide and of course it was that and the incest that drove Jones to her illness. Fontaine totally misreads Robards as a fortune hunter, but since he's pried the family's dirty secret from Jennifer's mind, better to have him in the family. Because of Jennifer's illness Fontaine controls the family purse strings.Loving Jones and at the same time resentful of being tied financially to her, Robards loses professional detachment. This was something he should have learned from his mentor Paul Lukas who has a small part. Tender Is The Night is an object lesson about not getting involved with a patient personally.Tom Ewell as a Broadway composer who has lost his muse in alcohol has a good role as a kind of hanger on to the Robards/Jones party world. He's a good ornament to have at a party. I believe his role might be based on Vincent Youmans who gave up his career to both tuberculosis and to a drinking problem. The theme song by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster also serves as a symbol of a lot of unfinished lives. Ewell keeps playing the melody and he can't complete it. When someone else does he takes it all wrong and tragedy ensues.The title song Tender Is The Night is one of my favorite movie melodies. I have a recording of it by Tony Martin and it received the only Academy Award nomination the film had. The song lost to the title song of another fine film, The Days Of Wine And Roses. Personally I like Tender Is The Night much better.Tender Is The Night was the farewell directing assignment for Henry King who in his long career directed some of the best films 20th Century Fox ever made. For some reason he's not considered at the very top of his profession and I think it's because he was contracted to one studio and stayed there. I think the reasoning is that if you're the very best you can go from studio to studio and you must be the best if everyone wants you. A contract director like King just gets assignments. But King always did his films with a certain amount elegance to them and so what if he toiled only at one dream factory. Guys like King and Woody Van Dyke and Clarence Brown at MGM always get a short shrift when discussing directors.Fitzgerald purists will not be crazy about Tender Is The Night, but I think it holds up very well almost fifty years after its first release. Really top flight entertainment.

David Selznick loved his wife Jennifer Jones. John Huston wrote in his "An Open Book" that "David laid everything on the line for his adored Jennifer". This movie was years in the making and while this was a 20th Century Fox production, not a Selznick International production Mr. Selznick was always behind the scenes suggesting ideas for the Movie. Selznick himself tried for many years to personally produce this property but could not get the financing.Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, Ivan Moffat wrote a fine screenplay, and David Selznick approved Henry King as Director for as DOS put it " Henry King gets the best results with Jennifer" as King directed Jennifer Jones in two of her greatest hits her Oscar winning performance in "Song of Bernadatte" and Oscar Nominated "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing" both hits at 20th Century Fox. Oscar Winner Joan Fontaine in her auto biography "No Bed Of Roses" noted that Henry King downplayed the erotic nature of Nicole and Dick Diver relationship, and also that Joan Fontaine was treated like an extra by the crew but not by Jennifer Jones who was a Friend.Jennifer Jones was a major star in the l940's and early to mid 1950's with 5 nominations and one Oscar win but semi retired for 5 years from 1956 thru 1961 and that is a long, possibly too long an absence for a major star to be off the screen. Jennifer Jones was as good an actress as Meryl Streep is regarded today, and was very analytical in her performances. In this film Jennifer Jones- An Academy Award Winner and Major star for nearly 20 years- had Paula Stasberg -most famous as coach to Marilyn Monroe-as her on set acting coach which irked Henry King no end. Ms. Fontaine, again in her book No Bed of Roses scoffed at the coaching and in her bio wrote "Charming and Talented Jennifer was the most insecure Actress I ever worked with" Fontaine noted that Jennifer would hold up production as she talked long distance with Selznick in Hollywood things such as set dressing! Fontaine observed that Director Henry King had not the slightest care or understanding of European cafe society.The movie is lushly produced and David Selznick insisted they shoot some of the scenes in Europe in Zurich, on the Riviera and in Paris. In fact Selznick wanted the entire film to be shot in Paris rather than 20th's stages in Beverly Hills. The movie is very well cast with stars who can act: Jennifer Jones, Jason Robards and Joan Fontaine as Jennifer's brittle older sister. Some criticism was made of the fact Jennifer Jones was too old to play Nicole I disagree. Jennifer Jones eschewing 20th's makeup man Ben Nye and costumers Charles Le Maire and William Travilla- looks beautiful, and younger due to George Masters great hairstyles and famed designer Balmain's great outfits than Jennier Jones did in Selznick's " A Farewell To Arms" five years earlier.Many top Male stars and previous Jennifer Jones leading Men such as William Holden and Gregory Peck were offered the role of Nick Diver and declined but I gather they felt in any DOS obsessed production Jennifer Jones would be the spotlighted star not them. Correct! The role of Nick went to Jason Robards and while in the early 60's he had not attained the stature as he would later in his career I feel Robards is superb and the chemistry between Jason Robards and Jennifer Jones is real on screen. It is also great to see Oscar winner Paul Lukas in a small pivotal role.Some of David Selzinck's complaints about the movie are accurate: some of the sets are not at all 'Roaring 20's like', and the music could be more reflective of the period. When the movie was released it was not well received and David Selznick requested 20th pull back the movie and add scenes, but alas 20th Century Fox released it worldwide "as it was" and after the fanfare of a big New York premiere, it was quickly released and forgotten. All except the beautiful theme- which Selznick hated- which was Oscar nominated and played today the song is haunting and beautiful.Tender Is The Night was Jennifer Jones last movie as a true Superstar. The Selznick's hoped this film would garner Jennifer a 6th Best Actress Nomination and return her to the upper strata of leading ladies. At the time of his death David Selznick was in talks for Jennifer to appear in one of Ross Hunter's great soap operas at Universal in the hope that a Ross Hunter film would do for Jennifer what Hunter's great films did for Lana Turner mid career.The Idol in 1966 with Michael Parks, and the disastrous 1969 Angel Angel Down We Go would follow and a cameo in the Towering Inferno and Ms. Jones would retire.

and stilted about this film, and its casting.Jason Robards who always delivers, just seems wooden and ineffectual as Dick Diver. Jennifer Jones as the ever desirable, but tragic Nicole Diver, just seems unsympathetic, even strident and cruel.The alcohol flows freely and the jet-set lifestyle is invoked by a humorous Tom Ewell, who sings the movies theme song at the beginning of this disjointed movie. (Tom Ewell is forever planted in my memory as Marilyn Monroes bumbling neighbor in "The Seven Year Itch", or as the silly, clichéd father in "State Fair") That being said, it almost seems as if the writers did not know how to treat the subject of psychoanalysis and mental illness. F Scott Fitgerald and his wife endured tragedy, his wife Zelda Sayre Fitgerald was diagnosed with schizophrenia while still in her 20's. She was delusional at times, and probably never walked around at all times looking like a John Robert Powers model,(as Jones does in this movie).It was 1962 after all, psychoanalysis was chic and stylish, so this film presents the illness as stylish and merely the effect of being rich and bored on the French Riviera. I wanted to like this film, but it is sorely dated and due for a remake. If nothing else it aptly demonstrates society stigma and misconceptions when portraying mental illness. No wonder there is still so much denial, if this film was considered an acceptable story of a physician and his wife in 1962. Worth seeing as a curiosity. 5/10.

Miss Jones returned to the screen after a 5 year absence and looked better in this film than she had in years..and gives a truly nuanced performance, edgy, beautiful, just perfect for the role of Nicole. She got beat up bad when it premiered saying she was too old for the part, seen today, she looks wonderful. Isn't that what acting is about? Does every actor have to be the exact age of the role played?The costumes for the film to me did not seem very authentic to the period but it wasn't David Selznick's fault...he carped, badgered and stormed 20th Century Fox with endless memo's about 'this and that'. If only had DOS made this film. It is like a baseball manager guiding the team from the locker room or worse the hotel room vs. the dugout.