Undescribable Perfection

Touches You

As Good As It Gets

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The eminent director George Cukor did The Chapman Report for Warner Brother. It's based on the book by Irving Wallace, which was inspired by the Kinsey report about sexual activity.The Warner Brothers actors cast include Efrem Zimbalist as one of the interviewers who works for Mr. Chapman (Andrew Duggan), Ray Danton as a libidinous film director, and Ty Hardin as someone Glynis Johns meets on the beach. According to film lore, George Cukor was impressed enough with Hardin's good looks and physique that he ended up with a showy role in the film. Look for Chad Everett as a water delivery man in the beginning of the film.But the women are the real stars: Jane Fonda, Glynis Johns, Clare Bloom, and Shelley Winters, all of whom are terrific.Chapman and Paul Radford (Zimbalist) come to a town to do interviews with women for their statistics on sexual activity. That's all pretty dated. The film focuses on four women: Fonda as a widow of a bad marriage who thinks she's frigid and becomes involved with Radford; Bloom as a nymphomaniac; Winters as a cheating wife; and Johns as a woman who wonders if she's getting enough from her marriage, which seems happy enough. She's the comic relief, and she's a blast.The best scene in the film occurs when Johns goes to Hardin's place to pose nude for her, with the idea of seducing him. Fonda, Bloom, and Johns are all gorgeous. Winters by this time was doing the more housefrau type of role. She's excellent as a desperately unhappy woman involved in an illicit affair with Danton.This is the '60s idea of an adult film so everything is talked around, in half sentences, or shown as a fadeout. The only one who takes his clothes off is Hardin.It's trash, but it's high-class trash and one does become involved with the characters.

George Cukor (Golden Globe nomination) was known as a women's director in the 1930's and 1940's, so it's no small wonder he turns up here directing The Chapman Report (Golden Globe nomination as best picture). However, the hallmarks of Cukor's films were signature framing, which is apparent throughout the film, and strong female characterizations. The strong female characters are what's missing in this adaptation of Irving Wallace's book, which was influenced by the Kinsey Report at the time. Sex researchers Andrew Duggan and Efrem Zimbalist Jr come to suburban America's backyard to speak about sex at a women's club, setting four stories of different (meaning 1962 clichés) women in motion.Shelley Winters plays Sarah Garnell, married to Frank played by Howard J. Stone (Golden Globe nomination). Winters is currently involved in an affair with Ray Danton, a theater director when the film opens. Winters has little to do but play the duped woman who eventually crawls back to her husband once Danton dumps her. Jane Fonda is the frigid Kathleen Barclay taken advantage of in a 1962 way by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Zimbalist's Paul Radford is so far over the line of discretion; someone should have pulled him back by his suit coat. Then again, back then nobody knew what the line was. The Winters and Fonda segments are barely watchable. Glynis Johns (Golden Globe nomination) plays Teresa Harnish happily married to John Dehner's Geoffrey. Johns begins to question just how happily when she eyeballs a group of young men playing football on the beach. Johns takes a liking to Ed Krasky, played by the overly virile Ty Hardin, and she gets more than she bargained for when she convinces Krasky to pose for her while she sketches. The Johns segment comes off the best. Claire Bloom is Naomi Shields, an alcoholic nymphomaniac who can't control her desires as she encounters Chad Everett playing a water delivery boy and Corey Allen as Wash Dillon, an irresponsible musician of questionable upbringing. Bloom is always good and does what she can in her brief scenes. Aside from the expected clichés of the period, the film suffices as superficial, high-gloss, soapy entertainment. The film is quite long at over two hours, but I guess that gives it time to convince us that Zimbalist Jr. is on the up and up; we even get to see him meeting Fonda's father. It is a bit funny though when he lectures Fonda about leaving the role of "Daddy's girl" when he himself is old enough to be her father as well. Viewers should look fast for Richard Mulligan (of Soap fame) as one of the jazz musicians, Grady Sutton in a bit part, a young Cloris Leachman as Miss Selby, and the dour Henry Daniell as Dr. Jonas. **1/2 of 4 stars.

The real-life Kinsey Report on modern-day sexual beliefs and behaviors is barely disguised here while being used as a facile backdrop, with the melodramatic film concentrating more on the hang-ups of four suburban women who have agreed to be surveyed for the project. Gene Allen, Wyatt Cooper, Don Mankiewicz, and Grant Stuart adapted the book by Irving Wallace, but tip their collective hand immediately when delineating the troubles of Claire Bloom's Naomi, a divorcée and man-magnet who is supposed to be a nymphomaniac; the way the character is rendered here, she's more of an alcoholic who (somehow unintentionally) ends up debasing herself with men, always with "no! no!" on her lips. The picture is about pinpointing where sexual repression and ideas of indecency ultimately come from, yet the screenwriters fall into their own trap with Naomi: judging her condescendingly, making her an unhappy lush, and failing to let us see what turns this woman on, what motivates her to meet strange men in seedy places (she isn't allowed to have any sexual fun--this is 'freedom' with an ultimate price). Jane Fonda is a frigid young widow who learns to loosen up with one of Dr. Chapman's own associates (!), while married Shelley Winters has convinced herself she's in love with her playboy and Glynis Johns is busy throwing herself at a beach bum. The sex survey is just an angle to get the movie going, and the professional question-and-answer sequences awkwardly turn into psychotherapy sessions for these frustrated ladies. What might have been an incisive glimpse into today's mores and morals has instead become a glossy, middle-brow soap opera, and everyone involved suffers from the slushy handling. ** from ****

Movies about nymphomaniacs are always labeled "cheap and tawdry." Well, movies with these women as the focal point of these films are similar to the ladies who appear in porn (a multi-BILLION dollar business). Men are interested in these "strange creatures" with "weak flesh," who can't get enough sex, and the public is fascinated with them: Claire Bloom in "The Chapman Report," Merle Oberon in "Of Love and Desire," Suzanne Pleshette in "A Rage to Live," Joanne Woodward in "From The Terrace," etc.We sit fascinated by them, but condemn them for the "illness" from which they suffer. To be frank, nymphos behave sexually EXACTLY like men (straight and gay). If hetero men had the opportunity to get the amount of stranger sex that "loose women" get, they wouldn't hesitate one iota. Straight men don't get nearly as much sex as gay men do, for instance. Why? Because str8 guys are dealing with "just say no" women. Gay men with the same mentality about sex as their hetero counterparts don't have the "woman factor" to hassle with on dates. A huge amount of gay men feel that sex on the first date is expected, not some hopeful wish. Some gay guys don't care about being labeled a "tramp" or a "slut." But women DO.Yes, women like Claire Bloom, who are "suffering" with their nymphomania are sad creatures being taken advantage of by cruel, sex-hungry men who know their "condition," and cannot wait to take advantage, like the sleazy musician, Corey Allen and his band buddies, also, the water delivery guys in "Chapman Report." Or, Barbara Loden in "Spendor in the Grass," the rebellious sister of Warren Beatty, who acted like a tramp to defy her absent parents. She nearly got gang-banged during a drunken New Year's party. All these scenes are "titilating," but being Americans, we feel guilty and believe that we must dismiss them as "cheap and tawdry." They might be, but most viewers can't take their eyes off the screen.The ironic thing is that hardcore porn is practically in every household in America, not to mention the rest of the world. We can be such hypocrites!