The Last Tycoon (Released in 1976) - Starring Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum and Jack Nicholson

The Love of the Last Tycoon is the unfinished final novel of the celebrated Irish-American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was compiled and published posthumously in 1941 as The Last Tycoon, and again in 1993 as Fitzgerald originally wanted it - The Love of the Last Tycoon. In keeping with Hollywood’s obsession with Fitzgerald, the book was adapted for celluloid and directed by Elia Kazan, this being the last film he ever directed in his lifetime, the screenplay was by Harold Pinter.
The film is a Roman à clef - it draws inspiration from the life of the famed MGM film producer Irving Thalberg. The monochrome first scene – a 1920s classic beauty in the arms of a cigar puffing mafia boss, the characteristic bloodied  shootout in the diner which leaves him dead- and an authoritative  voice stating “The end is too gory, cut out one role of the tape.” Monroe Stahr (Robert de Niro) - charismatic production chief and creative executive at one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. A hard taskmaster, he is used to having his say in every stage of the film making process. Whilst the rest of Hollywood feels fettered in the wake of the creation of the Writers Guild of America, Monroe continues to be authoritarian and controlling. His personal life spiraled downward after the death of his wife, an actress - after which he melted into self exile, isolating himself.
Pat Brady (Robert Mitchum) plays Stahr’s loyal supporter – "I love him. He’s a genius. I’ve always wanted him to get every credit... I’m the strong base upon which Monroe Stahr rests. I’m loyal to him …". However, Brady does wonder what will happen to him? He is torn between his fondness for Stahr and his desire for the realization of his personal ambition - “All I want is recognition.” Brady’s character draws inspiration from the life of studio head Louis B. Mayer.




When an earthquake partially throws a spanner in the works destroying sets, Monroe, in the midst of the chaos notices Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting), a beautiful woman, albeit engaged to someone else - who reminds him of his late wife. Most of his waking hours are spent trying to track down the elusive woman with the silver belt(though that wasn’t Katherine). Meanwhile Cecilia, Pat Brady’s daughter (Theresa Russell) flaunts her affection for Monroe and tries to win him over.
Brimmer (Jack Nicholson) is the thorn in Monroe’s side: a union organizer from New York. The controlling Stahr is confronted with an equally pushy Brimmer - a ‘communist’. To have a writer’s strike with sixteen pictures under production is daunting in the middle of the Depression. On the internal front, Monroe has to go head-to-head with the others regarding budgets and endings - he wants to make a meaningful picture that for once doesn’t make money - an idea that doesn’t go down well with Brady and the boys. As the film progresses, one thing is clear, love clouds Monroe’s once clear vision and finally, the life he gave to his work slips away gradually - in the end, he leaves the studio where he spent all his creative potential and life, making pictures.

The Wrath of God (released in 1972) - Starring Robert Mitchum, Frank Langella, Rita Hayworth and Victor Buono

“They offered them a choice - the firing squad . . . or The Wrath of God.”
The Wrath of God, sourced from a book by Jack Higgins (under the pen name James Graham) was released in 1972; having been filmed in Mexico and was directed by Ralph Nelson. The story is about three nefarious men with a reprehensible past. Emmet Keogh (played by Ken Hutchinson) is an Irishman with a violent, bitter past. He is desperately trying to get out of the violent state in Mexico. He manages to put together enough funds to buy a train ticket out of Mexico, where revolutionaries are lined-up in the streets and gunned down with laid back reliability. Emmet meets bootlegger, gunrunner Jennings (played by Victor Buono), a big man in a white suit. Jennings asks him to bootleg Scotch Whiskey (actually guns, though Emmet doesn’t know) across the border into the US. When Keogh refuses, the ‘businessman’ has his passport and ticket stolen, arm twisting Emmet into agreeing to the task.
Father Van Horne (Robert Mitchum) is a Roman Catholic priest (or so he’d have you believe). A trigger happy man of cloth, he carries a gun in his Bible and a switchblade in a Crucifix. A fellow outlaw comments (on noticing that Horne is holding the Bible upside down) : “If that IS a Bible," he says, "read it. If that ain't a Bible, drop it." Emmet learns that the good priest was originally with the Boston dioceses, sent to Central America to raise funds. Keogh is unaware that Van Horne has been defrocked. Van Horne rescues Emmet from brigands who are angry when the latter saves a mute Native American girl, Chela (played by Paula Pritchett) from being gang raped by them.




Consequently, the three men: Van Horne, Emmet Keogh and Jennings are arrested, charged with siding up with the counter revolutionaries and taken captive - to face death by a firing squad. The man responsible for their fate is Colonel Santilla (played by John Colicos), a revolutionary with a deep feeling of hatred for the Catholic Church. The Colonel strikes a deal with them - he will free them and offer safe passage to the US – on the condition that they have to assassinate a despot from nearby – Tomas De La Plata (Frank Langella). The strongman has a personal vendetta against the Colonel, whose men put to death his father, raped his mother, and plagued his sister to commit suicide. And so, the Unholy Trinity, the father (played by Father Van Horne), the son (played by Emmett) and the Holy Ghost (played by Jennings) are to assassinate the despotic maniac.
Van Horne dons his priestly garb once more and throws open the doors of the House of God in De La Plata's village; Emmett and Jennings pretend to be business men interested in the town's mining industry – thus, the Unholy Trinity lays a trap for La Plata. Violence, extreme sometimes, tends to mar the viewing (the merciless gunning of a little boy); also, there is far too much detailing which confuses the viewer .. Notable performances are delivered by Mitchum and Hayworth. This was the latter’s last completed movie. She was constantly plagued with forgetfulness, many members of the crew thought she was downing one drink too many; they later found out that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, which was the cause of her forgetting her lines.

Secret Ceremony (released in 1968) - A tragic film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Robert Mitchum, and Peggy Ashcroft

'Ceremonia Secreta', the 1960 novel by Argentinean author Marco Denevi is the inspiration for the film Secret Ceremony, directed by Joseph Losey. The film opens with a blonde Elizabeth Taylor, who takes her wig off to reveal her lush black hair, as she places the hair piece on its stand; she caresses the black and white photograph of a young child - a girl, which is placed on the dresser. The character of Liz is Lenora, a prostitute, who a year ago has lost her daughter to death. As she boards a bus one day, a young girl (played by Mia Farrow) sits by her side, looking at her longingly, and whispering audibly ‘Mummy’ as Lenora alights from the bus; the girl follows her into a church - where she stands looking at Lenora from behind a pillar, as she kneels in a pew. Lenora looks slowly walks out of the church, into the cemetery, where she stops by the grave of a child, placing a bunch of blue forget-me-nots at the tomb. Lenora turns to find the girl from the bus standing behind her, when she looks into her eyes, in her mind; she sees the eyes of the child in the photograph. Shocked, she willingly lets the girl lead her away from the graveyard, to an opulent  Gothic style apartment.
Once there, Lenora sees photographs of the girl with her mother, who bears a strong resemblance to her. The man standing beside her - his face is blackened. Suddenly, the girl clutches her and cries out ‘mummy’ - stunned, Lenora pushes her away and tells her she’s not who she thinks she is. The girl just looks at her and when asked if she’d like some breakfast, she says yes, and when left alone, decides to pocket a silver coin and ermine coat - she even tucks into the breakfast hungrily. When the girl tells her that she lives all by herself - no cook, no nanny, no father - Lenora seizes the opportunity to take advantage of the child’s lapse of memory and plays along, fitting perfectly into the role of her mother. The girl reveals how Albert (apparently Lenora’s husband, and Cenci’s step-father) had behaved inappropriately - upon hearing which, Lenora slaps her - and shocked with her behavior, she apologizes to the crying girl. They both decide that she needs to take care of her - and so, Lenora settles in, making herself at home.




Once, when they are in the bath together, Cenci pretends her duck is drowning – this upsets Lenora, who asks her ‘what do you know about drowning?’ and starts to cry hysterically. In bed, Cenci says her prayers with her ‘mother’, and they settle down for an afternoon nap. When she awakens, she goes down to the kitchen, to see Cenci carrying out an animated conversation to … an empty chair. She appears to be warding off the advances of the ‘person’ in the chair - asking ‘him’ to take his hands off of her - Lenora is scared to see this crazed, psychotic banter.
Two nosy women - former sisters in law, come to pilfer on the pretext of looking up Cenci; as Lenora hides, the women get suspicious that there is someone in the house besides the girl - but who? They leave hurriedly.
In this surreal world, enter Albert (Robert Mitchum) - who may well be the reason why Cenci is a disturbed child. When she gingerly peeps through a window one morning after hearing the bell ring - she sees an almost derelict and unkempt man in the front lawns. He leaves when she doesn’t let him in. One morning, Leonora pays a visit to Cenci’s aunts who had come to the house - telling them she was a cousin of their sister-in-law Margaret. She learns a lot from them, especially that Albert and Cenci had an incestuous relationship, which probably drove the girl mad and killed Margaret with grief. The aunts, of course, think the girl’s crazy - Leonora is hurt by this observation, and tells them that if they were to visit again - she would tell the police. While she was out, Albert comes home, telling Cenci he cannot help himself, as he kisses her. Leonora goes to church and  prays for strength to go back to the house, not for the money, but for the fact that she wants to protect Cenci - she wants to be there to ‘save’ her, unlike her own child. But after being abused, Cenci orders that Leonora leave the house -killing herself by overdosing on sleeping pills, which she downs with milk.
When Leonora attends the funeral, visibly shattered, Albert tells her that Cenci was responsible for the break - up with Margaret - that the child-woman had nymphomaniacal tendencies - this is the final straw for Leonora, who lashes out at the man and tries to kill him. Macabre, disturbing and sad, the movie does play on the audience sentiment, and one feels sorrier for Leonora, for having lost two ‘children’. Serious watch.

Adaptation - Released in 2002 - Starring Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper

In 1998, Susan Orlean, an American journalist investigated a case of orchid poaching in a south Florida state preserve. Her book is a glimpse into the peculiarities of the lives of the people in the plant business and the struggles they face on a day-to-day basis. The result was the book “The Orchid Thief”.
In 2002, the book was the inspiration for the movie ‘Adaptation’, in which Meryl Streep plays Susan Orlean, Chris Cooper plays John Laroche , the poacher, and Nicholas Cage brings to life the twin characters of Charlie and Donald Kaufman; in real life, Charlie Kaufman has written the screenplay. The meta character of the film talks about Charlie’s challenges whilst trying to adapt the book for the silver screen, in that it is almost a semi autobiographical memoir of sorts.
The character of Laroche has many interesting shades; here is a man obsessive about creating a clone of the extraordinary Ghost Orchid, to reap rich benefits; the catch is that they grow in an elusive swampland which is Seminole (a Native American Tribe) Territory, the Natives use an extract from the flower for illegal drug use. John takes advantage of the Seminoles’ legal right to use their own ancestral property as they will - and ropes in members of the community to help him out.
His passion is evident when he asks Susan whether she knows why he likes plants:
“You know why I like plants?  Because they're so mutable. Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.”
Perhaps that sets the cadence for the film - the means of finding out how to succeed in the world. ‘Adaptation’ quibbles over the Darwinian principle of how to adapt, as opposed to how to evolve; it is extrapolated to the excruciating course taken to adapting The Orchid Thief into screenplay.




In the movie, Charlie assays the character of Laroche at great length, but is unable to find more ‘meat’ to adapt this character for the screen; he is also unable to represent the breathtaking beauty of the orchid visually. Since the book is more of reportage, it lacks the inherent drama required for a movie, and therein lies the challenge for Charlie, who suffers from a case of prolonged writer’s block.
Dealing with his own personal demons - depression, social phobia, self loathing - Charlie struggles to create an impact on Amelia Kavan (played by Cara Seymour; Hotel Rwanda, Gangs of New York), his own diffidence and insecurities act as a barrier, keeping him from her, although she is undoubtedly interested in him.
The opening voice over waxes eloquent about Charlie’s copious foibles - bald pate, lack of talent, least enviable body etc. His monozygotic twin Donald, also an aspiring writer, with far less talent yet tons more confidence, chooses to make Charlie the subject of his writing, fascinated with the sibling’s  ‘chalk’ to his ‘cheese’ existence. The bi polar character he writes about has shades of the twins, except that it is a madman and woman, wrapped in one - to Charlie’s utter bewilderment, he wonders how Donald would get them together in the same scene - ‘when one has the other locked in the basement’. However, Donald’s “clichéd psycho-thriller” sells for a million bucks, as the ink starts to flow from Charlie’s end – unconsciously referring to his own life and times  throughout the screenplay.
Charlie’s much thumbed copy of The Orchid Thief, resplendent with yellow post-its and neon highlights, gives him sleepless nights, not only because the gauntlet jeers at him, but also because he fancies himself besotted with Susan, whom he calls to mind in a state of euphoric self gratification.
These three characters are primary to the story line, the shades to their person, their anxieties, their joys and trials are what pepper the script-not the usual sex, action and car chases. However one may try and avoid the pitfall of ‘formula’- it is almost impossible. And when Donald, posing as Charlie meets Susan (the latter gets cold feet, and returns), he feels something is amiss. The two follow Susan to Florida, only to discover Laroche and her in the throes of Ghost Orchid-drug-induced passion.
A violent car chase ensues, with Donald getting killed and Susan being arrested, in case you’re wondering about Laroche - an alligator got to him before the police did. With Donald gone, Charlie picks up the pieces of his life, and writes the screenplay, with Gérard Depardieu in mind.
The film won nominations for Streep, Cage and Cooper at the 56th British Academy Film Awards; while at the 75th Academy Awards, Cooper was awarded in the Best Supporting Actor category. Interestingly, Donald Kaufman is the only fictitious character to have been nominated for an Oscar!

Film - Farewell, My Lovely (starring Robert Mitchum as the detective Philip Malowe) - Released in 1975

Raymond Chandler is a very famous writer, many of whose books were taken for theatre or made into movies. Out of his novels, an early one is the novel called by the same name, "Farewell, My Lovely" (this was actually his second novel, published in 1940), and starred the famous detective that he created, Philip Marlowe. This novel was made as a movie in 1944 earlier, and was again made into a movie released in 1975. The movie has gathered acclaim over the years, being well liked for the film noir atmosphere that it brings into the movie, with the brilliant performance by the lead actor, Robert Mitchum, playing the role of a grizzled old detective, Philip Marlowe (at this time Mitchum was in the latter part of his career, having been in the industry for decades now and being 58 years old).
The film also stars the following: Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Jack O'Halloran, Sylvia Miles and Harry Dean Stanton. Incidentally, this was an early movie in the career of a super-star, Sylvester Stallone, who shot into the heights of super-stardom with the release of Rocky the following year. However, Stallone had only a small role in the movie, with the meaty role being portrayed by Robert Mitchum. He plays the role of a detective, well past his prime age, getting more melancholy and at the same time, being mature.



So what's the story about ? Well, the movie is set in Los Angeles of 1941, a time when there was a lot of corruption and when you start to investigate, you can find the whole plot full of betrayal, and more corruption (in the police), along with the usual environment of seedy hotel rooms, gambling nets, and so on. The detective Marlowe has been hired by an ex-convict, called Moose Malloy, who wants Marlowe to find Velma, an old girlfriend, whom he has not met for many years. He is also investigating a different case, the murder of one of his clients named Marriott (coincidentally, Marriott was killed and an unconscious Marlowe woke up next to the body).
And what do these crimes have in common with each other ? There is the puzzling figure of a lady called Mrs. Helen Grayle, and soon Marlowe also finds himself in more trouble, getting beaten up, drugged and held captive in a private hospital; does he manage to get himself out of trouble and find Velma ? This is a wonderful movie, catch it if you have a chance. The movie got one nomination to the Oscars, but no recognition through an actual award.