Tonight's Movie: The Great Gatsby (1949) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review
One of my favorite actors, Alan Ladd, plays the title role in THE GREAT GATSBY (1949), now available on Blu-ray in the Kino Lorber Dark Side of Cinema XXVI Collection.THE GREAT GATSBY is also available as an individual single-title Blu-ray release.
It's been a very long time coming for this Paramount Pictures film to be released on Blu-ray in the U.S. To my knowledge, it never had a U.S. VHS or DVD release; it was released on Blu-ray in Australia in the fairly recent past.
I first saw THE GREAT GATSBY at the 2012 Noir City Hollywood Festival with Alan Ladd's daughter Alana (who passed on just a couple years later), costar Macdonald Carey's son Steve, and screenwriter Richard Maibaum's son Paul in the audience. Needless to say, it was a special evening I have always remembered fondly.
Maibaum cowrote the brisk 91-minute screenplay with Cyril Hume, based on the Fitzgerald novel. I'll add that it's been long enough since I last read the novel that I'm responding to it strictly as a film, without comparisons to the book.
Ladd, on the other hand, is utter perfection as the self-made Gatsby, equal parts powerful and vulnerable. This is one of his best performances.
I'm a fan of Barry Sullivan but there's a sense his Tom could have been more; he alternates pugnacious, possessive behavior with moments where he's more solicitous of Daisy...meanwhile he's goofing around with other women behind her back. I wanted to know more about his motivations, but perhaps he was simply a confused jerk!Ruth Hussey is fine as Jordan, who's both direct and manipulative, while perhaps wanting to strive to be something better. Both Jordan and Tom are interesting characters but ultimately each one is something of an enigma.
Despite any flaws, I find this version of GATSBY quite a memorable film, including the shocking conclusion. Ladd's performance is both powerful and touching; the depth of his anxiety upon meeting Daisy for tea at Nick's is striking. The movie has stuck with me since my first viewing over a dozen years ago. I'm very glad it's now readily available for home viewing at long last.
The Blu-ray print is from a new HD master from a 4K scan. It looks very good, if not quite perfect, and the soundtrack is strong.
Extras consist of a commentary track by Paul Talbot; the trailer; two additional Alan Ladd trailers; and a 2012 interview with David Ladd and Alan K. Rode, filmed at the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival in Palm Springs.
Ladd and Carey give the finest performances in this adaptation, which I like very much despite one key flaw, the stark miscasting of Betty Field as Daisy. As I wrote in 2012, nothing in Field's dimwitted performance gives a hint as to why she's Gatsby's dream girl.
Carey is also spot-on as Nick, who serves as the conscience of the movie, expressing the audience's thoughts on each of the other characters aloud. Carey's Nick is both honest and likeable.
The cast also includes Shelley Winters, Howard DaSilva, Elisha Cook Jr., Jack Lambert, Ed Begley (Sr.), Henry Hull, Carole Mathews, and Tito Vuolo.
The movie was directed by Elliott Nugent and filmed in black and white by John F. Seitz.
Extras consist of a commentary track by Paul Talbot; the trailer; two additional Alan Ladd trailers; and a 2012 interview with David Ladd and Alan K. Rode, filmed at the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival in Palm Springs.
I've previously reviewed the other films in this set, DR. BROADWAY (1942) and SMOOTH AS SILK (1946). Both THE GREAT GATSBY and this Dark Side of Cinema set are very much recommended.
Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.
posted by Laura @ 10:00 PM
5 Comments:
Perfect review in e very way, and Ladd is as near right as anyone could be other than Clark Gable,who apparently was Fitzgerald's choice, but Mr. Mayer shot the idea down as they wanted Scott out of MGM. Check out how right Mayer was when researching Winter Carnival.
I'm one of those rare beasts--a person who believes that not every book, play, TV show, or historical incident needs to be made into a movie. And I'm a movie lover! I've seen 3 of the 4 GATSBY movies, and a couple of them are decent. But the novel is a true masterpiece, and the sort of literature which almost fiercely defies cinemazation (if that's. a word). It's an instance where I very much recommend reading the book and skipping the movie. Or at least, read the book first then sample the considerably lesser movies if you like.
Laura, good write-up of THE GREAT GATSBY(filmed 1948, released 1949). I've only viewed this movie once and that was on tv 36 years ago in 1989. I watched it on THE GOOD TIMES PICTURE SHOW which aired on the Arkansas Educational Television Network(AETN) every Saturday night. Ray Nielson was the producer and host, and he would conduct a telephone interview with someone from the movie. If my memory serves me right Nielson interviewed Macdonald Carey, who portrayed Nick Carraway. The only thing that I remember from the interview was that Carey said that Alan Ladd stood on planks to make him taller for the camera. Carey was 6 feet tall, and Ladd was somewhat shorter. I've raked my brain trying to recall something else from the interview, but it's been 36 years. Anyway, I don't care how tall Alan Ladd was, I'm a fan and like his performances in the movies.
Yes, there was a VHS release of 1949's THE GREAT GATSBY in 1998 by Universal Studios Home Video. This release was part of a literature-oriented quartet of movies priced at $14.98 each. I'm not going to get into the gray area of bootleg DVD'S going around in the early 2000's. At the NOIR CITY Film Festival in San Francisco a new struck 35mm print by Universal Studios was premiered on January 28, 2012. In 2013 Sky Chrome Media, Inc. put out a DVD of the movie. I don't know if Sky Chrome Media was a USA company or a foreign one. Does anyone know? This DVD included a bonus feature of the silent movie trailer for the 1926 Paramount release THE GREAT GATSBY starring Warner Baxter and Lois Wilson. The trailer is all that remains of this lost silent movie. Screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen, while doing research for the remake of GATSBY, viewed the 1926 silent version at Paramount in 1947, so it wasn't lost yet, although it wasn't in very good shape because the film kept breaking. When was the silent version lost? Could it have been destroyed before the release of the remake in 1949? Was its silver content considered more valuable for use in making newer movies? This was common practice until the early 1950's. Who Knows?
Contrary to what many writers have written THE GREAT GATSBY(1949) did turn up on television over the years. The movie started showing up on local tv stations in 1975 after the 1974 release of THE GREAT GATSBY(filmed 1973, released 1974) starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. The BBC was airing the 1949 movie on UK tv in 1965 and was still airing it in 1992. I saw it in 1989. AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS(AMC) was showing it in 1993.
The 1949 version of THE GREAT GATSBY wasn't a lost movie. It did fall off the radar from 1953-1974 and again from about 1999-2011. Thank you, Kino Lorber for putting this movie out on Blu-ray.
Walter, there ws someone who did something similar on an early Blu ray edition of Shane about Ladd's height, I think it was Ivan Moffat. What jerk.By the way, a seconary thought: Total disinterest in what people who are not in the industry would or would not have done.Wonderful detailed comment of yours.
Barry, thank you. Something strikes me as interesting and I start digging around. The height thing concerning Alan Ladd and others is a very tiresome topic to me. Some so-called critics have even questioned John Wayne's height. What does that have to do with their talents? Nothing.
I agree with you when it comes to people not in the entertainment industry telling us what they would or wouldn't have done in the making of a movie, play, or tv show. These so-called critics weren't there to see what had to be done or could be done. There are a lot of what if's, but we have to deal with what was and is.
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