An average flick

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Sidney Lumet’s work, I thought I might as well give it a try. Lumet had a rather productive career managing to direct more than 40 movies, some major classics, some major bombs and a whole bunch of really obscure features. This movie definitely belongs to the last group. Indeed, a little bit like Orson Welles, Sidney Lumet had the curse that he made a huge masterpiece as his directing debut, ’12 angry men’, and none of his following movies ever managed to be that great again. This movie was thus his sophomore effort, it is indeed pretty obscure (only 3 users in Listal have rated me including me) and it wasn’t really good, I’m afraid. Basically, it is a rather whimsical comedy taking place in the theater world in New York. Although I call it a comedy, there were some darker moments, especially involving Henry Fonda, and even though those scenes were actually interesting, they made the whole thing rather uneven. Also, even though everybody was playing it straight , Susan Strasberg who was quite charming to look at, was really over-the-top, playing it like in a play (this movie was indeed a play adaptation) and this mix didn’t work very well. Still, it remains an intriguing movie, Henry Fonda was a usual quite fascinating, and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Sidney Lumet’s work.

6/10