The original novel ran several bazillion pages and told the tale of one David Alfred Eaton, who couldn't think of anything worse than being his father, a nasty steel-mill owner, and essentially becomes him. Along the way wives, children, mistresses, and the general populations of several east-coast and mid-western states and cities are dragged into his miserable wake, all of it ending with the realization that he's a worthless bastard who might as well have died after service in WWII, the last time he was of any use to the world at large.
The film shoves events forward to the years after WWII, lops off a great deal of the book, and gives everything a happy ending. Along the way, screenwriter Ernest Lehman weaves in some bitchily-amusing dialog, Elmer Bernstein gets the Fox studio orchestra to sigh and weep appealingly, and Leo Tover's wide-screen color photography makes the whole thing look like an expensive luxury item, the sort of thing that our protagonist would buy one of the women he's ignoring, hoping that they'll shut up and leave him alone . . .
It was rather gutsy of Newman to play the role of Eaton, and play it rather honestly. He makes Eaton into a cold, snarky, insufferable bastard, determined to make the whole world pay for the fact that Daddy (Leon Ames) loved his dead brother more the he ever loved the son that survived. (The scene where Dad 'fesses up to this fact is full of creepy, incestuous overtones.) As his wife Mary, Joanne Woodward also is rather gutsy, not to mention smart and sexy, particularly as dressed by the costume designer William Travilla, who never made Marilyn Monroe look this good. Her character marries Newman's in spite of the fact that she's really in love with someone else, but makes a serious good-faith effort at the wife thing, with Newman responding once every six months, and then running to the ends of the earth, not to mention the wastes of California, Colorado, and Pennsylvania to avoid spending any time with her. When she finally takes up with the old boyfriend, the movie primes you to hate the woman; I found myself wondering what took her so long. As the Sweet, Simple, Unspoiled girl that promises Eaton a New and Better Life, Ina Balin works something close to alchemy, turning a sappy cliché into a vivid and appealing woman. A woman far too good for the creep that Newman is playing . . .
Still, the movie has one of the great tell-off scenes in Hollywood history, Newman throwing a promotion and all of the crappy business ethics that go with it back in the face of the pompous bore of a boss (Felix Aylmer) offering it to him. It's corny and hammy in a lot of ways, but Newman gives it wit and zest beyond anything it really deserves. There are few things as delightful to watch as a good actor letting rip.
The film shoves events forward to the years after WWII, lops off a great deal of the book, and gives everything a happy ending. Along the way, screenwriter Ernest Lehman weaves in some bitchily-amusing dialog, Elmer Bernstein gets the Fox studio orchestra to sigh and weep appealingly, and Leo Tover's wide-screen color photography makes the whole thing look like an expensive luxury item, the sort of thing that our protagonist would buy one of the women he's ignoring, hoping that they'll shut up and leave him alone . . .
It was rather gutsy of Newman to play the role of Eaton, and play it rather honestly. He makes Eaton into a cold, snarky, insufferable bastard, determined to make the whole world pay for the fact that Daddy (Leon Ames) loved his dead brother more the he ever loved the son that survived. (The scene where Dad 'fesses up to this fact is full of creepy, incestuous overtones.) As his wife Mary, Joanne Woodward also is rather gutsy, not to mention smart and sexy, particularly as dressed by the costume designer William Travilla, who never made Marilyn Monroe look this good. Her character marries Newman's in spite of the fact that she's really in love with someone else, but makes a serious good-faith effort at the wife thing, with Newman responding once every six months, and then running to the ends of the earth, not to mention the wastes of California, Colorado, and Pennsylvania to avoid spending any time with her. When she finally takes up with the old boyfriend, the movie primes you to hate the woman; I found myself wondering what took her so long. As the Sweet, Simple, Unspoiled girl that promises Eaton a New and Better Life, Ina Balin works something close to alchemy, turning a sappy cliché into a vivid and appealing woman. A woman far too good for the creep that Newman is playing . . .
Still, the movie has one of the great tell-off scenes in Hollywood history, Newman throwing a promotion and all of the crappy business ethics that go with it back in the face of the pompous bore of a boss (Felix Aylmer) offering it to him. It's corny and hammy in a lot of ways, but Newman gives it wit and zest beyond anything it really deserves. There are few things as delightful to watch as a good actor letting rip.