I had a strange feeling, as I watched Kirk Douglas speeding down the highways of L.A. to his own "Zephyr" cigarette ads, that I was watching a movie I had already seen -- even though I've never heard of "the Arrangement" until I found the video last week at the library. The premise of the movie is so familiar as to lead one to speculate that it is, in itself, an ironic reflection on the banal. Douglas plays a middle-aged advertising executive having a midlife crisis, trying to kill himself, saying and doing "crazy" things, having a lot of sex with Faye Dunaway's character, and way too many prolonged bedroom arguments with his wife, played by Deborah Kerr.
Even though the story is dull, it's a somewhat gripping movie because it's so stylish, and because Dunaway and Douglas at least put in some pretty compelling performances. Sometimes I think that they were being too aggressive with the editing. It reminded me of Sergio Leone or something, which isn't necessarily an insult, but this movie didn't have enough action to justify all the cross- cutting. A lot of it just feels manipulative, and kind of cheap, like the scene where he uses editing to "switch" Dunaway with Kerr.
It's also an uneven narrative, because the whole second half of the movie ends up having to do with Douglas' relationship with his father (Richard Boone), who doesn't even show up in the first half. Kerr's stuck in a pretty thankless role ultimately, too.
It's a movie that shouldn't be as good as it is. I don't think I would want to read the novel, but once he got out there on the set with the actors Kazan made a decent film out of it. Boone's performance is particularly surprising, to me anyway.
But it's not a good movie, overall. Kirk Douglas has been on the same terrain too many times. I thought "Two Weeks in Another Town" was a much more compelling film, from about a decade earlier. And we've seen the rapacious and soul-less side of Douglas too, before, in "The Bad and the Beautiful" and "Champion" and other films. What's interesting about the film is Dunaway's character, and how she breaks down his persona. I would have enjoyed the film more if it wasn't so hung up on making Douglas the "good guy." We've seen that enough times too.
Even though the story is dull, it's a somewhat gripping movie because it's so stylish, and because Dunaway and Douglas at least put in some pretty compelling performances. Sometimes I think that they were being too aggressive with the editing. It reminded me of Sergio Leone or something, which isn't necessarily an insult, but this movie didn't have enough action to justify all the cross- cutting. A lot of it just feels manipulative, and kind of cheap, like the scene where he uses editing to "switch" Dunaway with Kerr.
It's also an uneven narrative, because the whole second half of the movie ends up having to do with Douglas' relationship with his father (Richard Boone), who doesn't even show up in the first half. Kerr's stuck in a pretty thankless role ultimately, too.
It's a movie that shouldn't be as good as it is. I don't think I would want to read the novel, but once he got out there on the set with the actors Kazan made a decent film out of it. Boone's performance is particularly surprising, to me anyway.
But it's not a good movie, overall. Kirk Douglas has been on the same terrain too many times. I thought "Two Weeks in Another Town" was a much more compelling film, from about a decade earlier. And we've seen the rapacious and soul-less side of Douglas too, before, in "The Bad and the Beautiful" and "Champion" and other films. What's interesting about the film is Dunaway's character, and how she breaks down his persona. I would have enjoyed the film more if it wasn't so hung up on making Douglas the "good guy." We've seen that enough times too.