What were they doing at that altitude that made them make such a bad movie?

spoles-1

This is one of the worst directed, worst written and worst acted movies I have ever seen. Everything about it shouts, "I'm just too lazy to think of anything better to do with this material", and it really shows.

With a story that cries out for subjective camera treatment and creative transitions to the lengthy feverish flashbacks, Henry King opts for the least inspired choices possible. He cuts awkwardly from past to present, with no unifying metaphor, no introspective ownership of the recollections or the triggers that brought them to the fevered mind of Harry Street. His camera is shockingly static. Entire scenes are filmed in locked-down medium distance two- shots, with nary a sympathetic reaction shot or close-up to give the actors a chance to do something up close and personal. Was he on too tight a schedule to afford the simplest of additional set-ups?

The so-called beauty shots are nothing more than run-of-the-mill step off the tour bus and take a snapshot caliber. They do not deserve the accolades they fetched in 1952. National Georgraphic was already doing better. The nature sequences are shot in different light than the film's continuity, with different film stock, and seem to be stock footage which a cheap assistant producer purchased and edited in.

The acting is clueless. Gregory Peck is badly miscast as the obnoxious, irresponsible writer Harry Street. He doesn't do cynicism or world-weariness well, and he plays a drunk very unconvincingly. Half the time, you get the feeling he can't wait for the take to be over. He was not having fun, and he definitely did not rise to the challenge. He had no clue how to portray a writer, and he had no idea how a writer might die under ironic circumstances.

The script was laughable at times, dropping in Hemingwayesque lines that were at odds with the speech patterns the writer had established. It was a bad script. And it had the smell of badness. But the writer couldn't smell it. And he was a bad writer. But he wrote the move anyway. And it was a bad movie. And its smell was bad.

The only redeeming scene in the whole movie was the portrait of Rue Mouftard, where Leonard and Betsy have their little apartment in Paris, and where H'way lived. It was lovingly portrayed by someone who knew the quarter and knew how to photograph it.

So there you are. Don't bother renting this film unless you want to run a seminar on bad movie making.

score /10

spoles-1 5 January 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1564365/