A Mulher do Próximo

This is not the sort of movie, I usually like. It's basically a soap opera about of the lives of 4 young married couples in a new community in California. What makes it stand out is the truly amazing performances of the actors - Oscar material, certainly. It's well worth the rental, if you can find it. Occasionally shown at 2am on access cable, this is a hidden gem.

This 20th Century Fox expose of "the good life" in the suburbs wasn't seen by anybody much in 1957, and it's easy to see why: It probes convincingly deep into the less pleasant aspects of this clean, all-white subculture, and suburban moviegoers probably didn't want to see their worst aspects on screen, and urban audiences didn't care. Early Martin Ritt, and typically thorough of him, it explores prejudice, sexism, alcoholism, war veterans with what would now be diagnosed as PTSD, and capitalism's way of trapping young families in debt. The wide-screen black-and-white cinematography is clean and alluring, and all eight principals do well--Sheree North, groomed by 20th to be a threat to Monroe, proves once again that they didn't really give her enough chances to show what she could do. The shiny surfaces and flattering clothes and powerful cars all illustrate that "good life," and show what's wrong with it. And in comprehensively exploring the roots and hypocrisies and effects of racism at the time, it's a good deal braver than many contemporary films.

I caught this movie at a film festival at UCLA this week-end. It was excellent. Great screen play and acting. I almost didn't recognize Tony Randall as his nose is suspiciously larger than it seems in later films. Unlike the reviewer who felt this was essentially a "Soap Opera" that was well acted, I think that this film had an obvious dark side. It wasn't just the telling of the business of others, it was the unveiling of the dark underbelly of suburban life. Not for the sake of entertainment, but for the sake of exposure. This movie reminded me a lot of a William Inge play. An expose more-so than a side show. I loved it much more than I expected to.

Call it a soap opera if you like, but "No Down Payment" is a riveting slice of late 1950s life from Surburbia, USA. This movie follows the intertwining lives of several suburban families in a generic U.S. city, and is fascinating to watch.

We've all seen the characters in our own lives: the bookish engineer (Hunter), the quietly desperate alcoholic car salesman (Randall), the town official with nothing but excuses (Hingle), the violent type that settles everything with his fists (Mitchell), and so on. Great acting by all concerned, along with Ritt's sure direction, make this a winner.

My only complaint is the women's roles. Joanne Woodward produces a great performance, but all the other women's roles are somewhat one-dimensional, and involve spending all day keeping house or setting the dinner table. I guess it's a reflection of the 1950s, but it's still disappointing.

Fine performances, particularly from Woodward, Hunter, and Randall, produce a grade-A effort. Watch it with the 1950s in mind.

It may not be Peyton Place but this tight-knit Californian community is still plagued by maritial infidelity, heavy drinking, domestic abuse, rape and, of course, racial prejudice. Martin Ritt's "No Down Payment" benefits from being well-written, (Philip Yordan), nicely photographed in black-and-white Cinemascope, (Joseph LaShelle), and it features a good cast of up-and-coming Fox stars headed by Joanne Woodward, (very good), though it's Tony Randall and Pat Hingle who walk off with the picture. Considered very daring and adult in its day, it now seems pretty tame but it did pave the way for a number of 'grown-up' American movies in the late fifties and early sixties and is actually a very good example of its kind. Worth rediscovering.