The World of Henry Orient

The sixties became The Sixties around the time of this film, 1964. There was a time, believe it or not, when kids played grown-up, instead of the other way around, as is the case today. Two cute girls are venturing from childhood to youth, in a benign Manhattan. They have a crush on a pianist-Lothario who happens to be Peter Sellers. You can imagine the complications - and the hilarity.

What makes this film so appealing is the way it portrays adolescent awakening as a completely unsordid and sweet experience. Yes, there is pathos, when the two discover how adults have turned their world into Henry Orient's world.

Although the cast is sterling all around, Tom Bosley is a standout as father to one of the girls, who helps put things to rights.

If the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam are cultural watersheds, then this film is a refreshing antidote; it gives the lie to the glib put-downs of the era by the current generation.

Peter Sellers may be the bait, but two girls supply the hook that keeps this coming-of-age comedy in people's minds 40 years on.

Sellers has the title role as Henry Orient, a pianist more interested in practicing his lines than his scales, but the film's focus is on a lonely young Manhattanite named Gil (Merrie Spaeth) and her new pal Val (Elizabeth "Tippy" Walker), two adolescents who decide to make Val's crush on Orient into the secret center of an adventure-filled friendship.

"Henry Orient" is a film of two parts co-existing uneasily at times. Val and Gil's bond occupies the realm of real life, with Walker and Spaeth giving spot-on performances that seem spontaneous and alive to every moment. The best scene in the movie by far, very much in line with the "Can't Buy Me Love" sequence in the same year's "Hard Day's Night," shows the pair running along a city block, "splitzing" over fire hydrants and tryke-riding boys, their eyes alight with joy as they literally rise over their city surroundings. It's a captivating exercise in what scholars would call "pure cinema." If the rest of the film doesn't rise to that level, it never entirely disappoints, either.

Sellers' sequences are weaker. He's actually quite enjoyable to watch, doing one of his best voice performances as a Brooklynite who affects a French-Italian accent to charm the ladies (listen carefully and you will hear his Brooklyn undertone throughout) but he and Paula Prentiss as the married object of his desires seem to be in a completely different movie, playing a broad farce at odds with the real, sometimes gut-wrenching tone of the rest of the film.

This could be a bigger problem but for Elmer Bernstein's lilting yet driving score, featuring one of the most arresting themes I've heard in film, which seems to carry Val and Gil from one delirious moment to the next with complete abandon while allowing room for darker, contemplative passages. Director George Roy Hill had a gift for employing music at the right moment (see "The Sting"), and the score of "Henry Orient" is a secret strength as it skates over the thinner plot elements.

More obviously a strength is the script by Nora and Nunnelly Johnson, which really captures a sense of how young people talk, goofily, quickly and all-at-once, skipping over the stuff that doesn't matter, like when Val and Gil first meet at their ritzy school. Val asks Gil if she likes being there.

Gil tries to be diplomatic: "They say it's the finest girls' school in the country." "I don't, either," says Val.

Or the priceless exchange they have when taking out a cigarette butt they cadged off of Orient's table during a midday stalk. "No filter!" "He's not scared." One wishes the film found more to draw Orient and his youthful admirers together, though the detour into the state of Val's parental relations has merits of its own, especially with Angela Lansbury doing another of her classic nasty-Mommy turns.

While it didn't set the world on fire in 1964 and, like its young stars, slipped off the radar screen too soon after its premiere, "Henry Orient" remains an engaging glimpse at American youth post-Salinger but pre-Beatles. Sidewalk placards still advertise color TV, while a rich girl's idea of rebellious fashion sense involves wearing a plaid skirt with a mink coat. Trends come and go, but feelings of the kind celebrated in "The World Of Henry Orient" live on.

Is there another movie where the lead actor has his characters name in the title and yet his part is almost irrelevant to the film? This can hardly be called a Peter Sellers movie.

The movie really belongs to the two girls with a crush on the Sellers character, Henry Orient, a schlocky avant-garde pianist. Gil (Merrie Spaeth) has a the big crush on Orient and her friend Val (Tippy Walker) is her cohort in the 2 member fan club. Their relationship seems so natural you forget they are acting. Neither girl had a long career in movies (few child actors do) and it's nice to see child actors carry a movie so effortlessly. So many times kid actors can only play cute and you are quickly reminded that real kids never act that way. I suspect George Roy Hill deserves some credit for their performances - I know he got good performances from Diane Lane and Thelonious Bernard in A Little Romance. Their performance doesn't rank up there with Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon but are still very good. Considering it was the first movie for each of them, their performances are even more remarkable.

After the girls the performance by Paula Prentiss stands out. Playing a much more glamorous role than she had previously (think Tuggle in Where The Boys Are) she is funny and sexy as the married object of Seller's affections. A pleasant surprise and an indication that she should have been a bigger star than she was. Why couldn't she have had more roles like this?

Tom Bosley also plays a warm father to Val - a more sentimental version of his role as Mr C on Happy Days. Angela Lansbury practically reprises her role from The Manchurian Candidate as the worst mother she could be.

As for Sellers, his accent shifts continually. Maybe he thought he was playing numerous characters as he did in Dr Strangelove and never realized when he changed costume he was still Henry Orient. As much as I love and respect Sellers, I could see other actors in the role without hurting the movie.

If you want to see teenagers do a good job of acting like teenagers (albeit in 1964 and having a crush on a concert pianist instead of the Beatles) this is a good flick. Plus New York looks really good - you almost believe it's safe for teenage girls to wander the city late at night.

As a side note, I was surprised to discover that Merrie Spaeth was the founder of Spaeth Communications. She may not have had a long career as an actress but she sure became a success as an adult.

A truly lovely and engaging film, with surprisingly real and complex characters anchored in the perceptive viewpoints of adolescents -- their joys, confusions and hurts, paving the way for future joys, confusions and hurts. This is a remarkable film with countless moments to cherish--the adults with all their foibles, inconsistencies, concerns real or selfish--and those two girls exploring the world with wonderment and imagination born of exuberant discovery and painful denial. The feelings are so complex--it is often playful fun, but with a tinge of bittersweet wisdom that pervades practically every frame of the film. And New York. For those that love New York City, this film is a must. Filmed over 40 years ago--it is a joy to see all the familiar, beloved landmarks as they looked before. Only Woody Allen has filmed NYC with as much loving detail. From the opening scene on the East River where the girls first meet, to their first romp through the glories of Central Park (The Bow Bridge never has looked more elegant and graceful--and the Rambles never more wild and rustic), Park Avenue in the snow with the Christmas tree lights all glowing (truly capturing the magic of NYC at holiday time)--to surprising scenes of Carnegie Hall, and the wonderful Greenwich Village neighborhoods with their charming mews and meandering streets. How appropriate that the girls' discoveries should take place in this beautiful, complex city. One final comment--Elmer Bernstein's film score is a sheer delight-befitting this delicate, but profound story--bathing the film in a musical glow as beautiful as New York City.

A few points. Elmer Bernstein's musical score is as whimsical as the young girls themselves. George Roy Hill, the director, was sensitive to the musical moods of his films. He had originally intended to be a musician and had a bachelor's in music from Yale. The photographer, Boris Kaufman, has done a splendid job of capturing New York City in the late fall and in mid winter. (He was equally perceptive in getting wintry Hoboken on film in "On the Waterfront.")

The acting is fine, surprisingly, from all the principles. The pavonine Peter Sellers usually steals every scene he's in. When he's trying to seduce Paula Prentiss his voice has an accent that sounds somewhere between Italian and Slovenian. He throws in Italian clichés but sometimes gets mixed up -- "Garcon! Due martinis, per favore." One of his funniest moments is when he's performing a terrible piano concerto. He's skipped the last two rehearsals so he's a bit lost. At one point he rolls dramatically into the upper registers (while the rest of the orchestra play checkers) and ends on a trill. He glances at the conductor who slowly shakes his head in disgust. The wrong key. Unperturbed Sellers starts the roll over again and looks to the conductor, who shakes his head again. After the third failure to find the right key, the conductor shakes his head and mouths -- very clearly and silently -- "B Flat." Satisfied, Sellers plunges ahead.

Paula Prentiss doesn't have a very large role but she's delicious both in looks and in her performance. She's so nervous, so flattered by the attention of Seller's phony pianist that she gulps and staggers slightly from time to time. When Sellers finally gets her to his apartment and begins to woo her with a paean to her "burnished shoulders" and "twin poems," she wavers while sitting on the couch and caresses her body parts as he lauds them. She never appears less than half gassed.

Angela Lansbury is in her bitchy mode here, along the lines of her mother in "The Manchurian Candidate." She never seems to go wrong, regardless of the part. Her husband, Tom Bosley, is kind of a good-natured schlub. Phyllis Thaxter looks just fine, considering that she first appeared in "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" more than twenty years earlier. Her sweetness might be cloying except that it seems ingrained in her real personality.

The most surprising thing in the performances are the two 14-year-old girls, neither of whom went on to a respectable movie career. They're plain charming, both goofy and funny, but smart and perceptive as well. "Gilbert" (Spaeth) comes from a warm middle-class family. We can tell because on Christmas we see them preparing a turkey and having friends over for dinner. Spaeth went on in real life to become a strong George W. Bush supporter and helped torpedo John Kerry with the Swiftboat Ads in 2004, for what it's worth.

"Valerie Campbell Boyd" (Walker) is a neurotic genius from a dysfunctional rich family. (That name is a great WASP cognomen, by the way). They're two cute kids, believe it or not, especially Tippy Walker who brings a molestable element to her role. Hill seems to recognize this and gives the PREverts in the audience a couple of slow-motion upskirt shots as the two jump over fire hydrants and dance on park benches. But it's all pretty unstressed and one would be hard put to think of a better image for two pleasant and happy kids living in a world of fantasy than to have them laughing and leaping in the air. Where do they find kids who can act so well? Walker has a way of flipping her hair back and gawkily hunching her shoulders that spells Preppiness.

The film has its serious moments but most of it is low-key humorous. I saw it in a drive-in in Riverhead, Long Island. You probably won't regret watching it.