The Last Tycoon

Robert De Niro arguably gave the most critically acclaimed performances during the 1970's in movies like "Mean Streets", "Bang the Drum Slowly", "The Godfather, Part II", "Taxi Driver, "The Deer Hunter", etc.,. Little has been said, however, about his turn as Monroe Stahr in "The Last Tycoon" - quite possibly De Niro's most underrated and most uncharacteristic performance on screen. "The Last Tycoon", itself, was a mixed bag among the critics. Some liked it. Some didn't. In my view, "The Last Tycoon" was a movie that deserves a place in film history for exploring Hollywood in the inside. This movie, however, provides only a small glimpse into this which was why the critics were divided. Shortly put, "The Last Tycoon" deals with a top producer's (De Niro) everyday life and the conflict that arises when he sees a lost loved one - albeit in a different way.

The movie boasts of several big names of the past as well as the present. Robert Mitchum, Jeanne Moreau, Anjelica Huston (in a cameo), Tony Curtis, John Carradine, etc., were few of the key players. Jack Nicholson makes a late appearance in the film providing for some brilliant, electric scenes with De Niro. In fact their scenes together (undoubtedly the highlight of the movie) make the one scene that De Niro and Al Pacino shared in Michael Mann's "Heat" seem pedestrian. De Niro and Nicholson, two of the greatest actors American film has even seen, will most likely never work together again considering their stature today which makes their scenes together in "The Last Tycoon" that much more priceless. Ingrid Boutling, a British model, is cast opposite De Niro and gives a wooden performance. She is the only weak link of the picture. A young Theresa Russell also gives an able supporting performance. Ultimately, however, "The Last Tycoon" lies solely on De Niro's shoulders and he makes full use of the opportunity and then some. De Niro's interpretation of a movie mogul (reportedly based on Irving G. Thalberg) is absolutely genuine and original. Looking trim and handsome, De Niro gives a towering, commanding performance as Monroe Stahr and it is his work here that holds the picture together. Though the critics were split down the middle in their opinion regarding this film, there was one thing they agreed upon. Robert De Niro gives an authentic, striking performance in the central role. In my opinion, a performance which deserved an Oscar nomination.

Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon is a very good film and well worth seeing. The absolute top reason to see it is for Robert DeNiro's outstanding performance, a reminder why he's the greatest American actor of his generation. The movie has many other fine performances, from a long list of big stars, that also make it a treat. Chief among those fine supporting performances was Theresa Russell's film debut. She was a nuanced and convincing. The film is also beautiful, with great period sets, excellent cinematography, and many close-ups of distinctive faces that told their stories without words. The film's structure, pacing, imagery (the unfinished beach house) and editing were also pleasing, and conveyed respect for the film and for the audience.

All that said, The Last Tycoon feels somehow unsatisfying, and surely did not reach the heights of greatness to be expected from a collaboration of Fitzgerald, Spiegel, Kazan and Pinter, on a big budget and with a dozen major stars. My own speculation is that the movie makers were too familiar with the details of Fitzgerald's story, and as they cut scenes and made changes they forgot to look at their work from the perspective of a moviegoer who has not read the novel and does not know the story.

Kazan and Pinter's THE LAST TYCOON is disjointed, uneven, and strangely memorable -- rather like an oddly unsettling, hazily recalled dream.

Robert De Niro, in a quietly amazing performance, disappears into the title character of Monroe Stahr, a workaholic Hollywood producer who is, in Keats's phrase, "half in love with easeful death." (This understated movie is from the same year as De Niro's flashy bravura turn in Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER.)

Most of the supporting cast is excellent, including Robert Mitchum and Ray Milland as a couple of Shakespearean-knavish villains, Jack Nicholson, Donald Pleasence, Theresa Russell, and Dana Andrews.

Ingrid Boulting is beautiful but somewhat less satisfactory as Stahr's love interest, Kathleen Moore. In fairness, however, her role is deliberately written as something of an enigma: Kathleen Moore is a blank movie screen onto which Stahr, a near-solipsist, projects fantasies and memories of his deceased wife.

The various elements of THE LAST TYCOON never quite cohere into a whole, but several scenes have stuck in my memory ever since I first saw it years ago. Among them:

• Stahr's mock-lecture to the misfit screenwriter Boxley (Donald Pleasence), beginning: "You've been fighting duels all day..."

• Kathleen Moore telling Stahr, over the insistent crash of the surf at his unfinished ocean-front mansion, "I want ... a quiet life"

• Stahr's informal evening meeting with a labor-union organizer (Jack Nicholson), during which the privately despondent movie producer grows increasingly drunk and belligerent; and ...

• The closing ten minutes or so of the film, which take on an almost surreal quality: Disembodied lines of dialogue from earlier scenes recur; Stahr repeats his earlier speech to Boxley, only now as a soliloquy addressed directly to the camera; and then -- murmuring "I don't want to lose you" -- he seems to hallucinate a vision of Kathleen as she moves on to a new life without him.

Only Jeanne Moreau and Tony Curtis struck me as jarringly miscast in their parts. They -- and their comic-pathetic scenes as insecure movie idols -- seemed to belong to another movie entirely.

THE LAST TYCOON is an uneven work but most assuredly has its merits.

De Niro was an unexpected surprise as Monroe Starr in this brilliant adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished last novel. He gives a thoughtful, sensitive, and intelligent performance as this character, who was modeled on MGM producer, Irving Thalberg. Fitzgerald wrote about Hollywood from the inside, and from the perspective of someone who was destroying himself by being inside. He could ask for nothing better than to have English playwright Harold Pinter create this stark, human screenplay and then have Elia Kazan realize it.

In addition to De Niro's definitive performance, we get a series of perfect cameos (usually an impossibility) from Tony Curtis, Jeanne Moreau, Robert Mitchum, and others. We also get two screen debuts of merit -- Angelica Huston (in a small, but memorable scene) and an excellent Teresa Russell as Starr's would-be sweetheart. The critics hated the movie, and it did poorly in box offices, but it was truly, like Fitzgerald himself, an American masterpiece.

Whether or not "The Last Tycoon" is a great movie or not, it's a must-see for folks like me who love classic Hollywood. Think about it...the film features the talents of folks like Robert Mitchum, Robert De Niro, Ray Milland, Jeanne Moreau, John Carradine, Tony Curtis, Dana Andrews and Jack Nicholson ALL in the same film! And, this doesn't include all the famous supporting actors such as Jeff Corey, Seymour Cassel, Theresa Russell, Peter Strauss and more!! Wow...what an amazing cast director Elia Kazan had on hand for this picture.

The story was inspired by an unfinished story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a story that seems to have been inspired by various real Hollywood folks...though it's very highly fictionalized. The main character, Monroe Stahr (De Niro), is the most closely like a real Hollywood icon, Irving Thalberg....and he is the 'tycoon' from the title. And, throughout the film, Stahr burns the candle at both ends....working non-stop like Thalberg and a man who seemingly has the Midas touch. But, in many, many other ways he and Thalberg are very much different...so much so that it's obviously not meant as a biography of the man. It's more like a jumping off point....with a character reminiscent of Thalberg at the beginning but much unlike him as the story progresses.

So is it any good? Yes...but also disappointing. With such a great cast and director, I really expected more. At times, the film felt episodic and the ending certainly felt incomplete. But I would also add that some of the performances were amazingly muted...to the point where I think the film could have used an infusion of energy and life. Too many times, De Niro and, later, his love interest, simply seemed half asleep and this did detract from the story. Overall, very much a mixed bag...worth seeing but quite uneven.