Death of a Salesman

For reasons unknown to me, this version of the film has been unavailable for years. When I finally was able to view it recently, I thought it was excellent, and that Frederic March was the ideal Willy Loman. Played on Broadway by Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott and Brian Dennehy, powerful men with powerful presences, the role has the potential to make Willy's downfall extremely dramatic, a testament to how far the mighty can fall. But in Frederic March, we better see his inherent weakness, and believe his corruption. We're not tricked into believing that his life's work was ever worthwhile, that it just fell on hard times. Instead, we see that his life was a lie from the beginning, which is what I believe the play intends.

Dustin Hoffman, another great actor, also famously played the role on Broadway and in the TV version of that production, widely available on video and therefore perhaps the version most viewers are familiar with. His interpretation was quirky and unreal, a character actor playing the lead in a modern take on a Greek tragedy, and it didn't work for me. But no matter how you feel about the play and the role, if you can catch this Frederic March version, do so; you won't regret it.

The main question is, how does the Fredric March version stack up against the Lee J. Cobb version. The answer is very well; it's probably a dead heat. Lee J. Cobb's performance has long been legendary, but March's was a little more emotionally authentic and agonizing.

Some critics objected that his Willy made the man seem insane and that insanity would rule out tragedy as the genre of the play/film. But King Lear went mad in the course of the play, and Strindberg's The Father involves madness in the protagonist. There is no point denying the evidence of the play itself in order to satisfy a theoretical rule that, at the same time, is violated in other plays. And the main evidence is that Willy got so involved with his memories that some of them became hallucinatory, especially in the office scene after he was let go from his job. Yes, there were numerous flashbacks in the play, but other scenes from the past took place in his mind and at times he became disoriented, talking loudly to absent characters such as his brother.

I found the Dustin Hoffman version not on the same level as the Fredric March or Lee J. Cobb version. Hoffman pushed method acting too much and was too young to portray a man in his early sixties.

I saw the Fredric March version in 1951 or 1952. Because of Arthur Miller's defiance of HUAC, the American Legion picketed the film and it was rarely if ever screened after that, until it was reissued as a DVD quite recently.

I recently have discovered Fredric March and have been watching several of his movies. Though I personally prefer his early films where he was the young and romantic hero, I found this movie to be a very good example of how broad his acting talent was. He was simply amazing as Willy Loman; he impressed me as being a truly desperate man at the end of his sanity. He should have been the one to win best actor during this year; instead it went to Humphrey Bogart for "The African Queen". Why, I don't know, for Fredric March's portrayal of Willie Loman was excellent. It brought tears to my eyes at the end,and I am not one to cry during a film; it takes something special for an actor to move me to tears.

The whole film had a darkness to it, it was very melancholy, depressing, desperate, hopeless...it is an emotionally exhausting film to watch. It does not leaving you sighing happily at the end. Still, I recommend you watch it for a wonderful performance by Fredric March.

Arthur Miller justifiably received a lot of acclaim for his Broadway stage version of DEATH OF A SALESMAN and this film version starring FREDRIC MARCH as Willie Loman is a faithful transfer of that work.

March is outstanding in his portrayal of a bitterly confused man who can't fathom why his life went so wrong, and CAMERON MITCHELL and KEVIN McCARTHY do outstanding work as the sons who are disillusioned by their father's failure. But the most memorable performance, in my estimation, comes from MILDRED DUNNOCK, who would go on to play similarly bitter women in her future roles on screen. But here she is poignant in what has to be one of the best character roles she ever had.

Surprisingly, the film is little seen today, seldom revived and largely forgotten. BRIAN DENNEHY did have success in a recent Broadway version and DUSTIN Hoffman has performed the role on TV. But the Fredric March version deserves to be seen, however heavy-handed the material is.

It's an exhausting experience, a story of one man's failure in life's journey, but dramatically very effective and it still has a lot to say.

This all but lost 1951 version of Arthur Miller's American masterpiece was nominated for several prestigious Academy Awards in 1952, including Best Picture. That it has never been officially released on video is a shame, for, quite simply, Fredric March's go around as Willy Loman is a absolute treasure. The supporting cast are uniformly excellent; the mood and tone are consistently melancholy; the sets are spare, even stagy; and, most important, the pace is as brisk as this play will allow. Please search out this one out on TV-- you will not be disappointed.