From the Terrace

Reading the comments on this movie tells me a lot about our culture at the dawn of the 21st century. Yes, by today's standards this movie seems to move slow and a is little dull. It was made before pornography passing for entertainment was permitted. It contains lots of subtlety and innuendo. It was considered racy when it was made.

One of my favorite scenes is when Mrs. Eaton is talking to her husband on the phone about her lover. You never see the lover in the scene, but at the end, you realize he's been in the bed all along. Another favorite scene is when Mrs. Eaton meets her husband's lover for the first time. It is in the car afterward that she asks what this woman call's Mr. Eaton.

The only disappointment is the superficial way the film treats marriage. No children are involved in this marriage and it only deals with how the husband and wife consider their lives. It tries to make a case for divorce and treats the subject far too lightly.

As both From The Terrace and The Young Philadelphians have their original settings in the City of Brotherly Love and they both star Paul Newman and they have similar plot situations, it's easy to confuse them. I often do and have to correct myself.

From The Terrace derives from one John O'Hara's less critically received work and for that I fail to see why. The film and I'm sure the novel has some interesting things to say about American values and success. Breaking it down for the film version it's almost as if two books were written with the vaguest connection in plot. The first part is young Newman coming home after World War II service and finding things worse between his unhappily married parents. They've fallen out of love, mother Myrna Loy drinks like a fish and sleeps around, and Leon Ames has never gotten over the death in childhood of Newman's brother and became mean and embittered. That's a scene he leaves first to go into business with navy buddy George Grizzard and then after a fortuitous event I won't mention becoming a wolf of Wall Street with very family values oriented financier Felix Aylmer.

Along the way the parental issues drop away and Newman marries spoiled rich girl Joanne Woodward. He doesn't tend to the marriage and it becomes as loveless as his parent's. She starts spending time with old flame psychiatrist Patrick O'Neal and he eventually finds some true love in Ina Balin.

It must have been an interesting acting challenge for the Newmans to play a loveless couple, in many respects their greatest acting job for this Hollywood couple of long standing. Joanne really ratchets it up playing the rich princess who wants it all and damn the hypocrisy.

Felix Aylmer has an interesting role, one that thank God we see fewer and fewer of. An employer who finds divorce the worst thing in the world, he sees it as a business contract two people enter into. Just live up to it, no matter how unhappy both partners might feel. Newman's rival in the firm is Howard Caine who is in the firm because he is Aylmer's son-in-law. Caine is a real bottom feeder and not above a little stealing on his own just as long as respectable appearances are preserved.

Leon Ames who is usually a nice man really does an against type part here playing the bitter industrial tycoon. And Myrna Loy usually the perfect wife, well imagine if William Powell's drinking in the Thin Man had led to all kinds of physical and mental abuse and Nora Charles started drinking and catting around, you've got what Loy does with the role of Newman's mother.

From The Terrace is a bit old fashioned, but quite a commentary on its times and the cast does well by O'Hara's work.

This movie should get more attention now, and it should have gotten more attention when it was released, because it's a good one. I liked the script, even though it's a little bit melancholic at times, it still works. Paul Newman's performance was on a level, a classy one (there's no other way you can play this kind of character, because it wasn't a kind of troublemaker or a bad boy character, which is what got attention at the time this movie was released), Joanne Woodward was good too.

The Story is treated fairly, it doesn't get boring at any specific point, and the ending is a dramatic one.

The problem is that it is hard to find it, most of the people that have seen it, have done so from the cable.

And for those who have enjoyed this one i would strongly recommend Paul Newman's "The Young Philadelphians" (1959), - absolutely ignore the ratings and give it a shot.

Paul Newman is doing his angry young man thing here, and Joanne Woodward is wonderful as she goes from rebellious rich brat to shrewish, slutty harridan. It's beautifully filmed with lots of sumptuous sets and it's obvious that a good part of the budget went to costumes. If you like movies with boozy, unhappy rich people who do little more than snipe at each other, you've got to see "From the Terrace."

Her bone structure and diction still flawless, Myrna Loy remains as handsome as most of the other females in permanent waves that populate this plush John O'Hara saga. But she's learned the hard way what a quarter of a century's drinking can do even to a woman as classy as her, and that being a nymphomaniac isn't really as much fun as she made it look in 'Love Me Tonight'.

She's extremely moving in her scenes with a dashing young Paul Newman that comprise much of the first half-hour of this very long film. But sadly the movie (SPOILER COMING:) shifts it's attention to him at her expense, and once again the sublime Myrna is wasted.