Rich and Famous

In 1959, roommates Liz Hamilton (Jacqueline Bisset) and Merry Noel (Candice Bergen) are best friends in Smith College. Merry runs off to marry Doug Blake. Liz goes on to become a serious writer. Merry has a daughter, a large beach house in Malibu, and writes a trashy novel about her neighbors. Liz brings it to her publisher and Merry becomes an overwhelming success.

Hey! It's Meg Ryan in her debut. This wants to be a serious movie about a female friendship but at times, it falls down into trashy romance novels. Candice Bergen is too flighty and she doesn't fit the role. As for Bisset, she's solid until the movie gives her a boy toy. It's not so much a meet-cute but rather a creepy stalking. For every step forward, this movie takes a step back. The potential for a great movie about female friendship is here. It has two solid actresses. It needs more scenes with them together. They could show the changes in their relationship with those scenes. It also needs to cut out some of the more pulpy elements and clunky dialogue.

George Cukor is and always will be one of my favorites. The unsung hero of his generation. Nobody mentions Cukor in the same breath as John Ford, Howard Hawks, William Wyler or Billy Wilder and yet, look at his filmography. From sparkling comedies "The Philadelphia Story" "Adam's Rib" "Holiday" Psycho melodramas "Gaslight" "A Double Life" a great semi western "Heller in Pink Tights" not to mention "My Fair Lady" or "Travels with my Aunt" He was at the service of his actors, he never put himself in front of the camera. I feel a certain tenderness watching "Rich and Famous" flashes of the old master still very much in evidence. Candice Bergen gives us for the first time in her career glimpses of the wonderful comedian she was about to become. Jacqueline Bisset is a throwback to the days of Greer Garson and Loretta Young and Hart Bochner steps in, teasing us, promising something spectacular that will eventually materialize in 1989 with "Apartment Zero", Meg Ryan, as Bergen's daughter is already Meg Ryan. As tired as the formula is, it remains a Cukor film and for what I gather one of Almodovar's favorite movies.

Screenwriter Gerald Ayres' crazy dialogue throughout "Rich and Famous", a remake of the Bette Davis chestnut "Old Acquaintance", continually sounds like failed poetry (or, perhaps, an amateur poet's idea of what movie dialogue should sound like). When college chums-turned-literary rivals Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen are arguing, Bisset refers to herself metaphorically as a dedicated dog. "One come into the yard, we'd kick it out!" Bergen hisses to her. Bisset: "They're refreshingly loyal!" Bergen: "They'd **** a snake if it stood still!" It gets worse. While cuddling with her boy-toy (a writer from Rolling Stone!), Bisset asks if men weep. Her fella says, "We have little hairs that stand up on the backs of our necks." Bisset: "Are your little hairs standing up?" This is a flaky, camp-melodrama, ostensibly aimed at just the sort of women depicted on-screen. Though the two ladies look beautiful, they're acting styles clash: Bisset, trying for depth, comes off as cold and dour; Bergen is hyped-up for a battle, yet her southern accent is shaky (to be charitable) and her approach to this part seems out of place--she's a puff pastry on a dinner table full of oysters. At the end of the film, New Year's Eve, Bisset is feeling lonely and reaches out to her lifelong friend/enemy/whatever. "I need the press of human flesh!" she whispers dramatically to Bergen. "And you are the only flesh around...kiss me!" Somebody send this writer back to movie-school. ** from ****

George Cukor is an actresses director.He told himself it was nothing but an old cliché ,probably as old as the hills ,as old as "gone with the wind" when Leigh and De Havilland went on rehearsing with him even after he was fired.

But this cliché is completely true here.Every scene where Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen are together is riveting,dazzling,moving,funny all at once.but when the movie deals with Bisset's love affairs,it 's an awful bore.Doug's scenes are watchable at a pinch because the actor has a certain presence ,but the Rolling Stone guy's ones are almost unbearable,being bland ,pseudo-intellectual ;this is really a lightweight performance ,to put it mildly.

But the two actresses work wonders when they share the screen.Two scenes highlight the movie:the first ,in Malibu,where the two women spend a whole night reading Bergen's writing prowess;the second in NYC,when they have an ultimate quarrel :Bisset tells her mate she's only one part of a woman:you easily guess which one.

Of course ,it's a very uneven movie and inferior to Cukor's precedent work ("travels with my aunt",not counting his ill-fated "the blue bird") but the fast forward button is useful when the movie begins to drag on.

Not-bad-at-all swan song for the great George Cukor, a "women's picture" remake of 1944's "Old Acquaintance" that actually improves on it somewhat. That's thanks mostly to screenwriter Gerald Ayres, who has updated it in credible and interesting ways and cut down on some of the excesses of the genre. As old friends who become romantic and professional rivals, Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen appear to be having a marvelous time, and David Selby's quite all right in the Gig Young-ish role of the dreamboat who married the wrong Smith graduate. Cukor's venture into R-rated filmmaking is a little self- conscious, and he dwells perhaps too long on the various beautiful young men who make the acquaintance of these two, but it's professional, attractive filmmaking. Notable also for the fascinating party guests who turn up as extras--Nina Foch, Christopher Isherwood, etc.