Directed by:
Henry KingScreenplay:
Sy BartlettCinematography:
Leon ShamroyComposer:
Franz WaxmanCast:
Gregory Peck, Deborah Kerr, Eddie Albert, Philip Ober, John Sutton, Karin Booth, Ken Scott, Jack Kruschen, Bess Flowers, Kenner G. Kemp, Jeffrey Sayre (more)Plots(1)
Top production and stars give this one all they're worth. The film deals with the brief love affair between Sheilah Graham and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who, during his last year of life, is attempting to write screenplays in Hollywood. He needs the cash to support his wife in an asylum and his daughter in a private school but also wants to redeem a failing literary career. He meets the ambitious English writer whom he takes under his wing. Peck is miscast (he is dark haired and towers well over six feet, whereas Fitzgerald was 5'7" and fair-haired), but he plays the role nobly. The story is more Kerr's than Peck's; her Graham is portrayed as his rescuer, a dubious role we must accept on faith. She is at first charmed by Peck, then, becoming his mistress, plagued by his drinking and insults. When he discovers she is not the blue blood she claims to be, he cruelly degrades her; he also interferes in her caree . And the whole story comes down to Peck's sudden death at an early age while with his paramour. (Fitzgerald died in Graham's company while reading a Princeton alumni magazine, chewing on a Hershey bar, and sipping a Coke. He had a massive heart attack, brought on, no doubt, by years of guzzling cheap gin, but he was sober at the time.) Albert plays a sort of Robert Benchley role and gives it as much as he can, Benchley (and Dorothy Parker, the only one to go to Fitzgerald's funeral) being the writer's friend. It's a sad film which dwells not on Fitzgerald's courage and magnificent talent, but on his failure and Graham's triumph, an image not in keeping with today's perspective of that tragic giant. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Gregory Peck
USA
Best movies:
Roman Holiday (1953)
The Big Country (1958)
The Scarlet and the Black (1983) (TV movie)
Deborah Kerr
UK
Best movies:
Julius Caesar (1953)
From Here to Eternity (1953)
Trumbo (2015) - a.f.
Eddie Albert
USA
Best movies:
Roman Holiday (1953)
The Longest Day (1962)
You Gotta Stay Happy (1948)
Philip Ober
USA
Best movies:
North by Northwest (1959)
From Here to Eternity (1953)
Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
John Sutton
Best movies:
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
The Dawn Patrol (1938)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Karin Booth
USA
Best movies:
Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)
Hold Back the Dawn (1941)
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Ken Scott
USA
Best movies:
The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
The Gumball Rally (1976)
The Bravados (1958)
Jack Kruschen
Canada
Best movies:
The Apartment (1960)
The People Against O'Hara (1951)
Cape Fear (1962)
Bess Flowers
USA
Best movies:
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Rear Window (1954)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Kenner G. Kemp
USA
Best movies:
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Limelight (1952)
Jeffrey Sayre
USA
Best movies:
Bon Voyage! (1962)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
North by Northwest (1959)
Harold Miller
USA
Best movies:
Song of Love (1947)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Dan White
USA
Best movies:
The Name of the Game (1968) (series)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Charles Tannen
USA
Best movies:
Love Is News (1937)
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
The Country Girl (1954)
Tom Greenway
USA
Best movies:
North by Northwest (1959)
Westward the Women (1951)
High Noon (1952)
Paul Bradley
USA
Best movies:
Giant (1956)
Gilda (1946)
Pretty Woman (1990)
Jonathan Hole
USA
Best movies:
The Graduate (1967)
The Name of the Game (1968) (series)
Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
Cosmo Sardo
USA
Best movies:
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
North by Northwest (1959)
Herbert Rudley
USA
Best movies:
Rhapsody in Blue (1945)
The Court Jester (1955)
The Jayhawkers (1959)
King Mojave
USA
Best movies:
Fury (1936)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
King Kong (1933)