roman holiday
by Douglas Messerli
Charles
Schnee (screenplay, based on a novel by Irwin Shaw), Vincente Minnelli (director) Two
Weeks in Another Town / 1962
The film begins with an absolutely
pointless series of scenes in a mental clinic where Andrus has gone after
having cracked up, quite literally, by driving a car straight into a wall after
a disastrous evening with his former wife, Carlotta. By the time we first
encounter him, he’s already been “cured” and is ready for release. With perfect
timing his arch-enemy, Kruger, cables him to come to Rome for a small part in
his new film—once again a convenience of plot which makes little logical sense.
No matter, once the cast has been assembled, we’re finally in for some delights
as the actors in this work, one by one, each try to prove that everyone in this
world is a creative mess.
Indeed, if you look at Minnelli’s film
from this vantage point, as a kind of study in modes of bad and over-the-top
acting or as a study in talent gone sour, it almost becomes interesting,
Trevor as Mrs. Kruger hisses and spits
out her vindictiveness, mostly to her husband, before, at the end of the film,
turning her medusa-stare to Andrus. Hamilton easily proves that like his
character Drew, he cannot seriously act (later proving that comedy was his real
talent.) And Kruger, whom the movie represents as a man who has lost any talent
he once might have possessed, wanders around the set in Robinson’s paunch body
like an old man, the script finally getting rid of him through the accident of
a heart attack, so that Andrus can take his place; after all Kruger has long
ago taken away even Andrus’ small acting role. Lavi as Veronica does her best
to be sweet, but the very idea that she has to make a romantic choice between
both of the neurotic actors in the film makes her role nearly impossible.
At moments, it is apparent, Minnelli even
tries to resurrect some of the fluidity and drama of screenwriter’s Charles
Schnee’s 1953 similarly-themed script, The
Bad and the Beautiful. But actor Douglas,
this time around, is trying to be one of the “beautiful” people, and doesn’t
have enough time as a “director” to become the “bad” (but dramatically good)
Jonathan Shields of that earlier work. Almost
as if Douglas cannot find a way out of the stale story in which he’s now
trapped, his character, after another bender, tries once again to drive into a
wall, this time with his ex-wife beside him in the car.
Los Angeles,
December 31, 2015
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