David and Lisa (1962)

Fresh and Exciting

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

General Notes: David and Lisa is a very solid film. I have a soft spot for films that portray people that are different, outsiders and/or are mentally ill. The film explores the topic of mental illness in a way that does not seem exploitative. Keir Dullea, best known for playing David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey, stars as David Clemens. At the start of the film, David is taken to a residential treatment center/school by his overprotective mother. David is a highly intelligent young man who has an intense fear of being touched. He is cold, distant, and concentrates on his studies, avoiding most of the other students. He has a recurring dream in which he murders people by means of a giant clock.Janet Margolin plays Lisa Brandt, a young girl with two distinct personalities. "Lisa" can only speak in rhymes, while "Muriel' cannot speak and communicates by writing. During the course of the movie, David befriends Lisa, and the two help each other with their disorders.Positives: Keir Dullea is excellent in his portrayal of David. He shows an air of superiority, and yet is very insecure. He cries when no one is looking. Dullea does a great job in showing the two sides of David's personality. Janet Margolin also does a good job at showing her two personalities. Her transformation from "Lisa" and "Muriel" is fantastic. I looked up the actress' other film credits and there is not much there. A pity. I thought she showed a lot of promise as a young actress. The other strong performance was Howard da Silva as the headmaster/psychiatrist Dr. Alan Swinford. David's intelligence makes it a bit difficult to treat his illness; he can be very condescending and prone to angry tantrums. Dr. Swinford takes the verbal abuse and does not let it affect the compassion that he has for his student/patient. Da Silva does an amazing job of non-verbal acting in this movie. You can see that David's words hurt, but he does not take them to heart.Negatives: The runaway scene at toward the end of the film does not seem to fit the rest of the movie. I think the tone was off and the photography was shaky, which was unlike the rest of the film. Other than that, there is not much to dislike about this movie.Overall: Check out this highly-overlooked film. I give a very strong recommendation and rate it an 9.

The movie's very un-Hollywoodish nature created considerable buzz at the time of release. Audiences weren't used to a documentary-like approach to such tricky subject matter. Then too, the production team and cast were not exactly household names. I expect the movie's success exceeded the Perry's fondest dreams. Happily, it gave them encouragement to continue independent production of offbeat subjects.The trick here is to have mental illness treated in a detached yet sensitive way. At the same time, David's (Dullea) ice-cold demeanor is not apt to win audience allegiance at the outset. We're never told exactly what his problem is, which is the way it should be, but the severe emotional repression evidently has to do with a cold, unfeeling mother (Patterson). Also, not wanting to be 'touched' looks like a metaphor for keeping his feelings hidden not only from others, but from himself as well. In that difficult role, newcomer Dullea is totally convincing— a handsome, pale-eyed iceberg.As Lisa, the unknown Margolin is wonderfully expressive, her face literally lighting up as David shares her secret language of rhyming. She is so winsome, it's not surprising that even David takes notice. We know less about Lisa than about David, but obviously the statues she embraces represent key absences in her life. When the two finally touch, a moving moment rare for any movie is reached. At the same time, note how the therapist Dr. Swinford (deSilva) is portrayed more as a facilitator than as an analyst. He provides the environment in which the two can reach each other in ways that his expertise cannot. And he's wise enough to know that. I don't know what the Perry's expected from their two principal actors, but what they got is almost sublime, and a big reason why I think audiences responded so enthusiastically. Too bad the film has slipped into obscurity since that initial reception. It certainly deserves rediscovery, especially on TCM.

In this genteel picture of mental illness, Kier Dullea is David, sent to a kind of boarding school for disturbed young adults. The dozen or so other students, or patients, are a diverse lot. Some seem pretty much like everyone else. But Lisa, Janet Margolin, is clearly schizophrenic. David may be obsessively neat and won't let anyone touch him, but that's peanuts compared to Lisa's looping around like a hebephrenic and speaking in clumsy, repetitive rhymes. After many tribulations, the two seem to cure one another. At the climax, Dullea extends his hand to the stressed-out Margolin and she speaks warmly to him in plain English.Of course everyone enjoys a happy ending and this film gives it to the viewer. The head shrink, Howard Da Silva, plays practically no part in the remission of their symptoms. He makes a few remarks and is accommodating and that's about it.A couple of observations. The gradual improvement of both David and Lisa is rather nicely handled. Gradually, David loses his supercilious quality, his superiority to everything around him. It's not just in the dialog either, but In the way Dullea handles it. He becomes less cross, more thoughtful. He develops a vision of a future that isn't governed by inhuman mechanical forces. He starts thinking about medical school rather than electronic clocks set to perfect time by radio (which we have today).And Lisa's unhurried change from a sloppy child/woman into something resembling an adult is reasonably well done too -- not so much through the character's behavior but through symbols of internal life like clothing and grooming. When we first see Margolin, she's a slob. She's in a high-waisted dress with a tangled mop of hair, playing hop scotch on the schools floor tiles and raving to herself. By the end, she's in neat, bright clothing and her hair is tidy.In fact, she's stunningly beautiful, with her large wet calf eyes and her flawless features. Her idoneous presence carries with it a reigning melancholy, due, I think, to the configuration of her eyebrows. She can't help looking a little distressed all the time. Her acting talent was modest but she was extremely appealing into middle age, or as far into middle age as fate took her. A shame.I can't tell whether Keir Dullea is handsome or not but he's certainly as clean cut as the role calls for, and he uses his clipped, authoritarian voice to good effect.It's not a very realistic story. This is some expensive boarding school we're talking about. I have no idea how that Hispanic psychopath got in there. The only thing wrong with him is that he's too horny. Somebody with Margolin's disorder is far more likely to wind up in a state hospital where nobody can play the piano because there is no piano, nor are there paintings on the walls or "A Day In Paris" celebrations. Schizophrenia is a terrible illness. The entire family feels struck by lightning, and the patient doesn't wear make up like Margolin. And she doesn't get "cured" by falling in love with another patient, though she may remit spontaneously.We don't know Margolin's back story but we know something of Dullea's. He's stuck in the same familiar trap as James Dean in "Rebel Without A Cause" -- weak father, domineering mother. In case you missed it, Neva Patterson is cast as the hoity-toity mother. She's the CRP official in "All The President's Men" who refuses to be interviewed by Woodward and Bernstein, tells them they don't know the meaning of the word "loyalty", and closes the door in their faces. She chills the air of every room she enters.But not to put the film down too much. It tackles a serious subject in a mature way. And although there are many goofs, none of them is serious enough to sap the film of its virtues. All stories of mental illness should end so satisfactorily.

Very quiet drama about two mentally disturbed people, David (Keir Dullea) and Lisa (Janet Margolin), helping each other out to cure themselves.This was one of the art films of the early 60s---it was made independently, shot in stark black & white, has threadbare sets, poor lighting and lousy sound. Still, this was a big hit. It was a very sensitively handled movie of a then touchy subject (mental illness). And Dullea gives an excellent performance as David. Margolin is also good as Lisa. This movie was supposed to "make" both of them--sadly, it didn't.It's all well done but I can't say I liked it. There's absolutely no edge to the story or characters at all. This movie goes out of its way to make sure it won't offend anyone and, unfortunately, this makes for a very dull movie. Still, for its time, this was groundbreaking. Worth seeing for the acting alone.Hard to believe that director Frank Perry later on made the camp classics "Mommie Dearest" and "Monsignor"!