Sweet November (1968)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Sweet November was one of those 1960s movies that aspired to be great. The conversations between the characters were incredibly talky like most 1960s Broadway plays and not like real people talk but hey it's a movie, why not? I was ready to buy into the fantasy. It's also fun to see New York as it was collapsing into Mayor Lindsay chaos. The sad thing is Sweet November ended up being propaganda to push a still somewhat uptight country into a complete breakdown of marriage. Infatuation is presented as "true love", perhaps the most destructive concept Hollywood ever foisted on an gullible public and the especially vulnerable Baby Boomers who were coming of age in Sacred '68. My god, one wouldn't even know how a woman behaved during her full menstrual cycle before your month of sexual access was over. How incredibly naive. Anthony Newley is quite compelling and gets you to root for him. How sad his career was about to implode. He was such a talent that he couldn't focus in one direction and go with it. We have nobody like him today. Too bad he wasted his talents promoting such a cancerous message to America.Now we have the fruit of Sweet November: an almost 50% illegitimacy rate and children growing up without fathers. Sweet November defies science that tells us women bond to the men they sleep with thanks to the wonder hormone "oxytocin". But the radical feminism so in vogue in those heady days of the 1960s of radicals like Germaine Greer was expressed in the plot that women must be sluts to destroy their dog-like devotion to men and be free of enslaving patriarchy. Sweet November is an interesting historical piece that someday will be exhumed to show why America collapsed from within.

I watched this movie because of Sandy Dennis. I don't know a lot about Dennis but I have been watching her movies to become more familiar. She has a quirky way about her that it wonderfully exploited in this film. She never fully reveals why she does what she does with her men in this movie. Whether it is truly to provide therapy for her guests or if it is a clever way of having intimacy without commitment is no made clear since she has an angle in just about every other enterprise she runs.What makes this movie good is how well Dennis play the character which fits her quirkiness. While the movie is a great comedy, it has a compelling ending. Of course if you've seen the 2001 version, then it has already spoiled it for you. But if you, like me, have not watched the 2001 version because....well because then this movie will be very enjoyable. There is no Keneau stardom stardom to get in the way and you will enjoy the characters.

Cloying whimsy with Sandy Dennis as Sarah an incurably ill woman who runs some unspecified "legitimate repair service" that apparently includes the men she takes in to her life and bed each month;she's lover, muse and mother. Sarah makes odd sounds when she sleeps, takes lots of medication, feels tired and cold on occasion, but spends most of her considerable energy, and apparently limited lifetime, prattling. That the men in the film or anyone would tolerate her or find her appealing is beyond me. 2 minutes with Sarah and you'll want to bolt. The script resembles a sitcom without laughs. The NYC locations circa 1968 are the only interesting thing in the film. Sweet November is a dud, the title song is awful and the remake is a terrible reworking of a bad idea. Dennis played an even drearier kook in Robert Altman's That Cold Day in the Park(69)in which she holds a young man against his will. Sweet November opened at Radio City Music Hall and pretty much disappeared. Watch it and you'll know why.

It's been over thirty years since I saw Sweet November, and the final scene is indelible in my mind. The utter sadness of that scene. But I don't remember Sweet November as a sad movie; it was uplifting, making you look at life with gleaming fresh eyes. The 1968 version, Sandy Dennis/Anthony Newley, is a favorite of mine.Watching the 2001 re-make made me long for my old friend, the original Sweet November.