Marjorie Morningstar (1958)

Too much of everything

the audience applauded

That was an excellent one.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Somewhat stilted and overlong this is still an enjoyable drama of a young girls awakening to some of the realities of life thanks to Natalie Wood. At this stage she was in a transition period between being the lead girl in a bunch of studio assembly line films and a true leading lady in important pictures. This is one of the first where the sole focus was on her character and she carries it well plus she is at the peak of her beauty. Claire Trevor and Carolyn Jones enhance the film with their individual and distinctive personalities. Gene Kelly however is miscast and abrasive and that hurts the pictures overall impact.

Marjorie Morningstar has integrity - she turns down a part in a Broadway play because the writer has a crush on her and doesn't require her to audition.Although she desperately wants to be in the theatre she is not willing to adopt the "easy come - easy go" attitude to sexual relationships that seems to be the norm in that milieu.She wants to be a success on her own terms. Whilst working at a Summer Camp she falls under the spell of a Svengali - like theatre director,a big fish in a small pond.Through rose - coloured glasses she sees him as some kind of genius,but he is in fact a man of limited talents,a fact that becomes clear when he enters the big time. Eventually she sees through him and is given a chance to a new life and career with the writer who is still carrying a torch for her. That's Showbiz,I guess. The mid 1950s was about the last time when you could make a movie about a JAP with theatrical aspirations going against her parents' wishes. Al Jolson has a lot to answer for. Miss Natalie Wood is just about up to the task as Marjorie Morganstern,nice but dim,pretty but muddle - headed.Her naivety may well be the main attraction for Noel Ehrman(professional name "Airman")played by Mr Gene Kelly.He is a moderately able song and dance man who writes his own material and has a musical "Princess Jones" in his head if he can just get round to it.Girls gather round him "Like moths around a flame" as Miss Dietrich once memorably sang. One of his assistants,Wally,develops a crush on Marjorie that develops into stalker - like proportions. Marjorie's best friend - the worldly wise Marsha - is played with her customary scene - stealing relish by the great Carolyn Jones who clearly has more personality in her little toe than Marjorie does in her whole body and definitely relegates Miss Wood to second place whenever they are on screen together. Eventually Marsha marries a rich "angel" who provides backing for Airman's musical which flops resoundly sending him over the top. Mr Kelly,to put it kindly,never seems happy in his role until the final scene at the Summer Camp when Marjorie,back on a visit to lay a few ghosts,sees him singing to an adoring audience of acolytes.Happy that he has found something he is good at once more,she gets on a bus to go home and is confronted by her stalker,the writer Wally,who smiles at her.Good Grief. Mr Ed Wynn is rather moving when not trying to be funny as her great uncle who has Mr Kelly sussed out as the great seducer he undoubtedly aspires to be and gives him the Gipsy's Warning,posing as a waiter bringing room service to Kelly's bachelor pad. Half a century or so ago,"Marjorie Morningstar" was a big movie.Now it seems to have shrunk somewhat.The garish colour and the corny plot have contributed to its fall from grace,but,most of all,apart from dear old Ed Wynn,it lacks a single sympathetic character.

Herman Wouk's "Marjorie Morningstar", a book published in 1955, became an immediate bestseller. The book about a newly rich Jewish family from the Bronx, now living comfortably on Central Park West, was the kind of novel that was popular at the time. Its appeal was chiefly about the sexual awakening of a young woman who at first rebels against the choices made for her by her ambitious mother, but ultimately ends up married to a prosperous man from Westchester, leaving her dreams and ambitions behind. The movie version changes the ending, as Marjorie had finally come to her senses about her infatuation with Noel Airman and she is seen boarding the bus where a patient Wally Wronkin, the man who really loved her is also riding.The film version by Everett Freeman took some liberties, perhaps to make it more appealing to a younger movie going public. The end result seems to this humble commentator a cop out when all is said and done. What comes out on the big screen seems false from beginning to end. Perhaps reading the novel would be more satisfying because the original story is left to one's imagination.Part of the problem with the film was the casting of Gene Kelly, who was 46 at the time, against a radiant and youthful Natalie Wood. Miss Wood, who was starting to appear in films as a young woman. Ms Wood had grown up in the eyes of viewers of films of the late 40s and early fifties where she was seen playing small girls' roles. She appears not as confident for a role that perhaps demanded a more convincing actress. It didn't help either that she and Mr. Kelly show almost no chemistry in their scenes together.Of course, "Marjorie Morningstar" had its following at the time it came out. Unfortunately, this film hasn't aged well. It feels false at times and at its most dramatic, it feels empty. The supporting cast was good, especially Claire Trevor, Everett Sloane and Ed Wynn, who are seen as the parents and uncle of the young heroine. Martin Milner, Martin Balsam and especially Carolyn Jones make a good impression.Irving Rapper, who had done better in previous movies, directed without breaking new ground. Perhaps the ultimate culprit lays in the screen treatment the film received.

I recently saw this movie after adoring Gene Kelly's musicals since I was a kid. It is quite a departure of what I'm used to seeing him in, but still wonderful. This is pretty standard fare for Natalie Wood, but it is a rare treat to see Gene Kelly in a dramatic role. After reading his biography, it is a sad irony that his character somewhat mirrored what was happening in Gene Kelly's personal life, in that his days of glory were something of the past. This is not the Gene Kelly you know, but if you want to see him in something different, take the phone off the hook, grab a box of Kleenex and sit down with Marjorie Morningstar. It will stay with you.