Ten North Frederick (1958)

So much average

Simply Perfect

Absolutely Brilliant!

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

Gary Cooper made six films after "Ten North Frederick" -- and by the last one, "The Naked Edge," he was near death and filming had to be stopped frequently to give him oxygen.Here, in a film based on a novel by John O'Hara, he plays Joseph Chapin, a lawyer with a son, Joby (Ray Stricklyn), a daughter,Ann (Diane Varsi) and an absolute shrew as a wife, Edith (Geraldine Fitzgerald). He's a gentle man, who has probably kept peace in his life by giving in to his wife.The film begins with Joe's funeral, with his daughter Ann looking back on the last five years. Her own life has been affected by falling in love with a talented trumpet player (Stuart Whitman) and her ensuing unhappiness, and her brother wanted to study music at Juilliard but is pressured to attend law school. The war intervenes, and at the beginning of the film, he has returned for the funeral.Edith has political ambitions and pushes Joe into throwing his hat in the ring; he soon finds it's too dirty a game for him and withdraws.Joe, disillusioned, his beloved daughter having left home, he goes to New York to visit her and meets her gorgeous roommate (Suzy Parker). The two fall in love, despite their age difference.I have to say, I felt the film was a little on the dull side - the pace was slow, and the acting, despite some of the comments here, I found rather dull. The thing about Gary Cooper is that he underplays and is very subtle - now, there's underplaying and there's just not acting. I have to say I didn't feel Diane Varsi did much acting here. Geraldine Fitzgerald was terrific, as was Ray Stricklyn, who went on to Broadway success and a huge career in publicity with the John Springer organization, handling people like Elizabeth Taylor and Bette Davis. Suzy Parker was always a total vision, but never much of an actress.The most effective scenes were at the end of the movie, very beautiful and well worth waiting for. Cooper really shone throughout, but especially in the last section. A wonderful presence, and, like many stars of that era, we lost him too soon. It's sad to realize that they're all gone, including Varsi, who died at age 54.Worth seeing for some of the performances. A little sharper direction would have brought it up a level.

About 15 years ago my daughter (about 13 at the time) and I were surfing channels and got in on the last 30 or 45 minutes of this movie. WOW, I had to own it and finally found it on VHS. A wonderful movie. One of my favorites of this genre.And Gary Cooper had his own style. This was a bit unlike his other... But he played it to a T... Cooper was a gentleman, and his wife an overbearing witch. His failures result from his being too nice of a guy to make him into the man she wanted him to be. It was wonderful that his daughter found out that he had been happy. And even in that happiness he was still a gentleman.

This love story reaches out and touches the heart like no other movie has been able to do in years of movie-making. It's tear-jerking capability is what I've been searching for in movies of this kind. The cast is so wonderfully suited for this film. As you watch, you begin to wonder if Gary Cooper hadn't been born, who could possibly have played this wonderfully passionate older man. My belief - no one! I can't urge movie lovers enough to buy, rent, or whatever one must do in order to view this movie.And, a note to the so called Classic Movie Channels - Where in the hell has this movie been? Please, let's allow the public to view this touching story and be able to comment for all to read.

"10 North Frederick" recounts the story of a middle aged man, successful in business, who is pushed into the political arena by his domineering, obnoxious wife.Gary Cooper and Geraldine Fitzgerald are in fine form as the middle aged man and vicious wife. With the ending of his career approaching, Cooper gave an outstanding performance as a man who was just too good for the society that he lived in. Equally impressive was Geraldine Fitzgerald, his wife Edith, with her sterling political ambitions that could easily rival Mary Todd Lincoln. Erudite, yet a tramp in her own right, Fitzgerald etched an unforgettable character in using such terms as mawkish. (Fitzgerald could have easily played Mary Todd Lincoln in the great 1940 film "Abe Lincoln in Illinois if Ruth Gordon hadn't been available.) Some could call the film dated but what an impressive date! The mores of yesterday were defined that in politics, if you had a scandal in the family, you were ruined. Not so necessarily true today. The same more could be applied to older men married to younger women. Sociologists could really have a ball with this terrific film.When he sees the dirt that politics brings, he begins an affair with his daughter's room mate. Diane Varsi, who was so good in "Peyton Place," shines as the daughter. Suzy Parker is her friend who has an affair with Cooper.Fitzgerald pulls out all the stops in her vicious tirades. She is soon slapped down by her son who denounces her publicly for what she has done to her husband.A wonderful film detailing moral values and their decline in a society where they are most needed. Highly recommended film to all viewers.