Mister Buddwing is a 1966 American film drama starring James Garner, Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette, Katharine Ross, and Angela Lansbury. Directed by Delbert Mann, the film depicts a well-dressed man who wakes up on a bench in Central Park with no idea who he is. He proceeds to wander around Manhattan desperately trying to figure out his own identity. He meets various women, played by Lansbury, Ross, Pleshette, and Simmons, and each woman triggers fragments of his deeply-buried memories.
Based on the 1964 novel Buddwing by Evan Hunter, the black-and-white drama was written by Dale Wasserman, and accompanied by a jazz-based musical score written by Kenyon Hopkins.
In his memoirs, Garner said "I'd summarize the plot but to this day I have no clue what it is. Worst picture I ever made. What were they thinking? What was I thinking?"[1]
A man wakes up on a New York park bench to find that his mind is a total blank. He has no identification or money on him, just a slip of folded paper in his pocket, enclosing two large white pills and with a phone number written on it.
He rings the number, reaching Gloria, who first mistakes him for her shiftless husband Sam. Arranging a rendezvous, he creates a name for himself, appropriating "Sam" and cobbling "Buddwing" from the first two things that seize his attention, a Budweiser beer truck and an airplane. Gloria, a liquor-sodden slattern, does not recognize him but, as he is leaving, gives him a handful of cash, purely out of pity.
Trying to pull himself together over breakfast he sees a giant headline blaring the news of the escape of a violently insane criminal. Finding a possible match with one of the initials inside the ring he is wearing he immediately fears he is this criminal.
Shortly, he spots a woman on the street he thinks he knows and hails her as "Grace". A student at a music school in Washington Square, Janet proves a stranger, but a flashback of a romance with her from college days goes through Buddwing's mind. In it he is the music student, she is "Grace", and they impulsively marry.
Back in the park Janet rejects his attentions and creates a scene. A policeman arrives, Buddwing is questioned, but flees when the patrolman becomes distracted by hecklers.
He is pursued by a mad street person, who raves that indeed Buddwing is the murderer on the loose. More spooked than ever Buddwing races away, ending up aimlessly roaming the sidewalks. Soon he meets coquettish actress "Fiddle". They have sex, after which he instinctively begins to play piano, jarring loose more fragments of his possible former identity. Falling asleep in her arms he roils in a nightmare of fighting with her - by the name of Grace, and again his wife - over a pregnancy he feels they cannot afford. He insists on an abortion. Crushed, "Grace" climbs over the guardrail of the 59th Street Bridge, ready to commit suicide. He arrives to save her just in time.
Snapping out of it, he flees once again, ending up buying a pint of whisky and looking for somewhere to paper-bag it alone. A socialite out for kicks on a scavenger hunt spies the tall, handsome man on the sidewalk. After boozing some together on the nearest stoop the pair end up in Harlem, seeking to clear $100,000 in a craps game to complete her list. Becoming woozy, Buddwing once again lapses into a conscious flashback, this time with The Blonde as his troubled wife Grace. In spite of having achieved success the couple has lost everything: she is a miserable tramp, unable to get over an abortion that left her sterile, he is trapped in his own web of affluence at the expense of honoring his inborn talent.
In his trance he sees a blood-spattered vanity top and a razor blade.
Like a lightning bolt it dawns on him he had, that morning, dialed the right phone number in the wrong area code. It was not for "Monument" on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it was for Mt. Kisco in Westchester County. He calls and finds the number reaches a hospital, and it all starts to come together for him: he had married Grace, she had had an abortion, they never could have a family, he had indeed sacrificed his talent for success as an A&R man as he had told her he intended to, and revolted her. She had slashed her wrists, but was barely alive.
He begs to be able to see her. He takes her lifeless arm. He fears her last breaths are ebbing away. Slowly the limb moves, beckoning his hands. He takes her hand and clasps it in his, sharing his rediscovered life force with her.
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters that embodied an everyman image.
James Scott Garner was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, which included The Great Escape (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964) with Julie Andrews; Cash McCall (1960) with Natalie Wood; The Wheeler Dealers (1963) with Lee Remick; Darby's Rangers (1958) with Stuart Whitman; Roald Dahl's 36 Hours (1965) with Eva Marie Saint; as a Formula 1 racing star in Grand Prix (1966); Raymond Chandler's Marlowe (1969) with Bruce Lee; Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) with Walter Brennan; Blake Edwards's Victor/Victoria (1982) with Julie Andrews; and Murphy's Romance (1985) with Sally Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He also starred in several television series, including popular roles such as Bret Maverick in the ABC 1950s Western series Maverick and as Jim Rockford in the NBC 1970s private detective show, The Rockford Files.
Jean Merilyn Simmons was a British actress and singer. One of J. Arthur Rank's "well-spoken young starlets," she appeared predominantly in films, beginning with those made in Britain during and after the Second World War, followed mainly by Hollywood films from 1950 onwards.
Mame is a musical with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. Originally titled My Best Girl, it is based on the 1955 novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis and the 1956 Broadway play of the same name by Lawrence and Lee. A period piece set in New York City and spanning the Great Depression and World War II, it focuses on eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis, whose famous motto is "Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death." Her fabulous life with her wealthy friends is interrupted when the young son of her late brother arrives to live with her. They cope with the Depression in a series of adventures.
Katharine Juliet Ross is an American retired actress. Her accolades include an Academy Award nomination, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Suzanne Pleshette was an American actress. Pleshette was known for her roles in theatre, film, and television. She was nominated for three Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. For her role as Emily Hartley on the CBS sitcom The Bob Newhart Show (1972–1978) she received two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
State of the Union is a 1948 American drama film directed by Frank Capra about a man's desire to run for the nomination as the Republican candidate for President, and the machinations of those around him. The New York Times described it as "a slick piece of screen satire...sharper in its knife-edged slicing at the hides of pachyderm schemers and connivers than was the original." The film was written by Myles Connolly and Anthony Veiller and was based on the 1945 Russel Crouse, Howard Lindsay Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.
The Strawberry Blonde is a 1941 American romantic comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland, and featuring Rita Hayworth, Alan Hale, Jack Carson, and George Tobias. Set in New York City around 1900, it features songs of that era such as "The Band Played On", "Bill Bailey", "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louie", "Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie", and "Love Me and the World Is Mine". It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1941 for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. The title is most often listed beginning with the word The, but the film's posters and promotional materials called it simply Strawberry Blonde.
Support Your Local Gunfighter is a 1971 American comic Western film directed by Burt Kennedy and starring James Garner and Suzanne Pleshette. The screenplay was originally written by James Edward Grant, who died in 1966; Kennedy rewrote it but let Grant keep sole credit. The picture shares many cast and crew members and plot elements with the earlier Support Your Local Sheriff! but is not a sequel. The supporting cast features Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, John Dehner, Marie Windsor, Dub Taylor, Joan Blondell and Ellen Corby.
Dale Wasserman was an American playwright, perhaps best known for his book, Man of La Mancha.
They Only Kill Their Masters is a 1972 American mystery film directed by James Goldstone, written by Lane Slate, and starring James Garner and Katharine Ross, with a supporting cast featuring Hal Holbrook, June Allyson, Tom Ewell, Peter Lawford, Edmond O'Brien, and Arthur O'Connell. The title refers to Doberman dogs that might have been responsible for a woman's murder currently under investigation by the local police chief (Garner).
Rome Adventure, also known as Lovers Must Learn, is a 1962 romantic drama film, based on the 1932 novel Lovers Must Learn by Irving Fineman. It was directed by Delmer Daves and stars Troy Donahue, Angie Dickinson, and Suzanne Pleshette.
Blues for Mister Charlie is James Baldwin's second play, a social commentary drama in three acts. It was first produced and published in 1964. The play is dedicated to the memory of Medgar Evers, his widow and children, and to the memory of the dead children of Birmingham." It is loosely based on the Emmett Till murder that occurred in Money, Mississippi, before the Civil Rights Movement began.
A Rage to Live is a 1965 American drama film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Suzanne Pleshette as a woman whose passions wreak havoc on her life. The screenplay by John T. Kelley is based on the 1949 novel of the same name by John O'Hara.
Waking Madison is a 2011 American independent drama film written and directed by Katherine Brooks and starring Sarah Roemer and Elisabeth Shue.
Play Girl is a 1941 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Woodruff and starring Kay Francis as an aging gold digger who decides to pass on her skills to a young protégée, and featuring James Ellison, Mildred Coles, Nigel Bruce, Margaret Hamilton and Katherine Alexander. It was produced and distributed by RKO Pictures.
Confessions of a Vice Baron is a 1943 American crime film directed by S. Roy Luby, William A. O'Connor, Melville Shyer, and Herman E. Webber. The film was created using edited footage for the flashback scenes from Mad Youth (1940), The Wages of Sin (1938), Smashing the Vice Trust (1937), Race Suicide (1937), and The Pace That Kills (1935). Willy Castello appeared in each of these films except for The Pace That Kills.
The Blonde Bandit is a 1949 American crime film directed by Harry Keller and written by John K. Butler. The film stars Gerald Mohr, Dorothy Patrick, Robert Rockwell, Charles Cane, Larry J. Blake and Argentina Brunetti. The film was released on December 22, 1949, by Republic Pictures.
Blonde is a 2022 American biographical psychological drama film written and directed by Andrew Dominik, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates. The film is a fictionalized take on the life and career of American actress Marilyn Monroe, played by Ana de Armas. The cast also includes Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, and Julianne Nicholson.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
