Puzzle of a Downfall Child | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jerry Schatzberg |
Screenplay by | Adrian Joyce |
Story by | Jerry Schatzberg Adrian Joyce |
Produced by | John Foreman |
Starring | Faye Dunaway Barry Morse Viveca Lindfors Roy Scheider Barry Primus Ruth Jackson John Heffernan Sydney Walker |
Cinematography | Adam Holender |
Edited by | Evan Lottman |
Music by | Michael Small |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 104 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Puzzle of a Downfall Child is a 1970 American drama film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Faye Dunaway, Barry Morse, Viveca Lindfors, Roy Scheider, and Barry Primus.
A beautiful but disturbed young woman lives alone at a beach cottage, reliving her past, a life of delusions and lies. Lou Andreas Sand is a former fashion model whose life has gone into a downward spiral, including drug use and a nervous breakdown. She tells an acquaintance, Aaron Reinhardt, her story for a film he is planning on her, but the details do not ring true. Lou evidently had a lover who abused her, and a penchant for sex with strange men. Along the way, she became engaged to marry Mark, an ad executive, but apparently jilted him on the day of their wedding, leading to her descent into drugs and an attempted suicide.
The film was Schatzberg's first foray into feature-film making; at the time, he was primarily known as a fashion photographer and had directed a few commercials. [1]
Schatzberg initially worked with French screenwriter Jacques Sigurd, who had written a script involving a woman having an abortion, but the collaboration came to an end due to creative differences. Carole Eastman, whose unused draft for Petulia Schatzberg had enjoyed, was approached to write a new screenplay, and only the title from Sigurd's script was kept on the insistence of Schatzberg. [2] Eastman based the new script on recordings Schatzberg had made of his friend, model Anne St. Marie, [3] while Aaron was in part based on Schatzberg himself. [2] The phrase "downfall child" came from a friend of Schatzberg's who had recounted a nightmare where she was trying to save a child falling from a building. [1]
The name of Faye Dunaway's character is an allusion to Lou Andreas-Salomé. [1]
The movie was adapted as a two-character play by Elisabeth Bouchaud (in French) and put on at La Reine Blanche (Paris) in 2017. [4]
Dorothy Faye Dunaway is an American actress. She is the recipient of many accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France made her an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.
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Herbert Morse, known professionally as Barry Morse, was a British-Canadian actor of stage, screen, and radio, best known for his roles in the television series The Fugitive and the British sci-fi drama Space: 1999. His performing career spanned seven decades and he had thousands of roles to his credit, including work for the BBC and the CBC.
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Jerry Schatzberg is an American photographer and film director.
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Poor Little Rich Girl, advertised as The Poor Little Rich Girl, is a 1936 American musical film directed by Irving Cummings and starring Shirley Temple, Alice Faye and Jack Haley. The screenplay by Sam Hellman, Gladys Lehman, and Harry Tugend was based on stories by Eleanor Gates and Ralph Spence, and the 1917 Mary Pickford vehicle of the same name. The film focuses on a child (Temple) neglected by her rich and busy father. She meets two vaudeville performers and becomes a radio singing star. The film received a lukewarm critical reception from The New York Times.
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