The Arrangement (film)

Last updated
The Arrangement
TheArrangement(film).jpg
1994 VHS cover
Directed by Elia Kazan
Written byNovel/screenplay:
Elia Kazan
Based on The Arrangement
1967 novel
by Elia Kazan
Produced byElia Kazan
Starring Kirk Douglas
Faye Dunaway
Deborah Kerr
Richard Boone
Hume Cronyn
Cinematography Robert Surtees
Edited byStefan Arnsten
Music by David Amram
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.-Seven Arts
Release date
  • November 18, 1969 (1969-11-18)(US)
Running time
125 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$4 million (US/Canada rentals) [1]

The Arrangement is a 1969 American drama film directed by Elia Kazan, based upon his 1967 novel of the same title.

Contents

It tells the story of Evangelos Topouzoglou, a successful Los Angeles-area advertising executive of Greek-American extraction who goes by the professional name "Eddie Anderson” (his second pseudonym). Eddie/Evangelos is portrayed by Kirk Douglas.

Eddie is suicidal and slowly having a psychotic breakdown. He is miserable at home in his marriage to his wife, Florence, played by Deborah Kerr, and with his career. He is engaged in a torrid affair with his mistress and co-worker Gwen (Faye Dunaway), and is forced to re-evaluate his life and its priorities while dealing with his willful and aging father (Richard Boone).

Plot

Wealthy ad man Eddie Anderson attempts suicide by swerving his sportscar underneath a tractor trailer. Throughout the film, flashbacks—some memories, some hallucinations—reveal his contempt for his life and its "arrangements.” His contentious relationship with his Greek father, Sam Arness—a once-successful importer who despises Eddie for further Anglicizing his name, going to college and refusing to follow the family business—is made worse by Sam's accelerating brain damage from arteriosclerosis. Eddie's long marriage to Florence is now devoid of passion on his part and full of frustration on hers. Arthur, the family lawyer, advises her, to Eddie's disadvantage. Florence's psychoanalyst, Dr. Leibman, also weighs in. Eddie and Gwen, a research assistant at his advertising agency, have been lovers.

Eddie returns to work, where he insults a valued tobacco client by referring to “the big C”. He falls afoul of the police by buzzing L.A. in a small plane. Searching for his pilot's license, Florence finds nude photographs of Eddie and Gwen, just as Eddie learns that his father is in a New York City hospital.

In New York, Eddie's brother and sister-in-law want to place Sam in a nursing home, to ease the burden on their long-suffering mother, a burden made worse by Sam's violent paranoia and his insistence on starting a new business. Gwen is also in New York, living with Charles, who tells Eddie how devastated she was by their breakup. Gwen describes her own calculatedly promiscuous behavior to Eddie, behavior that Charles tolerates on the understanding that in the end, they will marry. She has a baby boy, Andy. She does not know who the father is.

Gwen and Eddie become lovers.

Florence follows Eddie to New York. She wants him to come home and work on the “reconstruction” of their marriage. She dismisses Eddie's desire to look after his father himself and explodes when he tells her he was with Gwen.

With the doctor's help, Eddie smuggles Sam out of the hospital to the family home, a huge Victorian mansion on Long Island Sound. Sam calls him Evangelos, stirring powerful memories. Gwen offers to be Eddie's mistress after she marries George, but Eddie insists that he is going to marry her.

Eddie cannot give Sam the money to start up his imaginary business, so decades of pent-up anger explode: Eddie admits he is ashamed of him. While Eddie and Gwen are out in a boat, the family removes Sam by force. Charles takes Gwen and the baby away.

Increasingly distracted, Eddie ultimately confronts the “successful” man that he was. Arthur interrupts this dialogue when he arrives from L.A. Arthur, Florence, and Dr. Liebman press Eddie to turn over all of his community property to Florence. She tells him not to sign, but he does, (using Arthur's name).

In a private conversation with Eddie, Florence confesses her love, She will “stick with him through anything.” But when Eddie says he wants to “do absolutely nothing” she replies “Fine. What will you do?” He wants to take time to think—which means selling their lavish holdings and living more simply. Florence simply cannot understand, and her jealousy of Gwen overwhelms her. Eddie accuses her—correctly—of talking to Arthur about committing him.

At the commitment hearing, we learn that Eddie subsequently set fire to the family home and we glimpse the alter egos at each other's throats. Eddie does not explain a gunshot wound: We see that Charles shot him in Gwen's apartment. Eddie asks to go to a psychiatric hospital. The judge tells Gwen that Eddie can release himself at any time by proving he has a job and a home.

Eddie seems to be content among his new friends at the asylum, but Gwen lures him out to try again. Eddie is reconciled to his dying father and tells Gwen that they both wanted the same thing—another chance. He tells her that he loves her. She thanks him and smiles. The final scene is at Sam's interment, where Florence gives Gwen a wry smile. The last shot is of Eddie smiling gently as his father's coffin is lowered into the grave.

Cast

Production

Kazan wanted Eddie to be portrayed by Marlon Brando, who Kazan felt could bring a greater depth to the role and bring it close to the character portrayed in the novel and who had experienced great success with Kazan previously in the films A Streetcar Named Desire , Viva Zapata! , and On the Waterfront . However, Brando refused to take the role, stating that he had no interest in making a film so soon after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Kazan felt this to be a dodge on Brando's part and wondered if the real reasons had more to do with Brando's increasing weight or receding hairline.

Production was shut down twice, with Douglas catching Hong Kong Flu three times. [2]

Reception

The film has a rating of 15% based on 13 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. [3]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that it "reeks with slightly absurd movie chic but, unlike Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind or Vincente Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town , it's not only not much fun, but it's a mess of borrowed styles. What's worse is that it may be largely incomprehensible, on a simple narrative level, unless one has read Kazan's best-selling, 543-page short story that the director has more or less synopsized in his movie." [4] Variety called it "a confused, overly-contrived and overlength film peopled with a set of characters about whom the spectator couldn't care less." [5]

Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4 in a more mixed review, writing that it was "one of those long, ponderous, star-filled 'serious' films that were popular in the 1950s, before we began to value style more highly than the director's good intentions. It isn't successful, particularly not on Kazan's terms (he sees it, doubtless, as a bitter sermon on the consequences of selling out). But it does draw nourishment from the remarkable performances of Kirk Douglas and Faye Dunaway." [6] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave it 2 stars out of 4, writing that Kazan "fails to give us a clear characterization of Eddie or the people in his life. What tensions are revealed are clouded by basic directing errors ... It would be nice to excuse Kazan's direction by saying that he was forced to jazz up a weak script, but he wrote the script too." [7]

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote, "If one did not know that Kazan is a major figure in films, one would find nothing in the way this movie has been made to suggest it. The direction is tight and almost cruelly coercive of the actors. There's nothing in this movie that looks spontaneous, either in the direction or the acting. The actors have no life of their own as performers, no trace of invention; they're just shouting ciphers, acting out ready-made popular ideas about selling out." [8] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The personal passion which informed the novel is still present in the movie, but on the screen the passion is so compromised and weakened by what passes for technique and invention that it becomes only an intermittent echo." [9] Tony Mastroianni in The Cleveland Press referred to the film as a "bad novel [that] didn't improve very much in the transfer [to film]. [10] Philip Strick of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that the film "turns out to have said no more in 125 minutes than it stated during the first six." [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marlon Brando</span> American actor (1924–2004)

Marlon Brando Jr. was an American actor and activist. Considered one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Cannes Film Festival Award and three British Academy Film Awards. Brando is credited with being one of the first actors to bring the Stanislavski system of acting, and method acting, to mainstream audiences.

<i>On the Waterfront</i> 1954 film by Elia Kazan

On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. The musical score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The black-and-white film was inspired by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen, while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elia Kazan</span> American film and theatre director (1909–2003)

Elias Kazantzoglou, known as Elia Kazan, was an American film and theatre director, producer, screenwriter and actor, described by The New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faye Dunaway</span> American actress

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.

<i>Network</i> (1976 film) 1976 film by Paddy Chayefsky & Sidney Lumet

Network is a 1976 American satirical drama film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, released by United Artists, written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. It is about a fictional television network, the Union Broadcasting System, and its struggle with poor ratings. The film stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, and Beatrice Straight.

<i>East of Eden</i> (film) 1955 drama film directed by Elia Kazan, loosely based on the 1952 novel by John Steinbeck

East of Eden is a 1955 American period drama film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Paul Osborn, adapted from the fourth and final part of John Steinbeck's epic 1952 novel of the same name.

<i>Don Juan DeMarco</i> 1995 American film

Don Juan DeMarco is a 1995 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Johnny Depp as John Arnold DeMarco, a man who believes himself to be Don Juan, the greatest lover in the world. Clad in a cape and domino mask, DeMarco undergoes psychiatric treatment with Marlon Brando's character, Dr. Jack Mickler, to cure him of his apparent delusion. But the psychiatric sessions have an unexpected effect on the psychiatric staff, some of whom find themselves inspired by DeMarco's delusion; the most profoundly affected is Dr. Mickler himself, who rekindles the romance in his complacent marriage.

<i>Barfly</i> (film) 1987 film by Barbet Schroeder

Barfly is a 1987 American black comedy film directed by Barbet Schroeder and starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. The film is a semi-autobiography of poet/author Charles Bukowski during the time he spent drinking heavily in Los Angeles, and it presents Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski. The screenplay, written by Bukowski, was commissioned by the Iranian-born Swiss film director Barbet Schroeder, and it was published in 1984, when film production was still pending.

<i>Mommie Dearest</i> (film) 1981 film by Frank Perry

Mommie Dearest is a 1981 American biographical psychological drama film directed by Frank Perry and starring Faye Dunaway, Steve Forrest, Mara Hobel, and Diana Scarwid, with supporting performances from Xander Berkeley in his feature film debut along with Rutanya Alda and Jocelyn Brando. Adapted from Christina Crawford's 1978 autobiography of the same name, the film follows her and her brother Christopher's upbringing under their adoptive mother, actress Joan Crawford, depicting her as abusive, controlling, and manipulative, prioritizing her Hollywood career over her family.

<i>The Arrangement</i> (novel)

The Arrangement is a 1967 novel by Elia Kazan, narrated by a successful Greek-American advertising executive and magazine writer living in an affluent Los Angeles suburb who suffers a nervous breakdown due to the stress of the way in which he has lived his life – the "arrangement" of the title. In 1969 Kazan made it into a film. The Arrangement was a best-seller and garnered generally favorable reviews but it has been out of print since the 1980s.

<i>The Chamber</i> (1996 film) 1996 American film

The Chamber is a 1996 American legal thriller film directed by James Foley. It is based on John Grisham's 1994 novel of the same name. The film stars Chris O'Donnell, Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Lela Rochon, Robert Prosky, Raymond J. Barry, and David Marshall Grant.

<i>The Chase</i> (1966 film) 1966 American drama film directed by Arthur Penn

The Chase is a 1966 American drama film, directed by Arthur Penn, written by Lillian Hellman, and starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Robert Redford. It tells the story of a series of events that are set into motion by a prison break. The film also features E.G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Robert Duvall, and James Fox.

<i>The Great Gatsby</i> (1974 film) 1974 film directed by Jack Clayton

The Great Gatsby is a 1974 American romantic drama film based on the 1925 novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film was directed by Jack Clayton, produced by David Merrick, and written by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston, Bruce Dern, and Karen Black. The plot concerns the interactions of writer Nick Carraway with enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby (Redford) and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan (Farrow), amid the riotous parties of the Jazz Age on Long Island near New York City.

<i>The Miracle Woman</i> 1931 film

The Miracle Woman is a 1931 American pre-Code romance film directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, and Sam Hardy. Based on the play Bless You Sister by John Meehan and Robert Riskin, the film is about a preacher's daughter who becomes disillusioned by the mistreatment of her dying father by his church. Having grown cynical about religion, she teams up with a con man and performs fake miracles for profit. The love and trust of a blind man, however, restores her faith in God and her fellow man. The Miracle Woman was the second of five film collaborations between Capra and Stanwyck. Produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, the film was reportedly inspired by the life of Aimee Semple McPherson.

<i>The Sea of Grass</i> (film) 1947 Western movie directed by Elia Kazan

The Sea of Grass is a 1947 American Western film set in the American Southwest. It was directed by Elia Kazan and based on the 1936 novel of the same name by Conrad Richter. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Melvyn Douglas.

<i>The Champ</i> (1979 film) A 1979 remake of the 1931 Oscar-winning film directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

The Champ is a 1979 American neo noir drama sports film directed by Franco Zeffirelli and a remake of the 1931 Academy Award-winning film of the same name directed by King Vidor. It stars Jon Voight as Billy Flynn, a former boxer who attempts to support his son and reconcile with his ex-wife by fighting in the ring again.

<i>Lady of the Night</i> (1925 film) 1925 American film

Lady of the Night is a 1925 American silent romantic drama film directed by Monta Bell. The film stars Norma Shearer in a dual role.

<i>The Wicked Lady</i> (1983 film) 1983 film

The Wicked Lady is a 1983 British-American period drama directed by Michael Winner and starring Faye Dunaway, Alan Bates, John Gielgud, Denholm Elliott, and Hugh Millais. It was screened out of competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. It is a remake of the 1945 film of the same name, which was one of the popular series of Gainsborough melodramas.

<i>Puzzle of a Downfall Child</i> 1970 film by Jerry Schatzberg

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.

<i>The Twilight of the Golds</i> (film) 1997 American film

The Twilight of the Golds is an American drama film directed by Ross Kagan Marks, based upon the play The Twilight of the Golds by Jonathan Tolins. The film was screened at the January 1997 Sundance Film Festival prior to its broadcast premiere on Showtime in March 1997. The cast includes Jennifer Beals, Brendan Fraser, Garry Marshall, Faye Dunaway and Jon Tenney. The film deals with the issue of fictional genetic testing, and asks the question – if testing could reveal the sexual orientation of your unborn child, and you knew he or she would be gay, would you abort?

References

  1. "Big Rental Films of 1969", Variety, 7 January 1970 p 15
  2. Archerd, Army (January 15, 1969). "Hollywood Cross-Cuts". Variety . p. 32.
  3. "The Arrangement". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 9, 2023.
  4. Canby, Vincent (November 19, 1969). "Screen: Kazan's 'The Arrangement'". The New York Times : 48.
  5. "The Arrangement". Variety : 22. November 19, 1969.
  6. Ebert, Roger (December 24, 1969). "The Arrangement". RogerEbert.com . Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  7. Siskel, Gene (December 25, 1969). "Kazan's 'The Arrangement'". Chicago Tribune . Section 2, p. 8.
  8. Kael, Pauline (November 22, 1969). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker . p. 216.
  9. Champlin, Charles (December 19, 1969). "'Arrangement' Faint Echo of Kazan Book". Los Angeles Times . Part IV, p. 1.
  10. Mastroionni, Tony (December 26, 1969). "Kazan's "Arrangement" Is Waste of Time". The Cleveland Memory Project. Retrieved November 21, 2018.
  11. Strick, Philip (March 1970). "The Arrangement". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 37 (434): 44.