A Safe Place

Last updated
A Safe Place
ASafePlace1971Poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Henry Jaglom
Written byHenry Jaglom
Produced by Bert Schneider
Starring Tuesday Weld
Orson Welles
Jack Nicholson
Philip Proctor
Gwen Welles
CinematographyRichard C. Kratina
Edited byPieter Bergema
Production
company
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date
  • October 15, 1971 (1971-10-15)(New York Film Festival)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

A Safe Place is a 1971 American drama film written and directed by Henry Jaglom and starring Tuesday Weld, Orson Welles, and Jack Nicholson.

Contents

Plot

A young woman, named Noah, lives alone in a small apartment in New York City. She is a mentally disturbed flower child, who retreats into her past, yearning for lost innocence. She recalls her childhood, searching for a "safe place." As a child (whose real name was Susan), she met a charismatic magician in Central Park who presented her with magical objects: a levitating silver ball, a star ring, and a Noah's ark.

In the present day, Noah is romantically involved with two different men: Fred, who is practical but dull, and Mitch, who is more dynamic and closer to her ideal fantasy partner. Neither man is able to fulfill her needs totally.

Cast

The cast includes: [1]

Production

The film was "culled from 50 hours of footage." [2]

The work was a product of BBS Productions, a company formed by Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider, and Steve Blauner, financed by their work on the TV pop group the Monkees. Other BBS films of the era include Easy Rider , Five Easy Pieces , The Last Picture Show , The King of Marvin Gardens , Head , and Drive, He Said . All seven of these films have been restored and released in DVD versions by The Criterion Collection in a set called America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. [3]

Reception

Jaglom's directorial debut was a "critical and box-office disaster" [4] Time magazine called the film "pretentious and confusing", a film that "suggests that the rumors of his expertise were greatly exaggerated, or at least that it does not extend to directing." [5] Vincent Canby described the film as a "superficial case history of a suicide" whose "narrative pretends to be a lot more complex"; Canby noted that the film "reveals the director's apparent adoration of his star [Weld], whom he studies in every possible light and color combination, and in every possible camera setup, often orchestrated with fine, corny songs out of the 1940s and 1950s on the order of Charles Trenet's 'La Mer' and 'Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir.'" [1] Variety said the film's "deliberate experimentation puts a heavy burden upon the viewer." Its writer-director "has plunged in over his own depth." [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orson Welles</span> American actor and filmmaker (1915–1985)

George Orson Welles was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.

<i>Easy Rider</i> 1969 film by Dennis Hopper

Easy Rider is a 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South, carrying the proceeds from a cocaine deal. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s.

<i>Five Easy Pieces</i> 1970 US drama film by Bob Rafelson

Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 American drama film directed by Bob Rafelson, written by Carole Eastman and Rafelson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Lois Smith, and Ralph Waite. The film tells the story of surly oil rig worker Bobby Dupea, whose rootless blue-collar existence belies his privileged youth as a piano prodigy. When Bobby learns that his father is dying, he travels to his family home in Washington to visit him, taking along his uncouth girlfriend.

<i>The Magician</i> (1926 film) 1926 film by Rex Ingram

The Magician is a 1926 American silent fantasy horror film directed by Rex Ingram about a magician's efforts to acquire the blood of a maiden for his experiments to create life. It was adapted by Ingram from the 1908 novel The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham. It stars Alice Terry, Paul Wegener and Iván Petrovich. Critic Carlos Clarens wrote that it was "perhaps the most elusive of lost films." However, since the time Clarens wrote this, various prints of the film have surfaced. Some have screened at independent movie festivals from 1993 onwards, and the film has also been shown on Turner Classic Movies. It remained commercially unavailable until being released on DVD in the Warner Brothers Archive Collection in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuesday Weld</span> American actress

Tuesday Weld is an American former actress. She began acting as a child and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960. Over the following decade, she established a career playing dramatic roles in films.

<i>F for Fake</i> 1974 film by Orson Welles

F for Fake is a 1973 docudrama film co-written, directed by, and starring Orson Welles who worked on the film alongside François Reichenbach, Oja Kodar, and Gary Graver. Initially released in 1974, it focuses on Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger; de Hory's story serves as the backdrop for a meandering investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art. Far from serving as a traditional documentary on de Hory, the film also incorporates Welles's companion Oja Kodar, hoax biographer Clifford Irving and Orson Welles as himself. F for Fake is sometimes considered an example of a film essay.

Oja Kodar is a Croatian actress, screenwriter and director known as Orson Welles's romantic partner during the later years of his life.

<i>Too Much Johnson</i> (1938 film) 1938 film by Orson Welles

Too Much Johnson is a 1938 American silent comedy film written and directed by Orson Welles. An unfinished film component of a stage production, it was made three years before Welles directed Citizen Kane, but it was never publicly screened. It was shot to be integrated into Welles's Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy, but the film sequences could not be shown due to the absence of projection facilities at the venue, the Stony Creek Theatre in Connecticut. The resulting plot confusion reportedly contributed to the stage production's failure.

Henry David Jaglom is an English-born American actor, film director and playwright.

Raybert Productions was a production company that operated in the 1960s, founded by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. Its principal works were the situation comedy The Monkees, and the 1969 movie Easy Rider. Raybert was also the predecessor to BBS Productions, a New Hollywood production company founded by Rafelson, Schneider, and Schneider's childhood friend Stephen Blauner. BBS Productions' best known film is The Last Picture Show.

<i>The Other Side of the Wind</i> 2018 satirical drama film

The Other Side of the Wind is a 2018 satirical drama film co-written, co-edited, and directed by Orson Welles, and posthumously released in 2018 after 48 years in development. The film stars John Huston, Bob Random, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, and Oja Kodar.

<i>Drive, He Said</i> 1971 film by Jack Nicholson

Drive, He Said is a 1971 American independent film directed by Jack Nicholson, in his directorial debut, and starring William Tepper, Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Robert Towne and Henry Jaglom. Based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Jeremy Larner, the film follows a disenchanted college basketball player who is having an affair with a professor's wife, as well as dealing with his counterculture roommate's preoccupation with avoiding the draft in the Vietnam War. The film features supporting performances by David Ogden Stiers, Cindy Williams, and Michael Warren. The screenplay was adapted by Larner and Nicholson, and included uncredited contributions from Terrence Malick.

<i>Filming Othello</i> 1978 film

Filming Othello is a 1978 English-language West German documentary film directed by and starring Orson Welles about the making of his award-winning 1951 production Othello. The film, which was produced for West German television, was the last completed feature film directed by Welles, as well as the last one to be made during his lifetime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanna Frederick</span> American actress

Tanna Marie Frederick is an American stage and independent film actress who rose to prominence for her title role in Henry Jaglom's Hollywood Dreams, for which she received the Best Actress Award at the 2008 Fargo Film Festival.

The Dreamers is an unfinished film project directed and produced between 1980 and 1982 by Orson Welles. Adapted from Karen Blixen stories, Welles co-wrote a script with his companion Oja Kodar and filmed a few scenes but was unable to complete the film due to financing problems.

<i>Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?</i> 1983 film

Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? is a 1983 American comedy film directed by Henry Jaglom. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. The film takes place in and was filmed in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It was released to mixed reviews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Nicholson filmography</span>

Jack Nicholson is an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter who made his film debut in The Cry Baby Killer (1958). Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of his generation. He is also one of the most critically acclaimed: his 12 Academy Award nominations make him the most nominated male actor in the Academy's history. He is also a Kennedy Center Honoree and a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.

<i>Its All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles</i> 1993 film

It's All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles is a 1993 documentary film about Orson Welles's ill-fated Pan-American anthology film It's All True, shot in 1941–42 but never completed. Written and directed by Richard Wilson, Bill Krohn and Myron Meisel, the film is narrated by Miguel Ferrer. It was named the year's Best Non-Fiction Film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and its filmmakers received a special citation from the National Society of Film Critics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Garrett (actor)</span> American actor

Roger Garrett was an American actor. He acted on stage and played supporting roles in television series and films. He had a starring role in the West Coast production of Fortune and Men's Eyes (1969) and a starring role in the horror/thriller motion picture Night of the Cobra Woman (1972).

<i>Americas Got Talent</i> season 16 Season of television series

The sixteenth season of the American talent show competition series America's Got Talent was broadcast on NBC from June 1 to September 15, 2021. Although production was still impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, live audiences were involved during audition sessions and live round stages of the competition. After Simon Cowell returned to his role on the program after an accident the previous year, the Judges Cuts round was replaced by him with a new deliberation format arrangement similar to that used in Britain's Got Talent.

References

  1. 1 2 Canby, Vincent (October 16, 1971). "Safe Place: Work by Henry Jaglom Stars Tuesday Weld". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
  2. "Biography: Henry Jaglom". Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved 2012-05-04. BBS subsequently produced Jaglom's writing-directing debut, A Safe Place (1971), a spaced-out, 94-minute fantasy culled from 50 hours of footage, causing critics to decry that unorthodox editing had destroyed all sense of time and yielded a confused mess.
  3. "America Lost and Found: The BBS Story".
  4. "A Safe Place: Review". TV Guide. Archived from the original on 2014-12-30. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
  5. "Cinema: Soggy Daydreams". Time . October 25, 1971. Archived from the original on March 9, 2008. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
  6. "A Safe Place". Variety. 1971. Retrieved 2012-05-04.