| 20:00 |
20:00
The Misfits
Film This drama from John Huston is more of a mausoleum than a movie. The last film of both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, and some might say containing the last real performance by Montgomery Clift, it went from box-office flop to cult status within the space of a year. Written by Monroe's then husband, Arthur Miller, it's a grey, solemn and at times pretentious piece about three drifters who hunt horses destined to become pet food. Somehow the flat, arid Nevada landscape mirrors the characters' bleak existence and sets the overall mood of despair and depression. Dogged by various production problems (Monroe's emotional upheavals, Clift's substance abuse, United Artists freezing the budget, Huston's gambling exploits and more), it's a film that's easy to admire - especially for Gable's rugged charm - but so hard to enjoy fully.
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| 22:00 |
22:20
The Bachelor Party
Film Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's gift for realism-as-fable was never grittier than in this adaptation of his own TV play, in which a bawdy stag-night becomes an odyssey in which the American male's inherent fear of women is brilliantly explored - from porn movies to strip-show to hooker confrontation - all floated along on a river of alcohol. Nervous groom-to-be Philip Abbott is counterbalanced by Don Murray, the married man wondering if he did the right thing, while office bachelor Jack Warden presents a cheery persona to hide his own loneliness. Director Delbert Mann just follows where Chayefsky's lines lead and that's into the heart of the marital matter. As a companion piece to Marty, two years earlier, it has some profound things to say about the macho psyche.
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