The Homecoming (1973)

          Mysterious, provocative, and vicious, The Homecoming concerns an English household so overrun with male energy that the tenderness normally associated with family units has been replaced with cruelty, intimidation, and manipulation. God help any woman unlucky enough to enter the household. Produced by the American Film Theatre, the picture is a slightly opened-up version of Harold Pinter’s play, adapted for the screen by Pinter and directed by Peter Hall, who served the same function for the play during its 1965 stage premiere in London.

          Taking place almost entirely in the family’s home, the movie begins in the middle of a merciless argument between patriarch Max (Paul Rogers), a widower who elevates bitterness to an art form, and his ineffectual brother, Sam (Cyril Cusack). Then Max’s middle son, Lenny (Ian Holm), enters the mix, and he’s as much of a monster as his father. Cold, hurtful, and vulgar, Lenny delights in prodding the weak spots of other people’s psyches, so it fits that he makes his living as a pimp. Next to enter the picture is Max’s youngest son, the simple brute Joey (Terence Rigby), a struggling boxer whom Max hopes will win enough money by getting his brains bashed in to support the family.

          Later in the story, after the warring relatives have gone to bed for the evening,  a sleepless Lenny ventures downstairs and discovers Ruth (Vivien Merchant) sitting in the living room. It seems that during the night, Max’s oldest son, Teddy (Michael Jayston), came home unexpectedly after a long absence—and that Ruth and Teddy were recently married. The intrusion of a female into this testosterone-riddled household sparks all sorts of psychosexual drama, but Pinter plays everything deadpan. This elevates the material from kitchen-sink melodrama to lofty symbolism. At the story’s most absurd juncture, Ruth ends up making out with Joey on the living-room floor while Teddy calmly observes from a nearby chair, smoking his ever-present pipe, and while the rest of the family provides nonplussed color commentary. (“We’re talking about a woman of quality,” Max beams while Ruth is humping his son.)

          The Homecoming becomes more and more surreal as it winds toward an insane climax, but what keeps the piece on track is Pinter’s meticulous characterization and dialogue. (Not every writer can work the phrase “pox-ridden slut” into a conversation.) Echoing Pinter’s restrained style, Hall keeps the camerawork simple and employs a muted color palette. The performances consistently rise to the level of literary artistry on display. Excepting Cusack and Jayston, the cast was carried over from the original stage production, so the actors wear their roles like second skins. Holm and Rogers are the standouts, since they get the showy roles filled with crude insults and demented monologues, but the straight faces of Jayston and Merchant are crucial to the overall effect.

          Designed to be analyzed, debated, and interpreted—thanks to its singular treatment of class, family, and gender—The Homecoming is both fabulously ambiguous and terrifically specific. It has the force of a nuclear bomb and the precision of a sniper’s bullet.

The Homecoming: GROOVY

Butley (1974)

          Literature professor Ben Butley (Alan Bates) is a horror show of a human being. Possessed of singular wit that he uses almost exclusively to belittle his acquaintances, he’s at a tenuous place in his life. Although his position at a reputable school in his native England is basically solid, Ben has gotten into the bad habit of alienating colleagues and students with his incessant derision, and his love life is complicated—after his wife, Anne (Susan Engal), left him, Ben became romantically involved with his male assistant, Joey (Richard O’Callaghan). On what might be the worst day of his life, it all comes crashing down. Anne announces her intention to remarry, Joey reveals that he’s left Ben for swaggering Reg (Michael Byrne), and Ben’s elder colleague, Edna (Jessica Tandy), secures a publication deal for the book she’s spent 20 years writing—even though Ben is nowhere near completing his own book. In short, it’s time for karma to kick Ben Butley’s ass. And that’s the simple plot of this production from the American Film Theatre.

          Based on Simon Gray’s 1971 play of the same name, Butley was the first feature film directed by Harold Pinter, the revered British playwright and stage director. Ironically, given Pinter’s reputation as a master of subtext, Butley comprises wall-t0-wall dialogue. Working with master cinematographer Gerry Fisher, Pinter does an excellent job of capturing performances via judicious picture editing, subtle camera moves, and thoughtful compositions, So even though Butley runs a bit long—120 minutes of Bates acting like a shit tests viewers’ patience—the picture, which is set almost entirely in one room, never feels claustrophobic. And while the storyline hits themes of academic competition, alcoholism, professional envy, self-loathing, and writers’ block, Butley isn’t some navel-gazing character study of a drama. Quite to the contrary, it’s meant to be high comedy, in the sense of elevated language and lofty ideas.

          Some viewers may find the title character too cruel to be amusing, and, indeed, nearly all the “jokes” stem from Ben’s suffocating narcissism. For instance, when he learns of Edna’s success, Ben unfurls a rant: “She never did understand her role, which is not to finish an un-publishable book on Byron! Now the center cannot hold—Edna is unleashed upon the world!” Clearly, the source of Ben’s troubles is the same thing that makes him interesting as a dramatic subject, which is his delusion that the world revolves around him. Accordingly, the slow toppling of Ben’s fragile universe is a process of stripping away his overinflated ego. So in the same way that Ben might be a turnoff for some because he’s monstrous, the elimination of companionship and hope and joy from his life isn’t especially pleasurable to watch.

          Butley, therefore, is more a clinical piece of business than a proper entertainment—but that doesn’t mean the film is without its distractions. Bates is terrific, even as he devolves from bickering with his lover to eviscerating a helpless coed, and the supporting cast provides sufficient resistance to make Bates’ attacks seem formidable. Mostly, however, the rewards of Butley are found in Gray’s dexterous wordplay. Other writers exploring similar terrain have created deeper and/or funnier material, but Gray stays balanced on a high wire from start to finish, almost completely avoiding the traps of melodrama, pretentiousness, and superficiality.

Butley: GROOVY

The Last Tycoon (1976)

          Despite an impressive literary pedigree, the participation of a legendary director, and the presence of a high-wattage cast, The Last Tycoon is a lead balloon of a movie, so overcome with its own importance that barely any traces of life show through the artificially imposed veneer of highbrow seriousness. Were it not for the inherently lurid storyline, and the ease with which the varied film professionals involved in the piece skewer their own industry, the picture would be a chore to watch. As is, The Last Tycoon is bearable though not particularly enjoyable.
          Based on an unfinished novel by Jazz Age scribe F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose manuscript was completed by editors for posthumous publication, The Last Tycoon is a veiled biography of Hollywood wunderkind Irving Thalberg, the brilliant but physically frail MGM executive of the 1930s. In Fitzgerald’s narrative, Thalberg becomes the fictional Monroe Stahr (played in the movie by Robert De Niro), a ’30s studio executive struggling to keep various projects on track despite egomaniacal stars, labor unrest among screenwriters, and romantic entanglements.
          Director Elia Kazan surrounds De Niro with a constellation of stars, so the cast includes Tony Curtis, Ray Milland, Robert Mitchum, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Nicholson, Donald Pleasence, and Peter Strauss. In fleeting moments, the script (by esteemed British playwright/screenwriter Harold Pinter) gives these actors material worthy of their skills, as in the tense scenes between Stahr and a crass union organizer (Nicholson). Sequences pulling back the curtain of the Golden Age filmmaking process have some zing as well, since it’s fun to watch Stahr screen rushes of in-progress films and bark out instructions for improving lackluster footage.

          Alas, Stahr’s professional life is only partially the focus of the movie, since Kazan devotes inordinate amounts of screen time to stultifying romantic scenes. It doesn’t help that De Niro gives a weirdly lifeless performance. One suspects De Niro wanted to work a different groove after several years of playing volatile characters, but he’s restrained to the point of catatonia throughout much of The Last Tycoon; combined with Kazan’s chaste camera style and Pinter’s characteristically terse dialogue, De Niro’s non-acting becomes deadly dull. Plus, there’s the basic problem of the source material never having been properly completed. Although the movie’s narrative runs a full course, it’s anybody’s guess whether this was the actual story Fitzgerald would have told if he finished his novel.

The Last Tycoon: FUNKY

The Go-Between (1971)

The thorny tale of a collision between a romantic triangle and England’s merciless class system circa the year 1900, The Go-Between is defined by the contributions of Harold Pinter, who adapted the story from a novel by L.P. Hartley. The illustrious playwright known for cryptically menacing works like Betrayal, Pinter also boasts a celebrated screenwriting career mostly comprising gloomy adaptations, whether of his own work or esteemed books. The Go-Between was the third and final literary adaptation he made with posh filmmaker Joseph Losey, and like its predecessors the film is distinguished by deceptively polite dialogue, methodical storytelling, and painfully repressed emotion. The sum effect is not for all tastes (Pinter’s monastically restrained style generally tests my patience, and his work on this film is no exception), but there’s no denying that The Go-Between is a film of rare sophistication. The narrative concerns a working-class teen named Leo, who spends a summer at a lavish estate and becomes embroiled in adults’ romantic intrigue. Wealthy Marion (Julie Christie) is engaged to another member of the ruling class, but she lusts after a local farmer, Ted (Alan Bates). Marion charms Leo into carrying notes through which she and Ted arrange trysts, and the discovery of the illicit relationship damages everyone involved—including Leo, who is so anguished by his complicated feelings toward the beautiful Marion that he makes a bad situation much worse. The central narrative is powerful, but it’s surrounded, intentionally, with assorted emotional subplots that contribute to the film’s statement about the perniciousness of arbitrary divisions between people. As a result, the pacing seems glacial at times and the themes are excruciatingly subtle, even though key performances hit the right notes. Dominic Guard is passably petulant as young Leo, while Christie crisply personifies an insufferably self-indulgent brat, and Bates gives a muscular turn as a simple man doomed by unfortunate attraction. As aristocrats who watch the drama unfold, Edward Fox, Michael Gough, and Oscar nominee Margaret Leighton surround the leading players with chilly elegance masking vile snobbery. Amorous and vicious but still challengingly rarified, The Go-Between is a prime example of Christie’s icy allure.

The Go-Between: GROOVY