On A List of Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
The Arrangement (1969)
Rate:
2
Viewed:
1/22
1/22:
An all-time bad movie, The Arrangement confirms what I've known all along: Elia Kazan sucked when he didn't have
Marlon Brando or James Dean on board.
Instead of them, it's Kirk Douglas who puts on a bizarre performance. Burt Lancaster did it so much better in
The Swimmer. With the exception of
A Streetcar Named Desire, Elia Kazan doesn't know what to do with actresses. It's
been proven again with Faye Dunaway who's beautiful but flat. I'm surprised Deborah Kerr let herself be portrayed in an
unflattering light.
In a way, the acting seems fine, but the editing, that's coupled with Batman pop art, is jarring.
The movie keeps jumping ahead and ahead, and I have no idea what to make of it. The plot is simple and can be told in a minute:
the husband is depressed because his wife is ugly and he badly wants a fuck girl for an office assistant as a matter of
convenience. In many ways, it's a 50's Sirk formula being applied in 1969 which is the same year when
Easy Rider came out.
If Kirk Douglas looks bad, it's because he caught the Hong Kong flu three times which killed between one and four
million people worldwide. It's been rumored that Elia Kazan wanted Marlon Brando instead, but he had problems of his
own, coming off many flops, and therefore was box-office poison. The Godfather wouldn't
roll around for another three years. Even Charlton Heston turned down the lead role, calling the character a "loser."
All in all, based on his piece-of-shit novel, Elia Kazan shouldn't have gone ahead with the filming of The Arrangement
in the first place.