Word: kazan
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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (NBC, 9-11:14 p.m.). Kazan's Wild River, with Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick...
...Elia Kazan put a capsule review of his screenplay in a terse scrap of dialogue. Stavros Topouzoglou, trying to explain his feverish yearning for America, tells his fiancee, "You have to be what I am to understand." To understand the movie intimately you must be Elia Kazan or one of his relatives. America, America is a gigantic home movie, constructed from family stories about migration to the Promised Land. Kazan himself was born in Turkey, and he fervently wants his film to remind us "that we are all immigrants and that we all came here looking for something." The pity...
...lack of inspiring visions in America America is due to a relentless realism--and certainly many immigrants did emphasize the cash value of the golden door-- then Kazan is guilty of inconsistency. Although setting and dialogue are entirely unaffected, the events of Stavros' journey are hardly typical. In the end, he owes his equivocal success to his good looks, even though there are less contingent and less glamorous means of escaping Turkey. And occasionally a trite episode mars the credibility of the story. A fellow immigrant whom Stavros aids early in the picture, for instance, inevitably pops up to repay...
...Kazan's direction helps to compensate for the weakness of his screenplay. Excellent, restrained acting and careful regard for authentic detail give America, America almost documentary qualities. Some of the film's best moments are rather static scenes of village life in Anatolia, the wharfs in Constantinople, and manners in Greek households. There are fine bits of protest, too, like a glimpse of a busy American sea captain nonchalantly ignoring an aged stevedore who has collapsed under his burden. During the voyage, the faces of crew members reveal their contempt for the immigrants. The brunt of the social criticism loses...
AFTER THE FALL is a nightlong symposium on guilt and self-justification conducted by Arthur Miller in terms of his mother and wives, notably Marilyn Monroe. Elia Kazan's staging is electric, but Miller has not put enough distance between his suffering and his craft to fashion a play. Alternates, in repertory, with Marco Millions...