Paddy Chayefsky

  • The Catered Affair (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) I suspect that most modern viewers of The Catered Affairs will be drawn to the film for its cast (as I was): With names such as Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Debbie Reynolds and Rod Taylor (plus Barry Fitzgerald for an even-deeper cut of classic Hollywood), it’s the kind of film worth watching if only to see those actors going up against each other. The first half of the film has plenty to offer, as a “simple” marriage between two young people of different classes (Reynolds and Taylor) soon spins out of control thanks to the meddling of their parents. Before anyone knows it, the projected event will include several hundred guests and costs so much as to alter the lives and plans of the poor girl’s parents. There’s a quiet desperation in evidence here, as we understand that the girl’s mother is pouring decades of past dreams into this catered affair. Davis (affecting an Irish accent) adds a lot to an unglamorous character that could have been played as deluded, and Borgnine is quite effective, as he lays out the impact that such a folly will cost them. Beyond that promising setup, however, the film runs out of gas long before a rather predictable ending. Despite a script written by Gore Vidal from a Paddy Chayefsky play, what should have been a collaboration between two screenwriting legends ends up being both trite and boring once the conflict has been set up. The low-key working-class backdrop is not fancy and neither is Richard Brooks’ straightforward direction, all contributing to a growing sense of blandness to the result. In the end, what remains are the actors’s performances, some of them stretching acting muscles in ways not often seen in their best-remembered work.

  • Altered States (1980)

    Altered States (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Play Streaming, December 2019) As someone who watches way too many movies, one of the best things I can say after seeing one is “Wow, that was weird.”  It doesn’t always link with quality, but it does correlate with memorability. Altered States is one weird movie, especially seen outside its 1980s sociocultural context. Circa-2020 society has plenty of issues, but it does feel as if we’re less likely to believe woo-woo parasciences than in 1980, and Altered States depends on taking these things seriously in order to work. There’s plenty of psychobabble as the film sets up a premise in which American academic parapsychologists start messing with isolation tanks and take heroic quantities of drugs in order to unlock other states of consciousness. This being a thriller, it goes without saying that the efforts are successful and homicidal as one of the characters physically regresses to an earlier species and naturally starts murdering people. The final act is a trip put on film as hallucinogenic visions (as executed by dated special effects shots) represent how the protagonist is slipping in and out of reality, endangering his family along the way. It’s bonkers, and it’s that crazy quality that makes the film compelling even as not a single word of it is credible. According to legend, director Ken Russell and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky clashed during the film’s production (to the point of Chayefsky being credited under a pseudonym), and this tension can be seen in the contrast between the script’s earnestness and the wild colourful direction. If wild movies aren’t your thing, consider that the film has early roles for William Hurt and Drew Barrymore, as well as a turn for Bob Balaban. Altered States is not good Science Fiction: In the biz, we’d call it “not even wrong” for its delirious depiction of science and scientists at work. But it’s an over-the-top hallucination and as such is likely to stick in mind far longer than more sedate works of the period.

  • Marty (1955)

    Marty (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) The long list of Best Film Oscar-winning movies is definitely skewed toward big pictures: Big themes, big budgets, big actors. But there are exceptions, and Marty feels like one of the outliers. Not much more than a small-scale romantic drama in which a not-so-young man dares to come of age, this is a low-key film that works best in details. Good dialogue (by the legendary Paddy Chayefsky) brings the characters to life, blessed by good grounded performances by actors such as Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. Borgnine, in particular, is a revelation in a performance that breaks from his later tough-guy persona. Much of the film takes place in small apartments or in the streets of The Bronx, without too many dramatic flourishes. The result is striking in its own way, and having won the Oscar ensures that low-key low-budget Marty will remain seen for decades to come.

  • Network (1976)

    Network (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2016) I’ll be the first to admit that the biggest problem in watching Network forty years later is being unable to distinguish between what’s a portrait of the media landscape circa 1976 and what we’ve grown accustomed to in 2016. (And, wow, has 2016 broken through the bottom of the barrel in terms of public discourse.) While the visual representation of how a TV network operated in the mid-1970s has now acquired a certain fascination, much of the context surrounding the film is now difficult to pin down. What’s more timeless is the quality of the script by screenwriting legend Paddy Chayefsky, which sounds literate and clever and off-beat at once—there’s a subplot in particular about an affair between an ambitious young woman and a much older man that plays with a mixture of world-weariness and fourth-wall leaning. The rest of the film has other delights to offer, from impassioned populist speeches about “not taking it any more” that feels truer than ever in 2016, along with a provocative counter-speech about “meddling with the primal forces of nature”. I mean, just admire this line, which would never be featured in a modern blockbuster: “There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars.” Great performances abound from actors such as Faye Dunaway (completely unlikable), William Holden and Peter Finch, along with remarkable appearance by Ned Beatty and Robert Duvall. Watching Network, it’s clear that the fabric on which it is painted has changed in ways it predicted. What I’m wondering is where we’ll ever see something as prophetic and provocative about our own times.