Tod Hackett, fresh out of Yale, wants to make it as an art director in late 1930’s Hollywood – but he finds himself increasingly distracted by his new neighbor Faye, a would-be starlet with possible designs of her own on a lonely, morose accountant. As Tod is drawn deeper into the lurid private lives of studio bosses and film industry workers, he gradually becomes desperate to know if Faye – or anyone – is capable of real love. –IMDb
Schlesinger was born in London into a middle class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta (née Regensburg) and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician. After Uppingham School and graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, he worked as an actor.
One of his earliest films, the British Transport Films’ documentary Terminus (1960), gained a Venice Film Festival Gold Lion and a British Academy Award. His first two fiction movies, A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963) were set in the North of England. A Kind of Loving won the Golden Bear award at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival in 1962.
His third Darling (1965) described tartly the modern urban way of life in London and was one of the first films about ‘swinging London’. Schlesinger’s next movie was Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s popular novel. Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) was internationally acclaimed… read more
Truly horrifying portrayal of broken dreams, brilliant acting by Sutherland and a powerful ending, the locusts flock to hollywoodland.
Filming the unfilmable is dangerous but Schlesinger & screenwriter Waldo Salt come close to nailng the novel's grotesque, cynical tone. Burgess Meredith is brilliant and Donald Sutherland is absolutely horrorfying
Oh dear. I don't think I have ever been more terrified in my life during a film, as much as I was in the last sequence of this film. I don't honestly know how I can live with the pain that it brings. It is so so fantastic, rather reminiscent of (70's version of) The Great Gatsby, beautifully shot, and as everything goes further downhill, I am torn between my love for Tod Hackett and the pure fear of his thoughts.
I wanted so much for this film to be the classic underbelly of Hollywood story that Nathanael West had written, instead we got the flabby belly of Hollywood.
Whores, racist midgets, creepy little children, sexually repressed bible thumpers and apocalyptic riots. Hollywood was a pretty odd place according to Nathanael West who’s book, ‘The Day Of The Locust’… read review
