I found this film painful to watch. Did anyone else? They were at each other's throats all the time and the love that was shown was really sick.
On the other hand, it is a compelling film that I was unable to turn off. I felt like a voyeur intruding on someone's innermost secrets.
I'm with you, what a sad cursed family. But you know what I was glued to to the screen taking it all in. You hit the nail on the head, I too felt like a voyeur invading this family's most personal crazy secrets. It was just like when the brother & sister were on the boat looking down, like voyeurs, into the galley and seeing their mother in the arms of her adulterous lover. The movie grabs your attention and keeps it for 2 1/2 hours.
shareThey are up there. I've seen this film before and loved it. Rosalind Russell simply was amazing to watch with her over-the-top acting in this one. I think she should have won the Oscar that year.
"Dry your eyes baby, it's out of character."
Yes, it's a dead heat between the Mannons in this film and the Tyrones from Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962), based on another O'Neill play. Both films are good dramas but the intensity of the drama in both makes them difficult to watch.
Ah yes, look at them. High heels, hairnets, those ridiculous trenchcoats. They're pathetic!
I'd also include the hateful Hubbards of The Little Foxes (1941) and its (unjustly) lesser-known sequel, Another Part of the Forest (1948).
And what about the Plantagenets of The Lion in Winter (1968)? In the first scene, Father is sleeping with his eldest son's fiancée, who happens to be the daughter of his wife's first husband, and whose brother has had an affair with aforementioned son. Try getting your head around that! Throw in Mom's claim that she slept with her husband's father and you've got a royal family that makes today's look like kittens by comparison!
Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke!--Margo Channing
[deleted]
[deleted]
Definitely the most dysfuctional family film. I think anybody with heart felt some pangs of sadness for the characters' extreme love/hate situation.
shareWow, I posted that 6 years ago. I was just a kid back then! Haha. It's fun to read old thoughts...
Anyway, I've seen quite a number of films since then and I still believe Mourning Becomes Electra has the most dysfunctional family I've seen.
With all its family eccentricities and even some silent film dramatics, the film manages to haunt as intended and eventually the sad characters trapped in their own hell do make for great theatre on film.
This 1947 version is better than the contrived yet longer TV version and the odd casting of Rosalind Russell has an alarming payoff when she becomes someone else in the final act.
Disfunctional, surely. But not as suicide inducing as A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT or Lucille Ball in MAME.
Nothing like having issues to make each day interesting for all involved.
shareThis is the most depressing movie I ever saw.I don't think its a great film.
shareThis is the most depressing movie I ever saw.I don't think its a great film.
I'm with you, mojo. When I saw the title of this thread, the families in God's Little Acre and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof immediately sprang to mind.
I need my 1987 DG20 Casio electric guitar set to mandolin, yeah...
could Orin possibly be any gayer????? watching this film was like watching an over the top melodramatic silent film with voices added in... the only thing missing was the cards with the words on it. it was difficult to watch the mother wtih those eyebrows without thinkin about Norma Desmond... for such a "tragedy", i laughed way too many times at the acting in this film.
shareI thought Katina Patinou looked like a caricature. I didn't see any 'beauty' in her at all. Her face looked like one of those Mardi Gras masks. Redgrave didn't do himself any favors with his exaggerated bug-eyed expressions. He's a much better actor than this. I hope it was the fault of the director.
"If I don't suit chu, you kin cut mah thoat!"
You gotta hand it to those Mannon's, they're wacky nutty folks, that's for sure.
My Movie List:
http://www.rinkworks.com/checklist/list.cgi?u=avalon123&p=seen
[deleted]
I wish it would be remade using actors who actually fit the roles and without the overly dramatic theatrical performances.
"If I don't suit chu, you kin cut mah thoat!"
[deleted]
They definitely had way too much time on their hands.
I didn't find the film painful to watch. They lived and died the way they did because of the way they loved. There was a kind of symmetry to it.
I think they all would have been better off if they'd taken up gardening.
"The night was sultry."