He's better than Robert Redford was in the '74 version (which was more faithful to the Fitzgerald novel), but the screenwriters changed Gatsby into an Alan Ladd character. So, it's a wash.
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"Why do people always laugh in the wrong places?"
--Howard da Silva
Finally got around to seeing this. Alan Ladd is better and I thought he wouldn’t fit the role. And I went into thinking he couldn’t. I was wrong.
He was very good. I'm interested in who will be the "next one".
When I read the novel, when the Redford movie was in the works, and not knowing there'd been a previous film version, it was Alan Ladd I pictured as Gatsby.
shareToby Stephens played Jay Gatsby in a 2000 TV version which was wonderful He looked like he was uncomfortable in his skin, something that almost jumped off the page when I read the novel. The Redford version left me feeling that they had made it too 1970s. Sure the costumes and cars and set were mostly correct but feel of the movie made me think polyester. (Maybe it was Buchanan's turtleneck...)
shareLadd is great in this film,the best Gatsby thus far. However, the casting of Betty Field as Daisy sunk the film. Field was a great actress, but so horribly miscast in this one. She recited her lines as if she were sleepwalking.
The flip side of fear is understanding.
I haven't ever had the privilege to see this version of TGG, but somehow, I KNOW that Alan Ladd made the best Jay Gatsby, before (Warner Baxter, the 1926 silent version) or since, sight unseen!
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These days the role of Gatsby has just become associated with Redford as its just to easy for magazines/newspapers to use a still from that film.
Its that man again!!
I agree. Ladd was the better of the two actors. His Gatsby version is not nearly as boring as the Redford version.
I'm glad that we just found it on Youtube today.
I haven't seen the film so I can't say who is better. But I've seen Ladd in many things and he couldn't out-act Redford if his life depended on it. That said I liked Ladd in a number of things.
So I'll assume everyone's correct and he was better than Redford but it had to be the script. It had to be much superior and the dialogue much stronger.
three dusters...inside the dusters were three men, inside the men were three bullets.
I've seen both the Ladd and Redford versions. The 1949 isn't terrific, but it's certainly the better of the two; as someone else said here, the '70s version is so '70's.
Re Ladd vs. Redford -- which one would you believe associated with, and was accepted by, gangsters? Which one would be believable as someone who had to 'prove himself'? Which one might be a little insecure, a little tragic?
Ladd is the Gatsby of the book. Redford is ridiculous.