Rich and Famous
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
They don't make them like this anymore. Thank the film gods.
Stately, dull and a complete waste of Bisset & Bergen, RICH AND FAMOUS is a 1981 melodrama that manages to even make sex boring.
Director George Cukor (My Fair Lady, The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight) turned out his fair share of film classics in the 40's and 50's, but this was his last, tired film. It's gasping on fumes as it reaches out to a past era of two hankie melodramas.
Jacqueline Bisset (Bullitt, Airport) more than does her part as famous novelist Liz Hamilton. Her hugely successful novel was an important, artistic novel and she's struggling like hell to write her next one.
Her friend since college, Merry Noel Blake (Bergen) is the opposite of artistic. She's loud, flamboyant, proudly Southern and newly Rich. Bergen struggles in the part, often mistaking loud and over-the-top with character building. But in all fairness, she's playing a proud woman of the south (with an accent that seems to vary in intensity) named Merry Noel. That doesn't leave much room for nuance.
Gerald Ayres screenplay, adapted from a play by John Van Druten, plays like a two actress stage play, no matter how much he jet sets the settings and moves from penthouse to beach house in a style that drips TV's "Dynasty" and "Dallas".
David Selby isn't very good as Merry Noel's husband Doug, who seems to flit from bar to bar and secretly long for Liz, who is everything Merry isn't. I really liked Selby on "Dark Shadows" as a kid, but wow his acting is.....bad. He damn near sunk "Raise the Titanic" by himself and he struggles here. It's awkward.
When Merry Noel decides to write a great Southern novel, loaded with gossip and trashy melodrama, it becomes a HUGE hit and her fame skyrockets.
This should create tension between Liz's artsy writer's block and Merry Noel's schlock, but honestly it just bores.
Every time Cukor feels like the film is slowing down, he throws in a fairly graphic sex scene between Bisset and a parade of men that come her way.
He makes a serious casting mistake in casting the most important two with actors that look so much alike, its confusing. Or at least it would be if I really was that drawn into the story.
Hart Bochner (Die Hard) plays a Rolling Stone reporter who falls in love with Liz while a young NYC gigolo, played by Matt Lattanzi (Grease 2, Xanadu) chases her all over Manhattan, but mostly to her suite at the Algonquin.
It's all goofy, takes itself way too seriously and goes on forever.
Meg Ryan is good in her film debut as Merry Noel's 18 year old daughter Debby, who shows far more intelligence and good judgement than her mother.
When the best scene in the film is Liz's Mile High Club adventure on a 747, it says a lot about the rest of the movie.
The film jaunts across time with chapters in 1959, 1969, 1975 and 1981. The only thing it proves is that boring plays the same in any decade.
The cocktail parties in the film are kind of fun and at least give you the chance to play "spot the famous author or director" with folks like Ray Bradbury and Roger Vadim wondering in and out in search of champagne. Dick Cavett and Merv Griffin actually show up to host Merry Noel on their respective talk shows of the day.
I feel like Bergen got punked by Academy Award winning Costume Designer Theoni V. Aldredge (The Great Gatsby). Her outfits are laugh out loud funny. I was waiting for her to bust out the Carol Burnett/Scarlett O'Hara drapes at one point.
With nearly a $12M budget and a $15M gross at the box office, audience of the day were pretty indifferent and it's easy to see why. This feels like the kind of film MGM would have made three decades early, sans the nudity and sex of course.
There are slick films of this era that are absolute trash that are guilty pleasures. "The Other Side of Midnight" and "The Betsy" come to mind, both based on books by novelist Harold Robbins. His books were all sexy, trashy fun and never claimed to be anything more. Those two films had the same attitude.
RICH AND FAMOUS seems to be reaching for something more important. Alas, it never climbs out of its own dull limitations, settling for a C-. Bisset was my first crush as Gwen the Stewardess in 1970's "Airport". Out of allegiance to her status in that regard, I'll resist giving this film she produced a D.
But only cause I'll never forget Gwen and my mad crush on her on the big screen 11 years before this dud.
5 stars for your review. Classic Georgy!
Did you watch the 1943 version?