Tender Is the Night (1962)

I enjoyed this movie and although it was lengthy, it kept my attention. The locations were beautiful, giving the movie greater charm. This was a loving couple with a happy marriage and family. The wife was very supportive and understanding. They seemed to have it all, an active social life, friends and a comfortable lifestyle. But changes in the husband's career, as well as interfering friends and family, created challenges. I agree that some of the acting was overdone. I don't think it affected the movie greatly though and it didn't bother me. There were some great stars in supporting roles. I feel the story could have been improved in the end. I wanted to see a different outcome.

Under the firm hand of Henry King, known in his time as one of the best translators of literature into film, F.Scott Fitzerald's "Tender Is the Night" reaches its conclusion as a solid but rather cold drama. Produced with the usual ornaments of any Fox motion picture of those years, the shooting in real and colorful European locations and the vast CinemaScope compositions seem to go in opposite direction to the intimate drama with four key characters: a psychiatrist (Jason Robards), his patient and wife (Jennifer Jones), his old and wise mentor (Paul Lukas) and his rich sister-in-law (Joan Fontaine). Around them there are a frustrated composer (a very obnoxious character played by Tom Ewell, that guarantees that the title song is played endlessly), a starlet (Jill St. John), a wealthy Roman with nothing to do (Cesare Danova), and other characters that advance or retard the plot. There is not a single close-up in the film to get us close to those faces, not as a voyeuristic act to see their pores, wrinkles or grimaces, but as a most useful syntactic resource of cinema language. Everything is seen from a distance, with extreme prudence, aggravated by the fact that the film extends to 2 hours and 22 minutes that screenwriter Ivan Moffat should have prevented, or editor William Reynolds could have reduced. Maybe in a film house with a huge screen it worked better. After "Tender Is the Night" and 50 years in the film industry, Henry King retired from cinema.

The great 20th century American novelists all created books that were difficult to transfer to the big screen successfully. Hollywood had better luck adapting the short stories of Faulkner and Hemingway to the motion picture medium than with their master works. Fitzgerald was no exception. None of his masterpieces was a total success when rewritten as screenplays, even when directed by such skilled artisans as Henry King. Only John Steinbeck's works were ready-made for media exchanges. But who would place him on the same creative sphere as Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald? "Tender is the Night" has its moments of greatness, in particular toward the end and who can fault the acting of such a stellar cast. One distraction for this viewer was the failure of the director and cinematographer to capture on film the essence of The Jazz Age the way Fitzgerald did in his novel. This version of "Tender is the Night" has the 1960's written all over it from the clothes worn to a jet-set aura rather than the Lost Generation expatriate ambiance of the Fitzgerald masterpiece. Even the music is more 1930's swing than 1920's jazz. The only saving grace in the music department is the original score provided by virtuoso composer Bernard Herrmann.All that remains of Fitzgerald is the bare bones story of the cosmopolitan Divers, focusing on Dr. Dick Diver, played with élan by Jason Robards Jr, a psychiatrist, married to Nicole (Jennifer Jones), who has suffered a mental breakdown. The good doctor becomes both a husband and an analyst to his mentally unbalanced spouse. On the French Riviera just before the stock market crash of 1929, Dr. Diver, near middle age, meets and falls for a rising starlet, Rosemary Hoyt (Jill St. John). As the plot thickens, Dr. Diver slides into a maelstrom of drunken escapades until he hits rock bottom. The story somewhat parallels Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda's own experiences, though Fitzgerald claimed it was based on friends Gerald and Sara Murphy's struggles.By all means read the novel before watching this screen adaptation. I recommend the film only as a supplement to the book, perhaps Fitzgerald's best work.

**spoiler alert**This movie does not have the greatest reputation in the world. I'd read that Jennifer Jones was too old to play Nicole, that she overacts, that she has no chemistry with Jason Robards, that it was too long, etc.Well don't believe it!It DID take me several attempts to watch the whole thing, but that nothing to do with the movie, that had to do with something else. WhenI finally saw the whole thing all the way through, I enjoyed it very much and questioned why it does not have more admirers.It explores many themes, thoughtfully and without exploitation. Should a doctor romance his patient? When does the patient stop being a patient, exactly, and start being a person? Nicole meets Dick in a sanitarium. She's there for a variety of reasons, none of which sister Joan Fontaine really care to discuss. It has something to do with their father. Nicole eventually is released and runs into Dick years later, and they get married. They have a wonderful life and two children but it starts to fall apart. Not because of Nicole's mental state - actually, as it turns out, she becomes the stable one. But a friend of theirs (Tom Ewell, making a fool of himself as a chronic drunk) dies, their daughter almost dies from alcohol poisoning, and Dick is see with an actress (Jill St. John) at a brawl in a café and their picture makes all the front pages.Jennifer Jones is prone to be very mannered. In spite of them she's still a favorite, but here she's really very good, she's not too old to play the part, and her chemistry with Robards is believable. Fontaine doesn't do much but enjoy her own wardrobe. As I mentioned, Ewell is a drunk but his death scene (or, rather, the circumstances surrounding it) are the worse thing in the movie. Jill St. John is first seen as a youngster but she matures as the movie progresses..unfortunately, her acting does not improve. At over 2 1/2 hours, its an investment, but worth your time. Now I want to watch it again. 8/10.