The Fountainhead (1949)

This monumental piece of pretentious twaddle has been well served by the many excellent criticisms posted on IMDb. I cannot add to that body of work other than to point out a curious and unusual coincidence that The Fountainhead has with the 1952 remake of The Prisoner of Zenda.The definitive version of Zenda was made in 1937. It starred Ronald Colman and Madeleine Carroll along with an outstanding cast of supporting actors----including Raymond Massey as the evil Prince Michael. Better known as Black Michael, he is the principal villain in the story.We now go forward to 1949 and The Fountainhead. As noted in the cast listing, Raymond Massey appears as the newspaper publisher (a William Randolph Hearst stand in) and Robert Douglas plays the major villain in the story (Massey's newspaper architecture critic who can't abide Gary Cooper's Frank Lloyd Wright-like designs).Now we complete the circle and move on to the remake of Zenda in 1952. Remember now-- --Prince Michael was played in the original version by Raymond Massey. Who ends up acting out this character in the remake of Zenda? None other than Robert Douglas---who co- starred with Massey in The Fountainhead!I will leave it to you as to which actor gave us the better Black Michael portrayal in the two versions of Zenda. Was his scene-chewing architecture critic in The Fountainhead but a warm up for what Robert Douglas did in the remake of Zenda? It is a matter worth pondering over.

What the Hell? Oh my God, what a God damned piece of crap this was. I mostly know Ayn Rand in a secondhand manner (I read Anthem in 8th grade but don't remember it being anything more than a 1984 retread), so I guess I'm kind of glad I finally got to experience her peculiar sense of morality (which should be easily identifiable to anyone with a shred of intelligence as evil). What particularly strikes me about this film (whose screenplay she did write, for the record) is not just that her morality is repugnant, but that she's an unbearably awful writer. First off, the dialogue that's spouted off doesn't sound like anything that could ever possibly come out of a human being's mouth. It's three steps beyond clunky and overly expository. Screw subtext, right? We're just gonna say everything on our minds, thank you very much. Second, I mean, how egotistical is Rand here? Clearly, at least part of the protagonist (Howard Roark, played by Gary Cooper) is autobiographical, you have to imagine, and we just think we're the hottest thing ever, don't we Ms. Rand? Oh, you're an individual and such a genius that the only reason anyone can ever disagree with you is because they think mediocrity is the way to go. And, finally, you all saw that he did it, right? He blew the Hell out of that building and surrendered right next to a plunger. It's a pretty open and shut case. I don't care how awesome your courtroom speech is - it's not, by the way - it has nothing to do with the case at hand and I'm surprised there wasn't one objection raised, especially given how much movie lawyers love to do so. And then there's some really dumb stuff with the Raymond Massey character too, but I was too flabbergasted by what had just happened in court to care about that. King Vidor, who was personally chosen by Rand, does what he can with the material, but it's utterably unsalvageable. Patricia Neal is quite attractive and it was nice seeing Cat People's Kent Smith in the film, but it's objectively garbage.

I just caught this movie on one of the free cable movie channels. Other reviews have already picked it apart and listed all the reasons why the film is a stilted, sophomoric, pretentious, preachy, melodramatic mess. All I can add is that, if you've never read any Ayn Rand, you should see this movie. Not because it's good (it's definitely not), but at least you'll only waste two hours of your life having Rand's silly "every man for himself" philosophy and "every woman needs a strong man to dominate her" sexual agenda bashed into your head over and over and over. As someone who had the misfortune of spending way too many hours slogging through Atlas Shrugged on the recommendation of a friend, I wish I had just watched this movie instead. It would have warned me off anything with Ayn Rand's name attached to it.On the other hand, if you watch this and think it's brilliant (and the current 7.1 rating it enjoys on IMDb indicates that there must be a lot of people who think so, considering all the 1 and 2 star reviews it's gotten), then by all means run out and buy Rand's collected works. You'll love them.

I love Ayn Rand's novel, but this film version is unfortunately a mixed bag. Just a quick capsule review:The Good:* Rand's screenplay was excellent (she was a screenwriter in Hollywood, earlier in her career, and also wrote a number of plays, so unlike some authors who butcher their own work, hers was excellent. And her contract guaranteed it was basically shot as she wrote it.) That said though, a movie this short is just *too* short to really do the novel justice; for example, the character of Peter Keating, who even has an entire 1/4th of the book named for him, is only in a few brief scenes in the movie.* Raymond Massey's portrayal of Gail Wynand. Massey understood the character, and really gave me that great sense of being what I had imagined from the book. (That same great joy most of us got from the characters in Jackson's LOTR movies...)The OK:* many have complained about Patricia Neal, but I liked her as Dominique--and that ahem "infamous" scene (that I shall not spoil) was really something shocking at that time in cinema!The Bad:* even though Rand selected Cooper, he was really way too old to play Roark by the time this was made into a movie--you almost feel like laughing in the first scene when the dean is telling a 40++something man that he is being kicked out of college. Cooper also seemed to fall into the trap of thinking that a man of reason is like Spock--devoid of emotion. And even though the courtroom speech is great, you didn't get the sense he really understood it.* a property of this immense stature deserved a big budget, color film--the production itself was obviously low-budget, with many obvious miniatures shots that even at that time should have been much better doneThe Ugly:* oh, dear, the Toohey character was so off the mark, they could have used it later to fuel the moon landings--in the book, Toohey is refined, witty, slender--even frail-- the very embodiment of a self-effacing, humble intellectual. In the movie, he is a crude, arch caricature, with a long cigarette holder, stout belly, booming domineering demeanor, just oozing "evil autocrat" from the first frameSummary:Overall, despite its flaws, I have to say I did thoroughly enjoy The Fountainhead--the core of the story is there, and the condensation struck the right balance between drama and ideas, keeping both in balance, while selecting the key aspects of each from the much deeper and longer novel. So I have no hesitation in recommending it, although I would strongly suggest reading the novel first, then watching the movie.