From the Terrace (1960)

Screenplay based on a novel by John O'Hara in 1958. One of a dozen films Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward did as husband and wife. They stayed married until Newman died in 2008. The film cost $3 million and grossed $5 million. So it was major deal in those days but was not a runaway success. There was quite a lot of adult content for the time which was surprising. It was certainly apt for the time but all the concern about divorce makes it a period piece but an accurate period piece. I find all the filming on sets restrictive as I am spoiled by modern location and outdoor shooting. Although it is certainly not a great work. Will give it a solid 7. RECOMMEND

Over these many years I have been told, time & again, about what a really great actor Paul Newman was in his heyday.Well, I have now seen Newman in 6 films that all came from the first decade of his acting career, and, let me tell you, I am not at all impressed. In fact, I'd actually go so far as to say that Newman was one of most over-rated and disappointing, big-name actors from that particular era, bar none.Set in the year 1946, From The Terrace was yet another star-vehicle of Newman's where I strongly felt that, at 35, he was clearly too old for his part. This time around he played a young soldier returning to his Philadelphia home after the war.The very minute Newman's character (a spoilt, tormented rich kid named Alfred Eaton) sets foot inside the door of his home the story immediately accelerates into a most tedious and predictable soap opera of non-stop bickering, jealousy and resentment, with a generous dash of infidelity thrown into the mix for good measure.Everybody in this story seems to either have an axe to grind, or be out for blood, or at one another's throat, ceaselessly.I, for one, found this 1960 film (with its plodding 145-minute running time) to be a tiresome ordeal which went far beyond anything even reasonably tolerable.Paul Newman, or not, I would never, ever recommend this bitchy, backstabbing bull to anyone.

Have read a few of the other reviews, and I am not trying to write a "review," I am trying to put in my two cents worth about a movie, so that others may take them and use them to their benefit. The actors got me right from the beginning, and they had me by the nose all the way through this. I was with a very nice young lady as we sat in the car, yes in a "drive-in movie," we were hooked, the only necking we did was during intermission when the movie was over. ALL the actors earned their pay, I don't know what the author had in mind when they wrote the story, I don't know what the director had in mind, but - I sure did enjoy what I saw. I thought the ending to be very nice, and the photographic scene to be the most shocking. Rent/buy it if you like romance and a tale about big money because, this is it. My thanks to all who worked on this movie.

I didn't see what others apparently saw in this film. I did not see the moral of the film so much concerning the price of success as it being that despite your best efforts, you are often doomed to become your parents.At the beginning of the film, Alfred (Paul Newman) returns home after the second World War to renounce his father because he has, in Alfred's opinion, ignored his mother while strictly attending to business to the point where his mother has become an adulterous lush. Ten or fifteen years later, Alfred has ignored his own wife Mary (played by Joanne Woodward) while climbing the corporate ladder until his own lonely wife has become an adulterous lush. The only crime of his father's he does not commit is to produce offspring that can be dragged into the mess his life has become. One person with a more warped moral code than either Alfred or Mary seems to be Alfred's boss. While eating lunch he casually informs Alfred of Mary's affair with an old flame. When Alfred reacts by saying that he intends to divorce Mary, his boss warns him against such an action. To Alfred's boss, Mary's behavior isn't a moral failing or a cry for attention - it is an unforgivable breach of etiquette, and this is the same way he feels about divorce.Overall, the main characters in this film lack redeeming characteristics to the point where the movie almost becomes a film noir soap opera. There are still solid performances by both Newman and Woodward, and it is still worth seeing 50 years after it was made. After all, the idle rich and the mistakes they keep making over and over have not changed that much after half a century.