Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)

TWIAT is about a has-been actor with the shakes who starts to rediscover his mojo as a director in Rome with the help of an Italian gamine (Dahlia Lavi), while everybody else around him manipulates and abuses him and one another. He's got to have been living in the world's most expensive sanatorium, by the way. He finally learns to rely on himself alone, not the people who have had their hooks in him - quite a contemporary message, if done in a very glib way, with a slight twist on 'Casablanca' at the end.There are two common threads with all the reviews here: George Hamilton's 'best' work was ahead of him substituting for Elvis in the Hank Williams story 'Your Cheatin' Heart', and while gorgeous to look at (eg Kirk's Maserati, the 60's Roman parties), and with performances that would go down a scream in pantomime/burlesque, the movie just drags - not too badly, but it does. (Though it picks up well with 9 minutes to go). The music is also very dated.The drag is because while the script expects us to invest our feelings in the post-suicidal Andrus (Douglas), it spends too much time and energy with the co-stars and their much worse neuroses and marriages from hell - and the sub-Fellini Italian traveloguery, while interesting of itself, is obtrusive. There's also a lot of casual violence against women which is not good.On the whole, it's worth watching if you don't have to pay for it and you'd like to see something halfway between Douglas Sirk and Martin Scorsese. Oh, and a bee-ootiful black Gibson archtop at about 1:39. Almost better than the Maserati ragtop, which ends up under a fountain.

Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) * 1/2 (out of 4) The star, writer, producer and director of THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL re-teamed for this film but sadly the end result is somewhat of a disaster. Former star Jack Andrus (Kirk Douglas) leaves a mental hospital three years after a nervous breakdown when his former director (Edward G. Robinson) calls him to Rome for a chance at a comeback. Once the actor arrives in Rome he realizes that everything with the production is a disaster and soon he goes from actor to sound dubbing to directing. TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN apparently was a disaster when director Vincente Minnelli turned it over to MGM who pretty much took the film away from him, re-edited the picture and threw out several key scenes. Who knows how good or bad the original version was but what's available today is quite hard to sit through. Had it not been for the terrific cast this film would probably be unbearable and rank as one of the worst films to come from such a talented group of people. For the life of me I can't understand how bad this thing turned out but I've heard the novel by Irwin Shaw would be nearly impossible for anyone to get to work. The entire film is a major mess as it simply tries to tell too many stories and not a single one of them is of any interest. The Kirk Douglas character just never makes too much sense and there are countless other characters that come in and out of his life without much information. We don't get many stories on why Douglas is the nut he is and we really don't understand the relationship between the director and his alcoholic wife play by Claire Trevor (her and Robinson re-teaming after KEY LARGO). Another problem is that none of the actors seem all that interesting in what's going on. Douglas and Robinson, two great actors, pretty much sleepwalk through their roles. Trevor is just a poor version of previous performances she's given. George Hamilton just really sinks in the film and Cyd Charisse doesn't get much to do. The over-dramatic melodrama going on in this film just makes it downright annoying to sit through and this is only for fans of really bad movies.

Ten years after 'The Bad and the Beautiful', director Vincente Minnelli and star Kirk Douglas return to another expose of Tinseltown. This time, Douglas plays a washed-up film star who has been in a sanatorium but is now well enough to heed the summons of old 'friend' and director Kruger (Edward G Robinson) who is offering him a plum new role.But going back means meeting his former wife Carlotta (Cyd Charisse), and a younger version of himself (Davie Drew, played by George Hamilton), while squaring up to Kruger and his acerbic wife Clara (Claire Trevor) again to save his professional life.This film is in colour where 'The Bad and ...' was black and white, so it makes an interesting contrast as well as a companion piece. Douglas is excellent again, in a slightly more likable part than in the earlier film, while Robinson and Trevor have enough screen time on their own to make their characters fascinating. Charisse is a viper in fine furs - good to see what she moved into once she stopped dancing on screen.

I think that your opinion of this movie will be strongly influenced depending on whether or not you first saw THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. I tried watching this film before I saw the prequel and got tired of it and stopped watching. However, a few months later I saw the first film and then saw TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN. Then, it all made sense to me,...how the horribly manipulative jerk in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL slid over the years into the pathetic has-been in this film. I really liked it, as everyone hate ample reason to both hate the lead character, Douglas, and to thank him for their success. A pretty deep film and a perfect follow-up.