Marjorie Morningstar (1958)

The very beautiful Oscar nominated song A Very Precious Love highlights this great film about a young lady finding love as a summer counselor at a camp.Natalie Wood portrays Marjorie Morgenstern in this classic flick. Gene Kelly is the older guy of her dreams while Martin Milner is memorable as the young man she will find her place with. It is shocking that Bette Davis's favorite director, Irving Rapper, allowed Gene Kelly to be in the title role of Noel Airman (Ehrman). Kelly was more like an air-head in the role. With the exception of a drunken and condemnation scenes of the backers for his play, Kelly showed no attachment to Noel whatsoever. Kelly even sings the Oscar nominated song, A Very Precious Love in a horrible way. No wonder the song lost the Oscar.There is definitely Jewish stereotyping in this one. Can you imagine Claire Trevor as Rose Morgenstern? Yet, she pulls it off with a grace rarely scene. She really plays it well as the typical Jewish mother. Ed Wynn again proves that he was greatly under-estimated as a dramatic actor. Everett Sloane is wonderful as the father. Both he and Trevor are able to project the Jewish parental look and feelings of the post-war Jewish generation in America.With George Tobias and Martin Balsam in supporting roles, the film is well represented by a Jewish presence. See it for yourself. You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy it. This is definitely one for the young at heart. Hollywood kept making the same mistakes and no one caught it. The scenes of sabbaths at an Orthodox temple show woman carrying pocketbooks. This is a definite no-no on the sabbath. Notice that they were trying to show an orthodox synagogue as the men and women were totally separated in seating arrangements. The same mistake was made in 1952's "The Jazz Singer" with Danny Thomas and Peggy Lee.

This film has some of the most bizarre casting in Hollywood history - who could possibly conceive of Gene Kelly playing a Jew? Yes, an 'assimilated Jew," but a Jew nonetheless. Maybe the same Warner exec who a few years later envisioned WASP-ish Rosalind Russell as Mrs. Jacobi in A MAJORITY OF ONE? With the exception of Everett Sloane (who may have been Jewish - I've never been able to confirm this) and Ed Wynn (who was), this is the most goyishe-looking family imaginable. Claire Trevor was from Brooklyn - I guess they thought this qualified her to "pass". Everyone looks like they just got back from church, not a synagogue.Hollywood and the movie industry were built by Jews - except for Darryl F. Zanuck, all the major movie moguls - Mayer, Selznick, Cohn, Goldwyn, Warner, Laemmle - were Jewish - yet they were frightened of portraying Jews honestly on screen, and many an actor had to subdue his "Jewishness" and change his name to 'blend in' - could John Garfield have become a movie star under his real name, Julius Garfinkle? MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR hasn't held up well as a film or on the printed page - maybe in the 1950s she was the gal every young woman wanted to be or know, but when I finally got through the book a few years ago, I found her to be not only irritating but a tease of the first order - few men or women would have much patience with her superficial personality today. I wondered at the book's popularity - somehow it managed to nudge past AUNTIE MAME and become the #1 bestselling novel of 1955.

I have mixed feelings about this film. While I loved the book and know how Hollywood (especially in the past) feels that it must sterilize, candy-coat, and generally water down works of literature, I felt that the movie was almost totally different from the book. That being said, I enjoyed the movie on its own terms. The achingly beautiful Natalie Wood (my first movie star crush!) did a good job with the title role; very believable. Contrary to other reviewers, I liked Gene Kelly's work in this movie. He was a talented dramatic actor (especially in "Inherit the Wind") and seemed to really breathe life into the character of Noel Airman. However, the book was so rich, full, and complex, that a two hour movie could not hope to do it justice. I recently re-watched the movie the day after reading the book. So many episodes in the book were missing! This was due to time constraints, the Hollywood code at the time, and, I believe, some poor choices by either the director, producers, and/or writer. In particular, the whole sequence with Mike Eden on the Queen Mary and his secret work in Europe and Marjorie's searching for Noel in Europe was just....gone. That sequence was one of the most important in showing how Marjorie made her ultimate decision. Oddly, the very end of the movie showed (or at least inferred) that Marjorie ended up with Wally. Again, totally false according to the book. Marjorie needed to move on and NOT end up with either Noel, Mike, or Wally. But enough negatives. The sequences at South Wind were fantastic. I only wished that there were more scenes of the camp, the lake, the social hall, etc. And Ed Wynn was perfect (as usual). The supporting cast all did a fine job, particularly Martin Milner as Wally and Claire Trevor as Mrs. Morningstar. Overall, I give it a 7 for what it did have: Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly, the South Wind sequences, and the fine supporting acting.

This must be one of the worst and longest films in Hollywood history (apart from epics). Claire Trevor looks as if she longs to be bad and back in 'Key Largo' and Carolyn Jones takes it on the cuff and probably wishes she was back in 'The Bachelor Party'.The book MUST be more interesting than this and I can't believe that the Gene Kelly role wasn't a tougher read. As for his acting, he was clearly miscast and there was absolutely no chemistry between him and Nathalie Wood. She herself was not one of the world's greatest actresses so between them the screen isn't exactly set alight. How so many people have liked this film is a total mystery to me, and from the perspective of 2003 the characters in general were all money-grabbing and generally painted a horrible picture of American society. A capitalist nightmare. One to avoid.