It is a very odd film. The question that puzzled me when I first saw it and still does is, why does this brainy doctor want to marry this bubblehead
Yes, that may be the
key source of the film's problems: the casting of Hepburn's niece in the role of her daughter -- she's so irritatingly superficial and pseudo-bubbly, you don't really believe her relationship with Poitier.
Stanley Kramer deliberately made the film as inoffensive as it could be (what some people called "sanitized" even then) because he wanted the message to resonate with as much of the mainstream 1967 audience as possible -- that approach was ultimately more effective than had he made it edgier because the simple subject matter of interracial marriage was still absolutely off-the-charts at the time in the culture at large.
So the parents, Kate and Spence, are idealized. The boyfriend, Sidney, is idealized. And the daughter, Miss Houghton, is idealzed.
But the real problem is not so much their idealized presentations but that Joey's is unconvincing, patronizing, disingenuous. It's like she's, well, a character in a movie.
It's not entirely Miss Houghton's fault, as that ebullient acting style for young women was in vogue in the '60s. But it's more of a problem here because the topic makes you look more accusingly at her for her pretensions -- so they needed an actress who could still be fresh-faced and upbeat yet didn't feel so full of $hit.
But the casting of Houghton (or the direction she apparently didn't receive) becomes the core of the movie's smug affectations. Otherwise, it might have worked better, certainly in retrospect.
Still, those very pretensions are part of what makes it a bit of an endearing time capsule.
--
LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA
reply
share