Geez, she gets on my nerves! Everyone else in the film did a pretty good job but Joey was just unbearable.
"I read a pamphlet..Minky Monthly.."
"So.. I once looked at a hedge. Whats your point?"
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she never worked again either, except for SEEDS of EVIL with Joe Dallesendro about a man/tree.
shareCan't stand someone who is in love and happy with a perky personality? Clearly your baseless criticisms say more about you than the character. How sad.
share'Can't stand someone who is in love and happy with a perky personality? Clearly your baseless criticisms say more about you than the character. How sad.'
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I think the OP is referring to Houghton specifically, not somebody who happens to be happy and perky.
One film reviewer wrote: "one had to suspend belief why Sidney would be attracted to somebody as insipid as Joey"
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You are so right - Ann-Margaret would have been great because she could actually act and would have been more of an equal to Sidney Poitier.
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Actresses of the time period preferable to Ms. Houghton (hell, I would include Dame Edith Evans and Anna Magnani, but they were a little long in the tooth)
Kim Darby
Ann-Margaret
Shelly Fabares
Barbara Hershey
Patty Duke
Okay, you have to draw the line somewhere: I would definitely take Ms. Houghton over the always dreadful and uber-unbearable Kim Darby. She absolutely ruined True Grit.
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One film reviewer wrote: "one had to suspend belief why Sidney would be attracted to somebody as insipid as Joey"
I was kinda wondering the same thing when watching the film.
I believe she was only cast because she was Hepburn's niece and looked a good deal like her. She not all bad, but some scenes are cringe worthy. She was beyond innocent, her naivete was ridiculous.
"I can't sit down. These aren't my pants."
She was made that way by Kramer. The movie isn't supposed to be realistic, it's stripped of almost all other plot points other than Joey's parents might object to SP simply because he's black. That's why he's perfect, and Joey isn't a spiteful/willful independent worldly woman. The movie wasn't produced for truly race-blind whites nor blacks. It was made for whites with at least some degree of racism to try to sell one point: interracial marriages per se weren't bad or evil.
shareThey needed to remove the entire "10 day" point of the film in that case... What reasonable parent wouldn't object to their son/daughter getting married after only knowing someone for 10 days?
share"What reasonable parent wouldn't object to their son/daughter getting married after only knowing someone for 10 days?"
None. In real life that would sink the parental approval right there (presuming they're a close family).
But for the purpose of the movie it's nescessary to elevate the urgency of the choice.
It's a plot point, like Joey's naivete, where disbelief has to be suspended for sake of the argument (trying to) be made.
I find the age difference to be grotesque too, and I can't figure out why THAT one was there.
Notwithstanding the fact that she might be a bad actress...her role is definitely needed in the movie. Think about it...everyone in the movie is (to some varying degrees) against this marriage--the parents, the maid...and even Poitier's character all realize that this isn't going to be an easy thing to handle and deal with.
Joey characterization/portrayal is needed as the only person who represents the ideal and ultimate point of the movie--that race doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. Her characterization provides a counterpoint to everyone's character. She is, in effect--the "straight man" to all the "comedians", to phrase it another way.
So while her portrayal maybe offputting, to say the least...it does make the movie stronger. If Joey were portrayed as someone who shared everyone elses viewpoints and worries, etc...it would be a weaker movie.
"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain"
I don't know about that being true for post world war 1 America, at least in my region. I'm 50, and due to my mother being sort of an accident she's a lot younger than her siblings. So they got married in the late 40's thru the 50's, and none of them have large spousal age differences. My maternal grandfather was a decade and a half older than his wife, but he was also an immigrant.
Yes, having a husband with decent prospects was important, but that wasn't too hard after the depths of the depression and marrying school sweethearts was common, if not the norm.
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