Thursday, 14 July 2005

The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)

All I remember of my first viewing of this film is that I gave up halfway through deciding it was a bunch of pretentious twaddle. However since I am now older and maybe wiser and since it is considered one of the seminal films of the 70's, I decided to try again.  I think I was right the first time.

The story concerns two brothers -- the serious one played by Jack Nicholson (you can tell he is serious because he is wearing glasses) and the feckless, slightly criminal one played by Bruce Dern (an actor I have always liked but who has never achieved A-list success) -- and their involvement during Dern's latest wheeze with an aging beauty queen (Ellen Burstyn way over the top) and her nubile step-daughter in a pre-redeveloped Atlantic City..  It all ends tragically but since one never developed any sympathy for any of the characters, one doesn't really care.  Perhaps I'm missing something.

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