ThiefHott Too much of everything

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

JohnHowardReid Producer: Charles Brackett. Copyright 1958 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Paramount: 22 May 1958. U.S. release: May 1958. U.K. release: 29 June 1958. Australian release: 11 September 1958. 9,158 feet. 102 minutes.SYNOPSIS: It is 1945 and Joe Chapin is dead. At the funeral reception in his home at 10 North Frederick in Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, his daughter Ann recalls the last five years of his life ... Goaded by an ambitious wife, Edith, who aspires to be the First Lady in Washington, Joe throws his hat in the political ring by offering a one-hundred-thousand dollar bribe to political boss Mike Slattery. At about this time, Ann meets trumpet player Charlie Bongiorno. When she falls in love, becomes pregnant, marries and then has a miscarriage, Joe protects his career by "buying off" Charlie and having the marriage annulled. Heart-broken, Ann leaves home for a book-store job in New York. Double-crossed by Slattery, Joe fails to get the nomination for lieutenant governor.COMMENT: A well-acted, but rather turgid and slow-moving melodrama. Director Dunne seems determined that not a word of his deathless dialogue be lost. Every word is meticulously enunciated — a stratagem guaranteed not to improve an already funereal pace. In other respects, unfortunately, Mr. Dunne is less scrupulous. He makes no attempts even to utilize the scope of the CinemaScope screen, let alone spice up the anti-heroics with dramatic and powerful compositions or imaginative camera placement and movement. His direction, in short, is stolidly uninteresting.Gary Cooper, Geraldine Fitzgerald and company fight a valiant but losing battle to keep the film alive for 102 way-overdue minutes.

blanche-2 Gary Cooper made six films after "Ten North Frederick" -- and by the last one, "The Naked Edge," he was near death and filming had to be stopped frequently to give him oxygen.Here, in a film based on a novel by John O'Hara, he plays Joseph Chapin, a lawyer with a son, Joby (Ray Stricklyn), a daughter,Ann (Diane Varsi) and an absolute shrew as a wife, Edith (Geraldine Fitzgerald). He's a gentle man, who has probably kept peace in his life by giving in to his wife.The film begins with Joe's funeral, with his daughter Ann looking back on the last five years. Her own life has been affected by falling in love with a talented trumpet player (Stuart Whitman) and her ensuing unhappiness, and her brother wanted to study music at Juilliard but is pressured to attend law school. The war intervenes, and at the beginning of the film, he has returned for the funeral.Edith has political ambitions and pushes Joe into throwing his hat in the ring; he soon finds it's too dirty a game for him and withdraws.Joe, disillusioned, his beloved daughter having left home, he goes to New York to visit her and meets her gorgeous roommate (Suzy Parker). The two fall in love, despite their age difference.I have to say, I felt the film was a little on the dull side - the pace was slow, and the acting, despite some of the comments here, I found rather dull. The thing about Gary Cooper is that he underplays and is very subtle - now, there's underplaying and there's just not acting. I have to say I didn't feel Diane Varsi did much acting here. Geraldine Fitzgerald was terrific, as was Ray Stricklyn, who went on to Broadway success and a huge career in publicity with the John Springer organization, handling people like Elizabeth Taylor and Bette Davis. Suzy Parker was always a total vision, but never much of an actress.The most effective scenes were at the end of the movie, very beautiful and well worth waiting for. Cooper really shone throughout, but especially in the last section. A wonderful presence, and, like many stars of that era, we lost him too soon. It's sad to realize that they're all gone, including Varsi, who died at age 54.Worth seeing for some of the performances. A little sharper direction would have brought it up a level.

MartinHafer While you don't necessarily need to love all the characters in a film in order to like it, a film has a HUGE uphill battle when you like absolutely none of them! While you hate some much more than others in the film and understand why the characters are essentially jerks, the overall picture is severely compromised by the writing. The bottom line is that I didn't like any of the Chapin clan and while the soapy elements of the film were interesting, connecting to or caring about them was really, really difficult.Gary Cooper plays a rich and well-heeled man with political aspirations. His wife is played by Geraldine Fitzgerald--a rather cold and conniving character whose one goal seems to be her husband's advancement. Sadly, there really isn't any love or passion between them--just what seems like a good working relationship. Naturally as a result of this, their two grown children are emotional basket cases. However, while you can understand how they got that way, neither shows any strength or depth of character and as a result are easily swayed and manipulated by their parents.Eventually, when Cooper's plans are dashed, the marriage becomes much more strained and the coldness becomes evident--as if Fitzgerald's character no longer cares. And, as a result, the same ambivalence begins to grow within Cooper. At first he tries to deal with by having an affair. Later, when he realizes how fruitless this would be he decides to just drink himself to death and wait for a slow death. Again, this certainly does not make for pleasant viewing. But, because the characters are so emotionally stunted, you can't even enjoy their misery in a voyeuristic fashion--like you would with a really sleazy soap like "Peyton Place" or even "Valley of the Dolls"s (admittedly, this last one is a terrible film). Overall, the picture is only mildly interesting, at best. Well acted but flat.

edwagreen "10 North Frederick" recounts the story of a middle aged man, successful in business, who is pushed into the political arena by his domineering, obnoxious wife.Gary Cooper and Geraldine Fitzgerald are in fine form as the middle aged man and vicious wife. With the ending of his career approaching, Cooper gave an outstanding performance as a man who was just too good for the society that he lived in. Equally impressive was Geraldine Fitzgerald, his wife Edith, with her sterling political ambitions that could easily rival Mary Todd Lincoln. Erudite, yet a tramp in her own right, Fitzgerald etched an unforgettable character in using such terms as mawkish. (Fitzgerald could have easily played Mary Todd Lincoln in the great 1940 film "Abe Lincoln in Illinois if Ruth Gordon hadn't been available.) Some could call the film dated but what an impressive date! The mores of yesterday were defined that in politics, if you had a scandal in the family, you were ruined. Not so necessarily true today. The same more could be applied to older men married to younger women. Sociologists could really have a ball with this terrific film.When he sees the dirt that politics brings, he begins an affair with his daughter's room mate. Diane Varsi, who was so good in "Peyton Place," shines as the daughter. Suzy Parker is her friend who has an affair with Cooper.Fitzgerald pulls out all the stops in her vicious tirades. She is soon slapped down by her son who denounces her publicly for what she has done to her husband.A wonderful film detailing moral values and their decline in a society where they are most needed. Highly recommended film to all viewers.