Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

MieMar Very unexpected gem... but you gotta like them talky to love this one.Based on a play and that really shows. But LOVE the way it examines the nooks and crannies of a relationship.Its about two people who have something to learn from each other, and not in an obvious way either. Who is hanging their hope and dreams on who here...? And completely disagree with those who find Mitchum too deadpan for this... he is completely his character, a old school guy of another generation (compared to Gittel, or MacLaine for that matter)... but enough of an off-beat to head to New York to live with some bed bugs once his marriage goes south. The phone calls between him and his wife are painful, Mitchum who himself had a long suffering wife who he had married young and ultimately stuck by (despite, apparently being super unfaithful), I think gives a very brave performance, possibly inspired by the cheer chutzpah of MacLaine's talent. He really shows the complex emotional ties that come with a very long marriage....for the generations who really, without a second thought, thought they married for life.The emotional tables are turned on them both several times, and you always think its completely true.There are a couple of clunky moments, and you must honestly also just take it on the chin (pun) that this was made in an era when a "slutty" woman could expect to be slapped for flaunting her "lack of morality". Here its all part of her problem though, the way she accepts how others treat her, much too readily.Great, very little known film that seems to fit no genre what so ever.Maybe its closest relatives are some french new wave relationship dramas. And those it beats, hands down. Because, unlike the Le French, its not about Women and Men but about people...

kenjha A divorcing man from Nebraska comes to NYC and falls in love with a Jewish woman named Gittel. This drama is based on a two-character play that was a big hit on Broadway, which is surprising because this has to be one of the most dreary plays ever written. Wise, in this follow-up to the energetic "West Side Story," does nothing to enliven the proceedings here. The film is little more than a filmed stage play where the two characters talk and talk and talk non-stop. And very rarely do they say anything profound or witty. Given the vintage of the film, it's surprisingly frank in terms of sexual mores. Mitchum and MacLaine do the best they can with the boring dialog.

rhoda-9 This movie is very intelligent, sensitive, and appealing. The ending is honest and touching. So why does this movie feel so unsatisfactory? A big problem is the casting. The actors do not comfortably inhabit their roles. Although trying very hard, Shirley MacLaine gives us the impression of someone trying hard to be Jewish rather than someone who is, even with the set designer's help of a menorah on her mantelpiece. A Jew leading such a secular, not to mention sexually free, life is hardly likely to prominently display a Jewish symbol that Jews normally display only once a year, on the holiday for which it is used.But the character is also odd. Gittel says that if Jerry ever met her mother he would take off. That is the only reference to her family. From her accent and intonations she is plainly a lower-middle-class Jew from a background that is moral and conservative but crude, without education and culture. How and why did she get to be the way she is? Why does she think so little of herself that she thinks she has to sacrifice her self-respect and happiness to everyone else's? Mitchum is even stranger. He lopes into the movie like the lone gunfighter off the prairie, not like the lonely sad sack he is supposed to be. His charisma and intense sexuality are held in check, but he is still a much more attractive and self-possessed man than the part calls for. Also, he is much too old. Jerry need only be about five years older than Gittel, but Mitchum is old enough to be her father and, since she looks younger than her age, could almost be her grandfather. It makes you wonder why it has taken him so long to work out that he is so unhappy he wants to leave his wife. Also, it does not seem believable that he could stay even five minutes at the beatnik party without the women hitting on him. He never shows the vulnerable, lost quality that Jerry should have--you never believe he can't take care of himself and any trouble that comes along.At the time the film was made, it could just about get away without asking these questions, but now we are more skeptical and curious. Time has also exposed the inherent (though very well disguised) male chauvinism of the material. William Gibson's other successful play was The Miracle Worker. This one, though the characters are very different, has the same story, only this time both characters are working a miracle on each other--teaching each other self-knowledge and self-respect. But Jerry comes out with a lot more than Gittel. All she has is the self-respect (possibly--one suspects that she will slump back into her aimless, masochistic life). He has the loving wife and the nice house and the job and the stable community. In the end, this is a male fantasy--the man with the troubled marriage has a lot of sex with a pretty, much younger woman, who gives him the knowledge and the courage to go back to the life where he belongs. But what about the sex therapist? She LOSES the man she loves, and yet ends up thanking him for betraying her! (It's not likely that Jerry and Gittel, so very different, and he in a city where he feels uncomfortable, would have lasted very long together, but that's a separate issue.) Though Jerry is supposed to be curing Gittel of being, emotionally, the cobbler who has no shoes, he is the one who takes the most from her and then leaves. Her final speech that the next man she meets is going to have a lot to be grateful to him for sounds painful and phony, as if she is, once again, trying to make him feel better rather than caring for her own feelings.

ags123 Oy, is this a talky two hours! It's too bad, because this film has so much going for it. Shirley MacLaine and Robert Mitchum give excellent performances, but that's exactly what they are – performances. As good as she is at playing "kooky" characters, MacLaine is never convincing as a Jewish girl from The Bronx. Mitchum is his charismatic self, but wooden in his line readings. Beautiful black and white photography of New York and a moody soundtrack recall a time when movies mattered, but the endless, stilted, stage bound dialog ultimately goes nowhere. It's enough to drive any viewer to distraction. The story, what there is of it, appears too dated to resonate with contemporary audiences.