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Post by pimpinainteasy on Jan 11, 2019 7:06:38 GMT
i am not a big fan of domestic family dramas. unless it is a subplot (like in RAGING BULL). james mason plays a charming, broke (he drives taxis three days a week) school teacher who is diagnosed with a rare illness. the new medication prescribed by the doctors drives him nuts and puts him at odds with his loving wife and son. the impact of social conformity on an intelligent man, materialism and the despair under the veil of normalcy and apparent marital bliss are the major themes here. MASON is always a solid performer and he is as good here as he was in LOLITA. WALTER MATTHAU was really cool as MASON's colleague. BARBARA RUSH looked chic and not like a middle class housewife. the film does look beautiful with the characters donning deep shades of red. most of the action takes place inside the house. but ultimately, it was all quite dreary and depressing. but like i said, i am not a big fan of family dramas, so i am not the best person to judge this movie.
(6/10)
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Post by RiP, IMDb on Jan 11, 2019 7:10:09 GMT
I am not a big fan of domestic family dramas. unless it is a subplot (like in RAGING BULL). james mason plays a charming, broke (he drives taxis three days a week) school teacher who is diagnosed with a rare illness. the new medication prescribed by the doctors drives him nuts and puts him at odds with his loving wife and son. the impact of social conformity on an intelligent man, materialism and the despair under the veil of normalcy and apparent marital bliss are the major themes here. MASON is always a solid performer and he is as good here as he was in LOLITA. WALTER MATTHAU was really cool as MASON's colleague. BARBARA RUSH looked chic and not like a middle-class housewife. the film does look beautiful with the characters donning deep shades of red. most of the action takes place inside the house. but ultimately, it was all quite dreary and depressing. but like I said, I am not a big fan of family dramas, so I am not the best person to judge this movie.
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Post by kijii on Jan 11, 2019 7:27:23 GMT
i am not a big fan of domestic family dramas. unless it is a subplot (like in RAGING BULL). james mason plays a charming, broke (he drives taxis three days a week) school teacher who is diagnosed with a rare illness. the new medication prescribed by the doctors drives him nuts and puts him at odds with his loving wife and son. the impact of social conformity on an intelligent man, materialism and the despair under the veil of normalcy and apparent marital bliss are the major themes here. MASON is always a solid performer and he is as good here as he was in LOLITA. WALTER MATTHAU was really cool as MASON's colleague. BARBARA RUSH looked chic and not like a middle class housewife. the film does look beautiful with the characters donning deep shades of red. most of the action takes place inside the house. but ultimately, it was all quite dreary and depressing. but like i said, i am not a big fan of family dramas, so i am not the best person to judge this movie. (6/10) I just saw it for the first time this week myself, and it made quite an impression on me. I plan to review it on another thread. I can't think of another movie in which Jame Mason plays the father in another family-based movie. He produced this movie himself and Nicholas Ray directed it. The reason I haven't written a review yet is that I wanted to do a little research about cortisone, its affect on behavior, and if this was a new subject of interest when the movie was made. I like the way the movie was shot. I am not used to seeing a 50s middle-class movie shot is such vivid color....the only other I can think of now is Nicholas Ray's Rebel without a Cause.
Did you notice the huge shadow Mason's cast on the wall when he was confronting his son in the bedroom? I thought that was a great touch because it sort of demonstrated the shadowy effect of Mason's cortisone-based manic behavior. It was sort of like the shadow was the drug he was overloaded with when he confronted his son. (The shadow was much bigger that Mason, himself, which could have demonstrated how big the drug made him feel during his manic phase...something way beyond his normal feelings.) |
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Post by timshelboy on Jan 11, 2019 7:37:44 GMT
I can't think of another movie in which James Mason plays the father in a family-based movie. Then you need to catch SPRING AND PORT WINE, from 1970, where he is head of an unruly Northern brood - one of his best later roles and I believe a favourite of his. Here he is coming home from work: |
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Post by pimpinainteasy on Jan 11, 2019 7:50:50 GMT
i am not a big fan of domestic family dramas. unless it is a subplot (like in RAGING BULL). james mason plays a charming, broke (he drives taxis three days a week) school teacher who is diagnosed with a rare illness. the new medication prescribed by the doctors drives him nuts and puts him at odds with his loving wife and son. the impact of social conformity on an intelligent man, materialism and the despair under the veil of normalcy and apparent marital bliss are the major themes here. MASON is always a solid performer and he is as good here as he was in LOLITA. WALTER MATTHAU was really cool as MASON's colleague. BARBARA RUSH looked chic and not like a middle class housewife. the film does look beautiful with the characters donning deep shades of red. most of the action takes place inside the house. but ultimately, it was all quite dreary and depressing. but like i said, i am not a big fan of family dramas, so i am not the best person to judge this movie. (6/10) I just saw it for the first time this week myself, and it made quite an impression on me. I plan to review it on another thread. I can't think of another movie in which Jame Mason plays the father in a family-based movie. He produced this movie himself and Nicholas Ray directed it. The reason I haven't written a review yet is that I wanted to do a little research about cortisone, its affect on behavior, and if this was a new subject of interest when the movie was made. I like the way the movie was shot. I am not used to seeing a 50s middle-class movie shot is such vivid color....the only other I can think of now is Nicholas Ray's Rebel without a Cause.
Did you notice the huge shadow Mason's cast on the wall when he was confronting his son in the bedroom? I thought that was a great touch because it sort of demonstrated the shadowy effect of Mason's cortisone-based manic behavior. It was sort of like the shadow was the drug he was overloaded with when he confronted his son. (The shadow was much bigger that Mason, himself, which could have demonstrated how big the drug made him feel during his manic phase...something way beyond his normal feelings.) yes i did notice the shadow. DOUGLAS SIRK movies are shot in vivid color. though they could be about upper class. |
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Post by Fox in the Snow on Jan 11, 2019 8:48:41 GMT
One of my favorite 50s films, another masterpiece from Nicolas Ray.
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Post by teleadm on Jan 11, 2019 18:27:11 GMT
The medication that James Mason's character takes is cortisone. I think this was in the early stages of cortisone use. Cortisone was used to relief pains, especially in shoulders and in the backs, but overdosing or overtaking can cause side effects, among other things depressions and anxiety too.
Since it's first commercial use in the late 1940s, it has proved to be useful for other things too, including holding down arthritis, some allergies and asthma.
I take cortisone pills every day, very unconcentrated, to keep my own arthritis down, so I at least can move around normally most of the time.
Sorry for the sidestep!
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Post by kijii on Jan 11, 2019 19:43:33 GMT
The medication that James Mason's character takes is cortisone. I think this was in the early stages of cortisone use. Cortisone was used to relief pains, especially in shoulders and in the backs, but overdosing or overtaking can cause side effects, among other things depressions and anxiety too. Since it's first commercial use in the late 1940s, it has proved to be useful for other things too, including holding down arthritis, some allergies and asthma. I take cortisone pills every day, very unconcentrated, to keep my own arthritis down, so I at least can move around normally most of the time. Sorry for the sidestep! Teleadm-- Actually, that was not so much of a sidestep as you think. I am getting ready to review this very movie on the JUST FINISHED watching thread--notice that I am sort of doing Nicholas Ray and Douglas Sirk right now. But, I have put it off to research if this was one of the issues of the day at the time the movie was made. (I seem to remember some conversation--in the air at that time-- about pills that affect people's behavior, but I was just a kid at the time and the conversation when over my head then.) I'm fairly sure that terms like "manic" or "manic-depressive" were not very common at that time either. I have heard of people that periodically get cortisone shots from their doctors too. |
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Post by london777 on Jan 12, 2019 0:28:53 GMT
I can't think of another movie in which James Mason plays the father in a family-based movie. Then you need to catch SPRING AND PORT WINE, from 1970, where he is head of an unruly Northern brood - one of his best later roles and I believe a favourite of his. Here he is coming home from work: Beat me to it, Timshelboy! Despite his usual upper-class and supercilious accent, Mason actually originated from 'umble 'uddersfield, though presumably from higher up the social scale than depicted in this movie, as he attended a leading public school. Note to non-Brits: "public school" in the UK means exactly the opposite of what its name suggests. |
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Post by marianne48 on Jan 12, 2019 3:32:55 GMT
Good movie, but I thought James Mason was miscast. I've always found him a little sketchy, even sinister; I would have preferred someone who could pull off a sweet, all-American dad persona, so that the transformation into an unhinged psychotic would have been more jarring (Glenn Ford comes to mind).
The creepy thing about this film is that, despite being over sixty years old, its subject matter is very timely. The film is based on a true story. In the film version, Mason's character becomes deranged as a result of side effects from his misuse of a prescription drug. The doctors explain that while the drug can be used safely, it was Mason's carelessness in overusing it that led to his psychosis. In the real-life story, the doctors used their patient as an unwitting guinea pig, experimenting with higher and higher dosages to see how much he could take, putting him at risk for experiencing (possibly permanent) mind-altering
side effects. There's a few tiny little hints in the movie that this was the case (a brief shot of a doctor glancing meaningfully at Mason as he's given the drug, for instance), but the film ultimately placed the blame on the patient, not the doctors. This isn't much different than the overprescribed opioids and other drugs that many doctors push on their patients today, with little regard for the risks of dangerous side effects or addiction.
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