1. "Crossroads" by Jonathan Franzen. This is a 2021 novel — 600 pages — that I just finished. It takes place mostly around Christmas 1971 and Easter 1972. The parents have an early-70s-style struggle with marriage, and one of their offspring — the troubled genius son — is named Perry.
2. "Diary of a Mad Housewife" is a movie that came out in 1970. I watched it because I was reading "Crossroads," and I got the idea that it might have influenced Franzen and that the name Perry was intended as a clue. The director of the movie was Frank Perry, and the screenplay was by his wife Eleanor Perry. I'd never seen this movie before, even though I saw tons of movies in 1970. I think I avoided it because I didn't want to get bogged down in the problems of a subordinated housewife.
Anyway, I enjoyed both works of art, even though I didn't identify with either married couple. "Crossroads" had a younger generation that got caught up in events and ideas that affected me when I was young, and "Diary of a Mad Housewife" had little to do with the 1970s that I lived through. It was about awful people of a sort that I avoided. But what a spiffy work of art.
I especially liked the 2 male actors — the husband played by Richard Benjamin and the lover played by Frank Langella. Benjamin was comically repellent and his odd looks intensified the effect. I said he looked like Pete Buttigieg, and Meade said take Pete Buttigieg and add Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson):
Frank Langella — I didn't recognize him at first, he was so young — was incredibly attractive. I'm more familiar with him as the grandfather in "Captain Fantastic," but look at him at 32:
Bonus masculine presence — Alice Cooper!
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38 comments:
We all looked good at 32. But maybe not Frank Langella good : )
Never saw the movie - just your clips. But Benjamin's and Langella's characters' overwrought scripted and acted assholeishness tells me that I won't bother watching the whole thing. I don't think (guessing again) that we really need their jerkiness - obviously half of the essence of the message -- spelled out for us, histrionic letter by letter.
Agree with Meade: Very much Rowan Atkinson in his looks!
Frank Langella was famous for playing Dracula, as I recall (a movie I never saw)
little to do with the 1970s two words: Carrie Snodgress!
she was Married (shacked up?) with Neal Young!!!
PLUS! she has a Truly bizarre name... Carrie Snodgress is MOST of what *i* remember about the (early) '70's
At first I thought you were talking about a Jill Clayburgh movie. Clayburgh sort of made the same movie twice: "An Unmarried Woman," 1978, and "It's My Turn," 1980. She was lovely in both, no kids in either movie, no actual marriage in the later one. Shifting to a different star, "Kramer v. Kramer," 1979 may be relevant, only in that case it is the man who gets dumped and left with kids. Meryl Streep four and five years younger than the other two. Jill Clayburgh a year older than Carrie Snodgrass, yet Carrie goes through so much more in 1970.
Per Wikipedia:
Groucho Marx criticized the movie in an interview on The Dick Cavett Show on May 25, 1971. He stated that it was an example of dirty entertainment and that he did not like it because the characters were in bed for 80 minutes. He made a joke of this, saying "Well I'm not interested in that. I don't care what they're doing in the sack. If I'm not doing it, why should I sit in the theater and watch it?"
That's pretty much my view. With sex, I'm a doer, not a lookie Lou.
As for the movie, I'm surprised Althouse didn't dig this as young chick. Wasn't this what feminism in the 60s was all about? Awful male chauvanists oprressing the poor bored Housewives- expecting them to be barefoot and pregnant? Or in this case, picking out their shirts and going to therapy.
It may not still be my opinion but I was very taken with Langella as Dracula in 1979.
Ahhh…Frank Langella. What a crush I had. Saw him on Broadway in Dracula at a matinee (1978). At the end of one of the acts was a bedroom seduction scene that was literally breathtaking. As the curtain fell, there was a moment of silence and then the combined exhaled release of the mostly female audience. A moment I will always remember (despite the horrible movie version released the next year or so). I may need to go back and watch The Twelve Chairs.
I've been having trouble getting into Crossroads, your comments seem kind of tepid to me. Not a rave, although you indicate you like it. I'm not sure I'll continue reading.
Re Carrie Snodgrass - I was a huge Neil Young fan - there's a trilogy of songs (at least) for her. All seem very sad.
First A Man Needs a Maid
https://youtu.be/bORW_YEmHwY
"I fell in love with the actress
she was playing a part that I could understand."
Second, Motion Pictures (for Carrie) -
https://youtu.be/CLi6stJrF5A
"I'm deep inside myself,
but I'll get out somehow,
And I'll stand before you,
and I'll bring
a smile to your eyes."
Last, Already One
https://youtu.be/d0iyypR8EiA
"But we're already one
Already one
Now only time can come between us
'Cause we're already one
Our little son won't let us forget.
Your laughing eyes,
your crazy smile
Every time I look in his face
I can't believe
how love lasts a while
And looks like
"forever" in the first place."
Just watched a 1970 marriage movie, The Out-of-Towners. Sandy Dennis has the patience of a Saint putting up with a Jack Lemmon whom Neil Simon takes from his Odd Couple character and puts on steroids.
Carrie Snodgrass died of heart failure at age 58 waiting for a liver transplant. She was about my age.
I saw the movie back then and mostly forgotten it. It was of it's time. I like Richard Benjamin when he isn't playing a jerk. Movies like the Sunshine Boys and and as a director in My Favorite Year.
In "Diary of..." I can still hear Richard Benjamin screaming 'Tina! Tinaaaaaaaa!'
He was smarm personified.
“ As for the movie, I'm surprised Althouse didn't dig this as young chick. Wasn't this what feminism in the 60s was all about? “
Yes, to older, more conventional women. It did not seem relevant to me, and I didn’t respect the choices women made that got them into that jam. They were very uncool and unenlightened.
My life is changing in so many ways
I don't know who to trust anymore
There's a shadow running through my days
Like a beggar going from door to door.
I was thinking that maybe I'd get a maid
Find a place nearby for her to stay.
Just someone to keep my house clean,
Fix my meals and go away.
A maid.
A man needs a maid.
A maid.
I think this is one of the saddest songs about being hurt by love. Does he have anyone – anyone - left? Can the maid hurt him as well?
Ann says: I didn’t respect the choices women made that got them into that jam. They were very uncool and unenlightened. The Buddha said that the cause of suffering is ignorance. But if you are informed by ignorance, can any choice you make not be uncool and unenlightened?
Ann Althouse said... They were very uncool and unenlightened.
well, respectfully:MOST people were very uncool and unenlightened, compared to 190's Ann
What with the Flaming Red Hair, and the miniskirts. Those are big shoes to fill
I knew of Frank Langella as the suave Dracula of Broadway circa 1978. Did this this not coincide with the NY period of Althouse history?
I recall paying to take a date to Kramer vs Kramer (1979) a few years after these movies. My mistake, I openly admit it. No heavy discussions of interpersonal relationships or family strife followed this movie, just a strong desire on both our parts never to see it again, and never to speak of our seeing it, and in fact never to spend time with one another ever again becaue in part we had seen this movie. Ah, well.
The only worse date entertainment choice I've made was "'night, Mother," an amazingly cumulative story of ever-increasing depression. Spoiler: The play ended with the suicide announced in the play's opening moments. I was worried my date was about ready to jump from her dorm after I got her back there, and I know I felt like doing so for sitting through that painful artwork.
Oddly, David Lynch's Eraserhead was a fun date movie, despite its reputation, because my date and I left immediately after the puppies appeared, and spent the evening Kipling, so to speak.
I have a third nomination. "I Love My Wife" (1970). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065871/
I will never forget the scene of Elliott Gould standing in their front yard yelling "Crazy lady! Crazy lady!"
The film should have convinced women at the time never to get married.
1970's Ann
i really Should buy a new keyboard (or, stop eating pizza on it)
Someone in Hollywood must have liked Richard Benjamin. I sure didn't. Like Peter York, he seemed to be in everything, and the wimpy opposite of older leading men like Richard Burton and James Mason and Gregory Peck.
They photographed well but had no real presence. Bleah.
Richard Benjamin - a girlie man,
I'm Ann's age, and in the 70s I was living in a decidely male environment. I remember going to see "Midnight Cowboy", "2001", James Bond, "The Life of Brian", "The Godfather", and "Dirty Harry", but not Carrie Snodgrass. I'm guessing she was a chik thing?
I can only name a few movies I've seen with either actor (much less both). I can say that Langella was great as Salieri on stage, which the googleywikley says was in 1982.
Funny, the mention of James Mason. He came to my mind as Langella went all SOB on Snodgrass.
I recall paying to take a date to Kramer vs Kramer (1979)
I took a date to All That Jazz, another '79 flick. The open-heart surgery scenes repulsed her.
'Someone in Hollywood must have liked Richard Benjamin.'
One of the original Soy Boys, but not a terrible actor.
He was best in buddy movies playing off of more macho actors.
'Westworld' wasn't a great movie (though cool at the time), but in it, Benjamin does a good job teaming up with manly-man James Brolin.
Elliott Gould on the other hand, always plays Elliott Gould. I never did see his appeal...
Worst first date movie also from 1979: The Deer Hunter. Second worst first date from 1977: Carrie. Great first date movie from 1980: Personal Best
“I've been having trouble getting into Crossroads, your comments seem kind of tepid to me. Not a rave, although you indicate you like it. I'm not sure I'll continue reading.”
I just don’t do book reviews.
Did you get to the back story on Marion? That’s pretty early on. If you don’t like that, you should quit.
Also, the Christmas party with Perry. That’s as good as it gets. If that doesn’t get to you, it’s probably not your thing.
Also, do you find Russ funny? If not, start over and make that your lodestar. Russ is intended to be a figure of fun.
“ is intended”
That’s not just my opinion. The author says it outright in an interview.
Disney did one of those nature films in the 1960s about a plucky ground squirrel in Wyoming named "Perry" as it prepared for the coming winter. There is at least one actress named Perry who claimed once that she was named after that squirrel because her parents loved the documentary. I really liked it too, and it is one of the few I can remember, even though I watched all of them as they were aired (We had one channel in those pre-cable times), including the infamous lemming one.
As for "An Unmarried Woman," the only reason I remember that movie is because five minutes after I left the theater I had the thought that I wasn't even thinking about the movie I had just spent two hours watching. It was just two hours about nothing, like an episode of Seinfeld without the humor. "Perry" stuck. with me a lot longer. Some of those '70s movies, you probably need to watch in the theatre now so that your attention is forced to remain with the movie the whole time, they just don't seem to have the kind of drama to keep you riveted to the screen the way '90s movies do.
One amazing little known fact about Langella is that the man was struck with temporary blindness for several years in the late 90s. This remarkably coincided with his five year stretch squiring one Whoopi Goldberg.
You are not supposed to mention Mr. Bean. Rowan Atkinson has been cancelled.
In ‘79, after hearing the radio DJ say that the movie Alien “gives a whole new meaning to ‘in yo face’ “, I took a date to see it.
Boy, was I wrong…
I just don’t do book reviews.
Did you get to the back story on Marion? That’s pretty early on. If you don’t like that, you should quit.
Thank you for your reply - I'll got through those three episodes and then see. I appreciate this.
I thought "Diary of a Mad Housewife" was the one with Barbra Streisand and Fidel Castro. But that was "Up the Sandbox" (or maybe "Bananas"). Same sort of early 70s New York proto-feminist angst, if I remember right.
I liked Richard Benjamin. What's not to like? Goodbye, Columbus. Catch-22. He and She. Paula Prentiss. Of course he's a wimp. He was good at playing a wimp. Wimps are everywhere. Who isn't a wimp nowadays?
Paula's sister was also an actress. Incredible story about what happened to her.
I always gave Benjamin props for the missus.
"Bananas" couldn't be made now, for any number of obvious reasons; that said it was a great little comedy.
"Rebels are we, born to be free!"
Howard said: “Worst first date movie also from 1979: The Deer Hunter.”
Not a first date, but my high school girlfriend and I were looking for a movie to see one early-spring Tuesday night in 1979 in our very small town in a very rural mid-south-west-central state; we were 17, loved movies and loved seeing them together, and all we knew about The Deer Hunter was it was about Vietnam, and it had just won the Best Picture Oscar. And it was playing on one of our small town’s four movie screens. So…we went. We were in no way, shape, or form prepared for the next three hours. Our relationship survived and thrived, but we’ve never watched that movie again - it’s a great film but once was more than enough.
I'm gonna report you to woman's lib!
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