All Fall Down (1962 film)
| All Fall Down | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | John Frankenheimer |
| Screenplay by | William Inge |
| Produced by | John Houseman |
| Starring | Eva Marie Saint Warren Beatty Karl Malden Angela Lansbury Brandon deWilde |
| Cinematography | Lionel Lindon |
| Edited by | Fredric Steinkamp |
| Music by | Alex North |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
All Fall Down is a 1962 American drama film, adapted from the novel All Fall Down (1960) by James Leo Herlihy, the author of Midnight Cowboy (1965). It was directed by John Frankenheimer and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was adapted by playwright William Inge from the novel and the film starred Eva Marie Saint and Warren Beatty. Upon its release, the film was a minor box-office hit. Together with her performance in Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Angela Lansbury (who played a destructively manipulative mother in both films) won the year's National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film was entered in the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
Plot
Berry-Berry Willart (Beatty) is a young, handsome hedonistic drifter who hates life and who has no trouble living off the women of all ages he seduces. When the women become too attached to him, his charm turns sadistic and frequently lands him in jail for battery. Berry-Berry is always on the road far from home, is rarely seen by his drunken father Ralph (Karl Malden), his controlling, manipulative mother, Annabel (Angela Lansbury), and his sixteen-year-old brother Clinton (Brandon deWilde). The story follows Clinton, who idolizes Berry-Berry but soon finds out his brother's darker side during the many times he has to bail Berry-Berry out of jail. Clinton is in love with a family friend, Echo O'Brien (Saint), and is forced to realize the type of person his brother is when Berry-Berry tragically sets his sights on Echo.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Eva Marie Saint | Echo O'Brien |
| Warren Beatty | Berry-Berry Willart |
| Karl Malden | Ralph Willart |
| Angela Lansbury | Annabel Willart |
| Brandon deWilde | Clinton Willart |
| Constance Ford | Mrs. Mandel |
| Albert Paulsen | Capt. Ramirez |
Reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times panned the film, describing it as "distasteful and full of cheap situations and dialogue". He found the premise of the movie—that "everyone in the story is madly in love with a disgusting young man who is virtually a cretin"—fatally flawed.[2]
The movie recorded a loss of $1,048,000.[3]
Home media
Video
Warner Home Video released the film on Region 1 DVD as part of its "Archive Collection" on June 22, 2009.
Soundtrack
Its score had music composed and conducted by Alex North, whose other scores include Spartacus (1960) and Cleopatra (1963).
North's score was released for the first time on CD in April 2003, on the Film Score Monthly (FSM) label in association with Turner Classic Movies Music, as FSM0606, a limited-release of 3,000, along with North's suite for the film The Outrage (1964), directed by Martin Ritt. FSM described North's soundtrack as a "poignant, sweetly jazzy score...full of hushed, haunting textures, with lovely themes drawing the pained connections between the characters, delicately balanced between love and pain".[4]
See also
References
- ^ Database. "All Fall Down". Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
- ^ Crowther, Bosley (12 April 1962). "The Screen: 'All Fall Down,' Inge's Version of Herlihy Novel". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 August 2012.
- ^ The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
- ^ Database (undated). "All Fall Down/The Outrage (1962/1964)". Film Score Monthly. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
External links
- All Fall Down at AllMovie
- All Fall Down at IMDb
- All Fall Down at the TCM Movie Database
- All Fall Down (DVD) in libraries (WorldCat catalog)