The Day of the Locust

[yoloswegmaster]

Academy Award-winner John Schlesinger (Marathon Man) reunites with Midnight Cowboy screenwriter Waldo Salt (Coming Home), a victim of the 1950s McCarthy-era blacklist, to adapt Nathanael West’s acid satire of Hollywood decadence and broken dreams.

Painter Tod Hackett (William Atherton, Looking For Mr. Goodbar), working in the art department of a movie studio during the 1930s ‘golden age’ of Hollywood, falls in unrequited love with aspiring starlet Faye Greener (Karen Black, Five Easy Pieces). He competes for her affections against other men: a pair of cowboys (Bo Hopkins, American Graffiti and Pepe Serna, Scarface), and a forlorn accountant (Donald Sutherland, Invasion of the Body Snatchers). As Faye’s career fails to take her beyond roles as an extra, her life becomes increasingly desperate and her relationships with men take a darker turn, reaching fever pitch at a red-carpet movie premiere that explodes into barbaric chaos.

A bitter critique of tinsel-town’s empty promises and the lost souls cheated by them, featuring lush, dreamlike cinematography by Conrad Hall (In Cold Blood), and stunning performances by its talented cast, The Day of the Locust remains a relevant and shattering experience.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Brand new 2K restoration by Arrow Films from the original negative
• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray™ presentation
• Original restored lossless mono audio
• Optional restored lossless 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio options
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing on all films
• Brand new oral history audio commentary conducted by writer and film historian Lee Gambin, featuring assistant directors Leslie Asplund and Charles Ziarko, production associate Michael Childers, actors Grainger Hines and Pepe Serna, title designer Dan Perri, costume designer Ann Roth, assistant editor Alan L. Shefland and assistant camera operator Ron Vidor
• Welcome to West Hollywood – brand new appreciation of the film by critic Glenn Kenny
• Days of the Golden Age – costume historian and film historian Elissa Rose discusses the film’s costumes in this brand new visual essay
• Jeepers Creepers, Where’d You Get Those Peepers? – brand new visual essay on the film and its themes by writer and film historian Lee Gambin
• Image galleries, including exclusive behind-the-scenes photographs from the archives of production associate Michael Childers and assistant camera operator Ron Vidor
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch
• Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Pamela Hutchinson

[beamish14]

A huge upgrade from Imprint’s. Glad I didn’t purchase theirs

[TBickle020776]

I’ve never seen this film but love the director.

Is this worth a blind buy?
Any other film you would compare it to?

[domino harvey]

It’s one of the worst films about Hollywood and Karen Black is woefully miscast. Read the novella instead

[crimlaw]

It got a mixed reception in NYC when released. Positive review from Canby in The NY Times. I always regarded it highly. Much better than Kazan’s The Last Tycoon.

[TBickle020776]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I think I will skip the blind buy purchase for The Day of the Locust. Kino’s The Last Tycoon was also on my radar as another blind buy but I’ve read negative reviews for that one too. I heard it’s super slow and boring but everyone has different tastes.

[beamish14]

I really enjoy it a lot! It’s a very ugly, angry film, but I think Schlesinger and Waldo Salt really did come close to approximating the tone of Nathaniel West’s work. Great performances from Burgess Meredith and William Atherton

[swo17]

It's worth owning if you're a Simpsons completist

[Roger Ryan]

Not perfect, but I think it does a lot of things right including a good evocation of its era (something the recent Babylon failed to do even as it borrowed other ideas from this film). Yes, Meredith is great in this, but I also think this has one of Sutherland’s best performances despite the fact that the actor himself disliked the experience so much.

[Randall Maysin Again]

but I also think this has one of Sutherland’s best performances despite the fact that the actor himself disliked the experience so much.

Really? That's interesting, where'd you read that? Care to tell us more? To me, and to be clear I think Sutherland gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen in this, the behind-the-scenes vibe I get from him and maybe a few other perfs in this film is of a crummy tasteless director encouraging in his tasteless way his actors to go out on a limb and act like idiots, and Sutherland happily obliging. Just my inkling, I'd be happy to be proven wrong of course! Personally, I think he's a frequently quite good but uneven and minor actor, and while he's a wonderful fit for the role of Homer Simpson physically (those long listless arms!), I'd imagine the role calls for someone more important (as well as better direction).

[Randall Maysin Again]

Just for fun lol, here's my little blurb about what I think is so wrong about the film's visuals:

If Conrad L. Hall's cinematography was a woman's makeup, it would have been applied during an earthquake, with mascara on her forehead and lipstick all over her face. It's all gauzy and slimy, with bungled, clownish, sloppy framing and hapless, puzzling lighting effects, instead of the venomously precise, controlled, tight and unlyrical, but beautiful in their own right and highly evocative, visuals that would best match West's prose style--a perhaps harder and drier version of a Hitchcock shot in one of his color films (minus his camera slanting and tilting) is maybe the closest equivalent to West's literary mise-en-scene I can think of--or maybe one of Bunuel's last films. Seriously, it's the most ridiculous camerawork I've ever seen in my life! 2nd place: Douglas Slocombe's wretched work on the Clayton The Great Gatsby from the year before. The sets were designed by one of the greatest production designers in film, Richard Macdonald, and the staging is so shitty you can't even tell.

Not to be too hard on Schlesinger, he has some annoying tendencies but strengths as well (not in this film though), and I'd imagine Nathanael West is pretty hard to capture on film even with a more intelligent script and more talent, let alone Fitzgerald, which is probably impossible to do properly, especially in terms of acting. You can have talented actors speak Fitzgerald's lines unadulterated and its always miles away from what's required, at least for moi. Though I do think Kazan's The Last Tycoon (what I've seen of it anyway) is a more intelligent and much better-directed attempt to capture the tone of a piece of classic litareture, even if it's also a failure.

[Roger Ryan]

but I also think this has one of Sutherland’s best performances despite the fact that the actor himself disliked the experience so much.

Really? That's interesting, where'd you read that? Care to tell us more?…

The internet has let me down as I can’t find any supporting evidence. What I recall reading is that Sutherland found Karen Black’s approach to their scenes together so antithetical to his instincts as an actor that he was frustrated throughout the shoot.

I can’t really disagree with the points you make about the film and Hall’s photography, but I still find much of Locust fascinating and effective. Sure, Sutherland is giving an exaggerated, goofy performance, but it somehow fits the lurid over-the-top style of this film… and his penultimate scene in Homer’s backyard garden just hits me with its pathos every time.

[Randall Maysin Again]

What I recall reading is that Sutherland found Karen Black’s approach to their scenes together so antithetical to his instincts as an actor that he was frustrated throughout the shoot.

That's interesting! One hopes the special features on this edition would shed some more light on things like this--especially since, if I recall correctly, but this is my strong impression, Karen Black really seems to be going insane onscreen in this film, although I also remember thinking that despite this, her abilities were engaged and she comes off as more innately gifted than Donald Sutherland--which is also surprising, at least to me, since prior to watching this I had them both pegged as roughly the same in terms of sheer talent! Now its just a matter of whether my curiosity about the film's backstory will overcome my negative impression of this film. You know, you're right that the film is kind of effective despite its problems and has a lot of lively components, even if they never come together to create the literary effect that I want. Conrad Hall is ultimately just a bad fit with Schlesinger--the best they can do together is the visuals for Marathon Man.

[Randall Maysin Again]

The Day of the Beaver

Looks...kinda good! Boy, can appearances, and surfaces, not to mention screencaps, be misleading.
edit: although, looks like the Serial Film Urinator-Upon has struck again, although he/she/they/it is perhaps not as dehydrated as usual. It's everywhere...

[olmo]

but I also think this has one of Sutherland’s best performances despite the fact that the actor himself disliked the experience so much.

Really? That's interesting, where'd you read that? Care to tell us more? To me, and to be clear I think Sutherland gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen in this, the behind-the-scenes vibe I get from him and maybe a few other perfs in this film is of a crummy tasteless director encouraging in his tasteless way his actors to go out on a limb and act like idiots, and Sutherland happily obliging. Just my inkling, I'd be happy to be proven wrong of course! Personally, I think he's a frequently quite good but uneven and minor actor, and while he's a wonderful fit for the role of Homer Simpson physically (those long listless arms!), I'd imagine the role calls for someone more important (as well as better direction).

I think Schlesinger's one misstep was the overrated Darling (always avoid anything written by Frederic Raphael inc. Eyes Wide Shut as it lacks authenticity) other than that I think he possibly had the most consistent sequence of genuinely great films from his debut as director; A Kind of Loving through to (Darling excepted) Sunday Bloody Sunday. I think that he is obviously more suited to a British sensibility, especially the Sixties output and the move to Hollywood seemed to dampen his ardour.

However, Day of the Locust & Yanks are still interesting in the way that 75% of other Directors films aren't. And of course Midnight Cowboy is a solid classic but made at exactly the time where studios were (albeit briefly) coming alive to auterist theory.

[beamish14]

but I also think this has one of Sutherland’s best performances despite the fact that the actor himself disliked the experience so much.

Really? That's interesting, where'd you read that? Care to tell us more? To me, and to be clear I think Sutherland gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen in this, the behind-the-scenes vibe I get from him and maybe a few other perfs in this film is of a crummy tasteless director encouraging in his tasteless way his actors to go out on a limb and act like idiots, and Sutherland happily obliging. Just my inkling, I'd be happy to be proven wrong of course! Personally, I think he's a frequently quite good but uneven and minor actor, and while he's a wonderful fit for the role of Homer Simpson physically (those long listless arms!), I'd imagine the role calls for someone more important (as well as better direction).

I think Schlesinger's one misstep was the overrated Darling (always avoid anything written by Frederic Raphael inc. Eyes Wide Shut as it lacks authenticity) other than that I think he possibly had the most consistent sequence of genuinely great films from his debut as director; A Kind of Loving through to (Darling excepted) 1981'a Honky Tonk Freeway. I think that he is obviously more suited to a British sensibility, especially the Sixties output and the move to Hollywood seemed to dampen his ardour.

However, Day of the Locust & Yanks are still interesting in the way that 75% of other Directors films aren't. And of course Midnight Cowboy is a solid classic but made at exactly the time where studios were (albeit briefly) coming alive to auterist theory.

I agree that Honky Tonk Freeway is incredible (one of the funniest and truest films about contemporary America), and I think The Falcon and the Snowman is unbelievably powerful. An amazing work that really illustrates just how precarious democracy is and what desperate and disillusioned people will do when they feel betrayed by the hypocrisy of their home country.

The Believers is where I think things got very, very patchy, but he pulled out at least one more master stroke with Cold Comfort Farm

[Randall Maysin Again]

However, Day of the Locust & Yanks are still interesting in the way that 75% of other Directors films aren't. And of course Midnight Cowboy is a solid classic but made at exactly the time where studios were (albeit briefly) coming alive to auterist theory.

Respectfully disagree, at least in part. I've only seen part or all of 5 of Schlesinger's films, I think, so I can't speak to his British films, but I wouldn't just write off his entire career, despite finding some of his core tendencies to be quite lamentable and damaging to his films, and I agree Midnight Cowboy overall is definitely a very strong film, that has imperfect but still in some ways very significant integrity, and things that really set it apart in terms of social observation, like the incredible housekeeping scenes between Joe Buck and Ratso. You never see this kind of social observation in anything, really, so hats off to Schlesinger for that and for making a very stylish and well-crafted film overall. He's got to be pretty talented to elicit improvisation like that, if these scenes are indeed improv. But he has a lot of really unfortunate tendencies, and he absolutely sucks at being a moralist, bless his gay heart, so The Day of the Locust is Schlesinger at his very worst from beginning to end. Decisions like turning the scene of the collapse of the film set into a mini-Watergate scandal, I just find really dumb and inane. The whole film is dripping with this kind of inane ham-fisted "satirical" bitchiness, and seems to consist of that and almost nothing else, like randomly bringing in references to Hitler, or the misogynistic touches, or everything, really. On the technical side, its also pretty incompetent. The film awkwardly seems to be trying at times to "conventionalize" West, but The Day of the Locust isn't really a book you can do that to in a fashion that works in any way at all, so it just laughably and awkwardly fuses the invented or re-written more "normal" material in Waldo Salt's screenplay, like expanding the role of Harry Greener into at times a blandly sympathetic figure, with watered-down and clumsy recreations of the more garish and depraved elements of the book, resulting in effects that are both inappropriate to West and don't work on their own terms either. See also that inexplicable montage sequence near the beginning of the film set to "Isn't It Romantic?" that I assume is meant to be lyrical, and also has attempts at garish, depraved lighting a la West. I just find the whole film kind of subhuman, to be honest.

[Randall Maysin Again]

I think all of the other Schlesinger films I've seen are much better performed and directed than this--many talented directors seem to lose their bearings in terms of staging and (especially) direction of actors and evoking atmosphere when making period pieces, let alone from highly stylized period material like The Day of the Locust. For me the difference in quality of overall staging and performance and effect between Locust and Midnight Cowboy especially is like night and day. But that is hardly the film's only problem, alas.

[Roger Ryan]

Given the complaints about poorly considered and redundant bonus features on Arrow releases, I was pleased with what The Day of the Locust included. Glenn Kenney’s half hour essay is wide-ranging and well-researched even if it seems a touch comical to show him with notes and books to quote from piled on his lap. Costume Designer Ann Roth’s (phone) interview is a real treat. The feature commentary/oral history is less impressive since there aren’t enough important participants to cover two and a half hours of content. Still, Arrow has done a decent job with this release including a good transfer filled with plenty of film grain.

[Randall Maysin Again]

Did they include much info on Schlesinger's direction of the actors and the general behind-the-scenes atmosphere?

[beamish14]

How is William Atherton’s interview on the Imprint disc? I wish they could’ve gotten him again

[Roger Ryan]

Did they include much info on Schlesinger's direction of the actors and the general behind-the-scenes atmosphere?

Some behind the scenes anecdotes are provided (Robert Evans hated the project from the beginning, but after seeing early rushes wanted Polanski to copy the look for Chinatown), but most of the bonus content is about how West came to write the novel and where the film stayed close to the novel and where it departed. Information that was new to me was Roth’s admirable commitment to making sure all costumes were historically accurate to 1938 (allowing no trend from 1939 to slip in!) and the fact that the finale was all shot on sound stages (I had assumed the backlot); three of them, in fact, with side walls taken out and set construction to join them together so the sequence could be shot day-for-night and have a dozen vintage cars drive through continuously among hundreds of extras.

[brundlefly]

How is William Atherton’s interview on the Imprint disc? I wish they could’ve gotten him again

It’s good. Substantial as far as these things go (and not padded by clips), though more in a big-picture way than in specifics. I wouldn’t go double-dipping for it. Atherton’s thoughtful and articulate (though he swaps Hall’s and Salt’s names at a couple points, and also seems to think the film’s in academy ratio) about the production and offers sane critique as to reasons things may have gone wrong or wrong-but-interesting over the six months of his involvement. "Trying to figure out what movie they were shooting as they were shooting the movie" is at the core of that. Talks of Salt trying to be loyal to West but then also trying to be loyal to Salt’s own experiences, touches on ‘70s New Hollywood’s attitude overturning Old Hollywood vs. West’s attitude toward it, attempts to integrate all the historical darkness that happened after West’s book and how all those aspects make it the sort of work some might find fascinating.

He doesn’t like West’s book (prefers Miss Lonelyhearts) and thought he was miscast; even coming in as a New York theater actor, it sounds like he took the book's attitude toward Hollywood extras personally. He does not say much about Schlesinger’s work with actors, mostly talking about the director in terms of his relationship with Hall and his focus on design. (Schlesinger’s most memorable involvement at Atherton’s screen test involved moving a lamp.) Only has kind words about all his colleagues and their performances.