Fascinating version of the classic novel which – like most F Scott Fitzgerald prose - never seems to have been satisfactorily filmed (at least up until now). I think it would be wrong to view this as an attempt to faithfully film the novel – rather, it’s more like a cover version of Fitzgerald’s work, fitted to image of Alan Ladd.
It starts awfully with a scene at Gatsby’s grave involving Nick Carraway (Macdonald Carey) then gets off to a funny start with a prohibition montage and Alan Ladd blasting away his gun. But then it sort of settles down once Ladd moves over to Long Neck, and there are some great scenes and dialogue.
The flashbacks don’t quite work – they’re awkwardly introduced and there are too many of them. One has Gatsby as a young sailor becoming the assistant to a rich old man (Henry Hull) with a nubile young wife – this wasn’t in the book but is kind of interesting. There’s also flashbacks to Gatsby romancing Daisy, and Gatsby just getting out of the army – I think they kind of ruin the mood of lost love, and the power of memory and all that. But what's there is surprisingly strong and the book actually adapts well to being a Ladd vehicle because it involves gangsters and being sad.
Alan Ladd is quite good as Gatsby – he’s believable as a gangster and is very touching in some scenes, especially the ones with Daisy: I especially loved when he is waiting to meet Daisy, showing Daisy his things, arguing with MacDonald Carey that his love was real, and when he’s betrayed. When he has too much dialogue he struggles, especially when it's overly melodramatic, but he does get the role. There was something sad about Ladd, an aura of melancholy about his persona which worked so well in films such as This Gun for Hire and Shane (I'm trying not to be wise in hindsight here because of how Ladd wound up but it was there from early on). And that sense of sadness is spot on for Gatsby. One imagines with a better director and in a strong film, Ladd could have been excellent.
He is better than Betty Field, who plays Daisy (a bit too obviously shallow), and MacDonald Carey as Nick (too stuffy and self-righteous – he only melts towards Gatsby towards the end and only then becomes likeable) and Ruth Hussey as Jordan (too greedy and too much a lesbian). But there are excellent performances from Shelley Winters (as Myrtle, of course) and Howard da Silva as her pathetic husband; Barry Sullivan is also imposing as Tomas is Elisha Cook Jnr as Gatsby’s gangster sidekick. With a better director and a script more respectful of its source, who knows? This might have been a minor classic. As it is, it’s a frustrating half-good movie.
(NB when Alan Ladd is shot while swimming, you actually see the wound on his body – a blood stain. Surely this was one of the first time this happened.)
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