After Splendor in the Grass, every movie that Warren Beatty starred in flopped at the box office, but all had some sort of life, all tried to be works of significance.
This was the final movie from Robert Rossen, coming off The Hustler. He clashed with Warren Beatty on the set.
The action takes place in a mental hospital. Beatty is a new therapist there, as messed up as the patients who include Jean Seberg and Peter Fonda.
Beatty is very good, though he played this sort of role a lot - a hesitant, handsome man, basically nice, a little messed up. Seberg and Fonda are both superb. Seberg especially. She often seemed to sleepwalk through her parts eg Moment to Moment. But she's alive here.
It's been pointed out Seberg's part is very Warren Beatty esque - a chronic seducer. Seberg here goes for women and men but Beatty was notorious for flattering gay men (William Inge, Tennessee Williams). Maybe the film would've been a bigger hit had Seberg and Beatty swapped roles.
It's intelligent. Long. A little pretentious. Involving. Not entirely successful but I enjoyed myself. Beatty stretched in his choice of material, I'll give him that. Rossen isn't talked about much but he was smart and talented.
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