The Day of The Locust is an adaptation of the highly powerful novel from Nathanael West, it focuses on the seamy underbelly of Hollywood in the 1930s. Pot boiling with pacey precision, director John Schlesinger crafts what is still to this day one of the hidden pieces of art from the 1970s.
We are witness to an assortment of odd characters on the outskirts Hollywood and it's big shiny star, fringe characters driven on by less than stellar ideals. The centre of it all is Karen Black's sexy but untalented actress, Faye, she lives with her father, Harry {a fabulous Burgess Meredith}, who was once a fine stage performer but now is old and dying and forced to peddle potions on door steps. Faye realises that her limitations are getting in the way of her starry ambitions, so thus she becomes the assembly line hump on the casting couch, she believes it's a small price to pay for the price of fame.
Caught up in Faye's maelstrom of shallow conniving worthlessness is William Atherton's art director, Tod, and Donald Sutherland's sympathetic dolt, Homer Simpson {Sutherland stunning and Atherton a career best}. All three of them will come crashing together as the story reaches it's cynical and terrifying conclusion. The Day Of The Locust failed at the box office, mid seventies audiences were clearly not ready for this unsavoury and stark look at the flip side of the industry we all follow with relish. Many of the characters featured in the piece are believed to be based on real life Hollywood figures, now here in this modern age the public embrace such titillation with glee, back then they clearly wasn't ready for it.
Conrad Hall's cinematography was rightly nominated for an Academy Award, as was Burgess Meredith in the Best Supporting Actor category, but Sutherland, John Lloyd {Art} and Ann Roth {Costumes} were criminally ignored, but it matters not for now this film can be viewed by a wider more open thinking audience, and hopefully as the finale grips you round the throat {and it should do}, you will be forced to think about it for some time after. 9/10
We are witness to an assortment of odd characters on the outskirts Hollywood and it's big shiny star, fringe characters driven on by less than stellar ideals. The centre of it all is Karen Black's sexy but untalented actress, Faye, she lives with her father, Harry {a fabulous Burgess Meredith}, who was once a fine stage performer but now is old and dying and forced to peddle potions on door steps. Faye realises that her limitations are getting in the way of her starry ambitions, so thus she becomes the assembly line hump on the casting couch, she believes it's a small price to pay for the price of fame.
Caught up in Faye's maelstrom of shallow conniving worthlessness is William Atherton's art director, Tod, and Donald Sutherland's sympathetic dolt, Homer Simpson {Sutherland stunning and Atherton a career best}. All three of them will come crashing together as the story reaches it's cynical and terrifying conclusion. The Day Of The Locust failed at the box office, mid seventies audiences were clearly not ready for this unsavoury and stark look at the flip side of the industry we all follow with relish. Many of the characters featured in the piece are believed to be based on real life Hollywood figures, now here in this modern age the public embrace such titillation with glee, back then they clearly wasn't ready for it.
Conrad Hall's cinematography was rightly nominated for an Academy Award, as was Burgess Meredith in the Best Supporting Actor category, but Sutherland, John Lloyd {Art} and Ann Roth {Costumes} were criminally ignored, but it matters not for now this film can be viewed by a wider more open thinking audience, and hopefully as the finale grips you round the throat {and it should do}, you will be forced to think about it for some time after. 9/10