This is a cliche ridden Kane & Abel inspired black & white turgid mess of a dysfunctional family movie. We've seen variations of it umpteen times before. It should've been called Berry Berry which is the preposterous name of Warren Beatty's character. It seems no one in the movie can start a sentence without saying his stupid name, Berry Berry. Berry Berry must be mentioned so many times it becomes a sort of aural Chinese water torture. Good, younger brother idolizes bad older brother, Berry Berry. Mother's has an incestuous Jocasta complex for older son Berry Berry. Young brother's girlfriend falls for older brother, Berry Berry, gets pregnant by Berry Berry & commits suicide. Blah blah blah. Warren Beatty, as Berry Berry, gives us his best James Dean impersonation unsuccessfully but he is @ least beautiful to look at. Brandon deWilde is good. Eva Marie Saint gives us a tender performance & Karl Malden is fine but it is Dame Angela Lansbury who walks away with the film and is the only reason to bother to watch. This film was released the same year as The Manchurian Candidate & she won the National Board of Review best supporting actress award for a combination of both movies. The screenplay, by William Inge, based on a book by James Leo Herlihy, presents us yet another misogynistic parody of women. Here we have a sexually frustrated incest suppressed mother & an innocent virgin girl who must be sacrificed for her sins. Hedonistic older brother, Berry Berry, is finally seen as a selfish mess to be viewed contemptuously. Younger brother, who up to this point has only been seen as an innocent boy, walks away from Berry Berry, having grown up, into a man. Music swells. The end. Yawn. You will
never want to hear the name Berry Berry ever again.
Review of All Fall Down
