Diary of a Mad Housewife

LOL at Frank Lagella playing Mr. Sexy. He isn't very nice to her either. I wouldn't want to be a housewife back then you get no respect.

George Prager (Frank Langella) character saw his chance with frustrated and confused Bettina "Tina" Balser . But he was just fucking with her mentally and physically. In his way George was equally much of a bastard as Bettina's husband Jonathan Balser. So you wonder why she bothered...

Infuriating film. I hate all of the characters and do not understand why the housewife doesn't go postal. Used and abused.

Clearly she either craved or even enjoyed the treatment. If you watch Snodgress' performance, it's all right there. Tina knows exactly what she's doing.

The way he says "roll in the hay" is such a turn off.

The nightclub scene with the original members of Alice Cooper is so much fun.

"Funky lady/what's the question?"

Snodgress was pretty good--her character made a lot of crappy decisions and was really up the creek at the end, but I still liked her. Benjamin and Langella's characters were meant to be unsympathetic jerks, but I thought their performances were annoyingly cartoon-ish.

OMG Stefano Dimero from Days of our Lives plays their neighbor

Frank Langella was so hot back then. An incredibly handsome man when he was younger.

I still can't believe Langella used to screw Whoopie.

Richard Benjamin was the go to obnoxious Upper Westside NYC Jewish guy for late 1960's into 1970's it seems.

Diary of a Mad Housewife, Portony's Complaint. Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, Portnoy's Complaint, The Steagle, Goodbye, Columbus.. All variations of same sort of cocky, arrogant, self centered, but often deeply troubled Jewish guy.

About nine years later after DOAMH Frank Langella had women (and some men) creaming their undergarments as Count Dracula both on Broadway in film.

More:

Broadway...

More about Broadway run...

What did the fact that the main character happened to be a Jew have anything to do with anything ?

Hateful trying to be so subtle rapid antisemite

And Peter Boyle is in it too

WTF is that ending? I hope she divorced his ass. I am glad she didn't tell him about her affair because you know he would have been nasty about it.

The Langella character was at least bi, right? In the scene where she meets him at the art party wasn’t he with a gay lover who seemed to look at Tina as though he was amused that she would be coming onto to frank’s character. Then the ending when she accused him of being gay… was he essentially mean to her because he was a miserable closet case? His character was just so bitchy in this film. I didn’t find him sexy at all. And the husband… buying some expensive shoes for some lady as a Christmas present because he wanted to be liked… such a needy social climber.

Why Tina didn't see it from start no one knows, but George is clearly effeminate and likely gay. George's bitchy bottom treatment of Tina is a clear example. The woman finally puts two and two together,

Out of lust, need to play mind games, or whatever other reasons George goes after what is very easy prey.

Afterwards.....

One word...canapés

Sadly made for TV version omits George and Tina having a showdown (where she calls him a fag), so cannot find it on YT.

All that money omelets? They are the easiest thing in the world to make

Was she a masochist as some have suggested?

Also the husbands preoccupation with social climbing. I’ve never seen a straight man represented like this. I mean usually it’s about climbing up in a job, but he was shamelessly concerned with their social status that seemed more effeminate to me. Was the husband also likely gay? I wonder what the message of this film was, be careful not to get involved with closeted gay men?

Frank Langella was MUCH hotter in DOAMH than in Dracula.

His oversized hairdo for Dracula was absolutely ridiculous. It was like Marlo Thomas's as "That Girl."

Tina is a doormat. Her husband, children, and even maid treat her like shit, and she takes it.

Who the fuck even in 1970's made their maid breakfast?

Tina should have listened to the Rolling Stones....

Any number of doctors would have been happy to prescribe "Mothers Little Helpers" to help poor Tina get through her plight.

The end scene was interesting when the support group turned on her. R26 I think there was an element of that. She seemed to get some enjoyment from being treated this way. I mean even at the support group she doesn’t stand up and walk out, she accepts the treatment again…

If I would have spoke to my mother like her daughter did I would have had my mouth washed out with soap.

R32 the child thought it was normal. I did find the dinner scene rather amusing where she was complaining about the oyster stuffing or whatever meal the mother has made.

I bought the recent Kino Lorber blu ray of this sight-unseen, and I liked the movie enough. It probably won’t be one I revisit too often, but whatever.

Langella is absolutely revolting in this. Not just the way his character behaves but the way he looks.

R31

Betty Friedan's ground breaking book, "The Feminine Mystique" came out in 1963, but still late as 1970's (and now for all one knows), many just didn't get the message.

Book begins with n=begins with an introduction describing what Friedan called "the problem that has no name"—the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960's. Again something that still was going on well into 1970's.

Middle class and certainly upper and above wives were simply told "what the fuck is your problem?" You have a very nice home, children, money, status and position in society. All made possible by a husband who works very hard to provide a living for you and giving you every and anything you've ever wanted. All that is required is a few minor demands upon your life.... To the outside world these pampered, and cosseted women had little to complain about.

From outside looking in Tina has a very enviable life. Large UWS apartment, married to a successful go-getter, two children, money, etc.. Same sort of line Crystal Allen runs on Mary Haines....

People just couldn't wrap their heads around women wanted more than a new washing machine, to redecorate the house, or whatever. They wanted fulfillment that came from other areas.

In case you've not yet made the connection, this is what Joanna in Company is about. She took the common way out then for unhappy wives, booze. But sitting on sidelines she carefully (and caustically) sums up women around her that make up the set she runs with. Each of them trying in some way to get through life and their days by taking up roles they've been allotted by society.

R32

If one spoke to Mother like that she would have been a convicted felon (murder), and one would have been cold in grave or perhaps gravely injured.

That being said grew up around kids from UWS and UES (1970's, 1980's...) who behaved exactly that way towards their mothers

Sad thing is many of these women like Tina weren't dumb. They all had college degrees (ok maybe a bit heavy on liberal arts, art history but still), but outlets for their talents were few to nil.

What jobs were out there such as in publishing certainly didn't pay enough to live upon unless very careful. Besides even late as 1970's the overriding message for young women from certain backgrounds was they needed to marry, and do so well if possible.

Carly Simon's" That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be" released in 1971 captures this odd place young women found themselves in at the time. OTOH they were being told things were changing, but while that may have been true it wasn't happening fast enough for them.

Divorce rates which had been growing in 1960's took off by 1970's as many women sought independence. In many instances husbands were blindsided by their wives seeking to terminate their marriage. From his point of view nothing was wrong and he had done what he was supposed to to; provide a good living for his wife and family.

Husbands would say " I just don't understand". To which their wives responded "yes, I know, that's why I'm leaving...".

That other fed up married woman from Company, Phyllis catalogs why she's had it, and what she intends to do.

Carrie Snodgress was a very gifted actress. She’s also good in “Rabbit, Run” and “The Fury”.

She has an intangible, naturalistic quality.

I agree, R39. I thought she was lovely in The Fury.

I’m even about to watch Trick Or Treats (1982) because she’s in it.

The music and photography in THE FURY are very good. The story’s just kind of flimsy (at least as it’s presented.) But it has style.

Snodgress hooked up with Neil Young. Their son, Zeke, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Snodgress took time off from acting to care for him. Young moved on to hook up with Pegi, with whom he had two more children, Ben diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and Amber diagnosed with epilepsy. Great singer/songwriter, completely fucked genes.

What about Ja'net Dubois as the bitchy Jamaican maid?

I have memories of Ms. Snodgress trying to bash Jessica with a lead pipe on Murder, She Wrote.

Oscar-nominated!

She’s kind of like Patricia Neal in the emotion just sort of flows freely across her face. But it’s not overdone, it’s just there.

Maybe it’s a lack of uptight pride. She’s not ashamed.

Snodgress is great in a little seen movie called The Attic where Ray Milland plays her abusive father. Creepy and depressing, but worth at least one watch.

She played an agoraphobic on Quincy M.E.

The author of the novel the movie is based on jumped to her death from her apartment balcony in 1977 when she was 50.

Goodness, R49. Not too many women choose that method.

Andrea Feldman from Trash (1970, Paul Morrissey) did that sometime in the mid 70s, and supposedly she’d arranged for a few of her ex-boyfriends to be waiting on the sidewalk below when she did it, for extra melodramatic effect.

Was she hoping to land on one of them, r50?

Count me as one of few who never got Frank Langella. His looks never made me shiver none, and he came off as a first class bore.

Apparently his thing was for older women (Whoppi was the rare stray from that script).

"Langella says losing his hair heralded his renaissance. "It was the beginning of my years as a character actor. I was no longer a leading man." If he was writing about the young Langella, how would he describe him? "Arrogant. Immensely self-protective. Judgmental. Selfish. Vain." He smiles. "Everything you need to be a young actor." It's funny, he says, almost everyone starts acting because they feel inadequate. "They have this terrible insecurity. Then of course it changes, and you go into insufferable arrogance."

r38 The "other fed up woman from Company"?

oh, dear...

That's a clip of the character Phyllis from FOLLIES...she WAS fed up but she was also in a different show.

Frank Langella always comes across as the King of Pompous Assholes.

And, there has to be some man on man sex in his life....he's so vain and narcississtic you know he must have had some gay young cocksuckers worshipping at his altar back in the day.

While FL names plenty of names in his book, they're all females. When it comes to men he was coy to silent, only giving up vague bits.

"“On Cape Cod, Noël Coward hits on him in the presence of President and Mrs. Kennedy. In Arizona, filming a TV remake of “The Mark of Zorro,” Yvonne De Carlo (better known as Lily Munster) plays Langella’s mother by day, and by night treats him “like a pretty girl in the back seat of a convertible on a hot summer night.”

In the south of England, on location for “Dracula,” Langella flashes Laurence Olivier through the doorway of their adjoining suites, calling, “Oh professor, see anything you like?” He and Jill Clayburgh come “dangerously close to a tumble,” and backstage they and Raul Julia become “a pulsating Oreo cookie with nothing remotely chaste about where our hands and mouths wandered.” The book’s subtitle should be “Bad Girls Go Everywhere,” although Langella is no girl—as Anthony Perkins rather bluntly attempts to verify one night in a dressing room.”

Or,

" As he basks in Noel Coward's attentions, feeds shrimp to Roddy McDowall, and commiserates with Dominick Dunne about the agonies of being a closeted gay man, Langella hides coquettishly behind his fan in a way that seems rather archaic in 2012."

Langella seems like a strange man. I never liked Richard Benjamin because he always seemed to play this kind of character.

R52 does anyone believe that closet Lez Whoopi and Langella or Ted Danson were actually a thing?

Langella's calling him "Jonathing" reminded me of DL, he was gay!

Carrie Snodgress was WONDERFUL in “Diary of a Mad Housewife” and richly deserved the accolades that came her way.

I know that she was the original choice to play Adrian in “Rocky”; I what other roles she might have turned down between “Diary of a Mad Housewife” and her welcome return in “The Fury”.

saw Carrie and Candy Clark in an off Broadway production of A Couple of White Chicks and she had wonderful stage presence. Saw Langella on Broadway in Frost/Nixon and Match and he was terrific in both.

Linda Manz was poised to be the new Carrie Snodgress, but then she disappeared, too.

Linda Manz was more the poor-man's Tatum O'Neal

Oh really. Tatum O’Neal is the poor man’s Linda manz to me. Tatum could never have played In “days of heaven” and “out of the blue”

and Linda Manz could never have done Bad News Bears, Paper Moon or Little Darlings.

How do we know that?

R65 oh she could have done the “bad news bears” for sure and “paper moon” too for sure- don’t theY say Peter bogdanovich pretty much fed her the “paper moon” performance

I’m not a fan of Tatum’s ever since she acted like such a mean girl on Oprah.

R67 Manz didn't have the face for it

Tatum's got the Oscar

And the track marks.

How did Richard Benjamin ever get any parts to be on the screen? He was like the Jesse Eisenberg of his day.

Giving credit where due, Richard Benjamin worked very hard at his craft, and things didn't just fall into his lap.

He attended High School of Performing Arts here in NYC, then onto Northwest University.

After graduating college RB and his wife Paula Prentiss began work, and while success came rather quickly for Paula Prentiss, her hubby had to work a bit harder.

Goodbye Columbus was Richard Benjamin's breakout role and put him on map really. Things started to flow from there including DOAMH.

As stated previously in this thread, some roles Richard Benjamin landed simply suited hit to the ground. Cannot picture any other actor for Goodbye Columbus, Diary of A Mad Housewife, Portnoy's Complaint and a few other role RB landed.

Would have loved to see RB in "Barefoot In Park". He's such a total opposite of Robert Redford which must have made for an interesting show.

Benjamin is perfect in this role, I wanted to kill him.

Oh, Frank Langella’s tired again.

Richard Benjamin was wonderful in "Goodbye, Columbus"

MAD HOUSWIFE can be screened on the Criterion Channel.

The argument over the oyster stuffing on thanksgiving makes this a classic.

The kids were horrendous and when the older one mimics Benjamin and Carrie slaps her, it's a beautiful moment.

It was really stacking the deck when the daughters were so totally influenced by Benjamin. Every word, every thought was from him. The talk that Sondgress has with the daughter after slapping her suggests that the daughter is well aware of her father's cruelty but little else gives you hope that they can emerge as anything but female versions of the dad.

The screaming during the end credits made me realize that there are holidays right around the corner.

Langella plays a cad who fucks the housewife, mentally and physically. He is another detestable character.

Would’ve loved to see Carrie Snodgress in a Robert Altman or Woody Allen film.

This movie made me glad to have a peaceful domestic life with my husband watching utube videos of cribbage strategies as I type this.

It is interesting that Tina has such wretched children when she was a stay at home mom. She had no influence on them at all despite the fact that she was with them all day. She was absolutely not doing her job as a mother. She might have been able to create a perfect facade. We did see how much the girls longed for a good relationship with their mom but Tina was too selfish. The husband was as bad as you can get but she could not create anything meaningful with her own daughters.

Teena was bullied by everyone including her kids and group therapy members

Frank Perry was a hotter than hot director in those days: Last Summer, David and Lisa, The Swimmer, Trilogy, Diary, Play It As It Lays. Then came Mommie Dearest and he kind of lost his footing.

Perry had his share of flops. In fact, Diary of a Mad Housewife was his last hit. And really, only that, David and Lisa, and Last Summer were at all successful. Play it as it Lays and Rancho Deluxe were huge bombs, and not very well received critically.

Of course he did. My point was that his choices were almost always interesting and challenging, not that they were all hits.

Oh, is that what hotter than hot means to you? Sorry, not to the rest of the world.

Most of Perry's films Ladybug, Ladybug (1963), The Swimmer (1968) Trilogy (1969) 'Doc" (1972) Play It As It Lays (1972), Man on a Swing (1974) Rancho Deluxe (1975) pretty much sank without a trace and ditto his post Mommie Dearest output: Hello, Again, Compromising Positions and Monsignor .

[quote]R89 Perry had his share of flops. In fact, Diary of a Mad Housewife was his last hit. And really, only that, David and Lisa, and Last Summer were at all successful. Play it as it Lays and Rancho Deluxe were huge bombs, and not very well received critically.

Trying to sweep the poor little widow under the carpet?

[italic] Well, think again!

I went to see Perry's last feature, "Hello Again" (1987), because I was hot for Corbin Bernsen. Sad way to end his career--a comedy without laughs, but Corbin on the big screen was worth $5.

Hello again, panties!