The Pumpkin Eater (1964)

Note- I have not seen the film and want to know DL's view before I purchase the Blu Ray.

You make no mention of Yootha Joyce?

R2 Sorry! I didn't think she was a household name like the others!

Yootha Joyce should have been nominated for Supporting Actress.

R4 Why? What is her role?

Goodness. Look at that cast. And Harold Pinter, no less.

This grim, cold movie was supposed to star Patricia Neal.

There are too many interesting stars in the supporting roles who interrupt the central husband & wife drama.

The main husband & wife drama is helped by the always-reliable Peter Finch but hampered by the misplaced Italian Anna Maria Italiano.

R6 Harold Pinter's writing is too cold and odd to support a major popular movie but he's responsible for this wild scene below which I get my students to rehearse.

This arid, empty thing was such a disappointment coming after the rich, detailing of The Innocents.

So Ann Bancroft is "misplaced" because she's Italian-American?

She's misplaced because she can't speak Harold Pinter's language (Patricia Neal might have been equally uncomfortable in the role.)

[quote] Pinteresque

Something having a sense of menace and featuring dialogue marked by many pauses.

Pinter has pauses, silences, repetitions, irony, oxymorons, paradox, vagueness, reference failure, semantic ambiguity, and decontextualization.

[quote] an excellent British classic, but is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

No. The parts are more interesting that the assembled footage.

I wish someone got all the discarded off-cuts and reassembled it with MORE of Maggie Smith and MORE of handsome Richard Johnson and MORE of the always-interesting Peter Finch.

I can never tell the difference between Penelope Gilliat and Penelope Mortimer.

And wasn't there another trouble-making intellectual Penelope in that particular milieu?

R10 Then why did you make a point of calling her by her real (Italian) name?

How are they eating this Pumpkin? Pies? What does it mean?

R15 It's taken from the nursery rhyme, Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.

I completely disagree about Bancroft. She's superb in the film, winning the Best Actress at Cannes and getting an Oscar nomination. Her English accent is impeccable. Also she provides some earthiness in the role to counteract the coolness of the script.

Other than James Mason, I don't know what "stars" in the supporting cast are supposedly taking focus from the two leads. Maggie Smith was not a real star in 1964 when the film was released, and her role is pretty small though she plays it very well. Yootha Joyce makes a more powerful impression than Smith.

R17 Well I saw the movie years ago and the only person I remember from it is Bancroft, so I don't get what the person was talking about either.

They'll be remaking it as "The Pumpkin Spice Eater."

Richard Johnson was HOT

[quote] Richard Johnson was HOT

Kim Novak said he was as hot as Tyrone Power.

So, is it worth a watch?

After 40 years of watching films, I only heard of Yootha Joyce for the first time last week and here she pops up again in my life! Funny how that happens.

R23 That's funny. It is like when someone asks if you've seen a certain commercial. You answer no, but then see that commercial all the time.

I saw it years ago but had to turn it off. Too depressing.

R25 really?

You know how bitchy the English can be..

I wouldn't advise you to buy the movie without seeing it first. I've tried to cultivate an appreciation for Pinter, but I can't always fathom what he's trying to do. It's an odd film with odd characters.

How is the score?

A young Yootha Joyce looks like Zara Tindall.

OP/R22, yes it's definitely worth a watch.

You can watch it on TV but it's grim, cold and not at all ENTERTAINING.

It was supposed to star Patricia Neal and there are too many interesting stars in the supporting roles who swamp the central story of the unhappy husband (played by the Peter Finch) and the odd, unhappy wife (played by Anna Maria Italiano who changed their name to "Anne Bancroft".

Harold Pinter's writing is too cold to support a major popular movie.

Is this a remake of "The Biscuit Eater" (1940)?

It's on TCM a few times a year. It's one of my favorite Bancroft performances.

R32 I love Anne Bancroft, why are you mean to her?

I'm not being mean, R35, but she is miscast and sticks out like a sore thumb.

The story is a self-portrait written by a Welshwoman who's living in an English milieu (or social environment).

Anne Bancroft is staggeringly good.

Anne Bancroft is staggeringly wrong for the role.

I bailed halfway through. It's chic...but ultimately boring. Peter Finch is here, as in everything, overrated. And you don't believe that Anne Bancroft would put up with that shit for a second. Not believable. She looks great though, in that great 60's, Mod meets Sloaney kind of way.

I love the 60s. All those downbeat, avant-garde, B+W white movies with unhappy endings.

One of my favorites is "The Misfits", which nobody got at all. They wanted Marilyn's tits falling out and her skirt blowing up. I like to think if MM had lived she'd have made oddball choices like Liz Taylor did.

I don't think Anne Bancroft can be bad in anything

She wasn't bad. She was miscast.

[quote] And you don't believe that Anne Bancroft would put up with that shit

You might be confusing the character of the devoted Welsh wife with the character of a Hollywood movie star.

This little husband and wife story has been done over by Harold Pinter. And every dictionary will tell you that the word "pinteresque" denotes a sense of menace and featuring dialogue marked by many pauses.

Bancroft flew to London on her own dime to convince Clayton to hire her. He had been considering older actresses, including Deborah Kerr and Ingrid Bergman, who were closer in age to Penelope Mortimer, for the part.

Ingrid Bergman would have been so more convincing.

This is the perfect movie for jaded cineasts. The only thing they want more than a well made film is the pleasure of being disappointed with the result.

This is the perfect movie for middle-aged wives who are considering suicide.

You'll notice that the camera discreetly tracks away so we don't see her committing the act on camera.

The movie is arty and somewhat alienating, but very watchable thanks to Anne Bsncroft, who gives a fantastic performance.

Suicide? Not remembering this. The Wikipedia article says the movie ends with a tentative reconciliation.

You couldn't ask for a better cast for a 1960's movie

[quote] Not remembering this

You have to use your women's intuition. The wife was a simpering devotee to a husband who was serial philandering adulterer.

You people who can't differentiate between a real woman and a Hollywood actress need to know that the author—

[quote] had frequent bouts of depression. In 1962, the same year The Pumpkin Eater was written, she became pregnant for the eighth time [!!]. at the age of 42 and already the mother of six, she agreed at the urging of her husband to have an abortion and undergo sterilisation. She is said to have been happy with the decision, but during her convalescence, she discovered her husband's affair with [another woman!] with whom he had a son.

The script was written by Harold Pinter.

Stanley Kubrick asked Harold Pinter to write the script for the manipulative HAL Computer in '2001'.

Is this movie a tear jerker?

I find it hard to believe Anne Bancroft gives a bad performance

[quote] Is this movie a tear jerker?

R53 The adoring 'Anne-Bancroft-Is-A-Diva-aficionados' think this film is a tear jerker.

But it isn't. It's a Harold Pinter script with a miscast woman in the main role.

The wife, named Jo, was hopeless at expressing her feelings. And she was hopeless at apologising.

Afterwards, she repented it badly. What she always did, was to say that she was sorry for expressing them.

This was the kind of amends that costs nothing, and yet carries the built in rebuke that the other person is unable to bear the truth.

Why are we hating on Bancroft? What about the others- Finch, Mason, Johnson, Porter, Smith, etc.

For those that need to watch now:

Bancroft, Mason, Maggie Smith and Yootha Joyce are all excellent and even among all those Brits Bancroft's English accent is unobtrusive. The film is over-directed, and the heroine's problem is not really made clear and on the whole it's not particularly memorable. I much prefer 1963s The Servant directed by Joseph Losey with an original screenplay by Pinter.

^adapted screenplay not original My bad