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The Great Gatsby (1974)

I just finished watching 1974's "The Great Gatsby" starring Redford and Farrow. I heard mixed things about the movie over the years, and I'm glad I watched it tonight, as it was very well done and entertaining. The film received mixed-to-negative reviews when it was released in March, 1974. However, on a $7M budget, it was a box office hit with nearly $27M in ticket sales. It may not have stuck to the Fitzgerald novel, but it's still an engrossing movie to watch (the 2.5 hours fly by).

Redford was incredibly sexy throughout the movie (the camera man loved him), Mia Farrow was stunningly beautiful. She was pregnant at the time, so she was costumed in flowing, oversized clothing. Sam Waterston was so handsome and sexy as 'Nick', and many of his scenes with Redford were very sexy. Scott Wilson was also handsome , as the 'every man' garage owner.

Producer Robert Evans chose his wife Ali MacGraw and Warren Beatty as the original choices to star, but Beatty didn't want to work with MacGraw. Evans offered the role of Gatsby to Jack Nicholson, but he didn't want to work with MacGraw. Marlon Brando also passed on Evans' offer when the studio wouldn't meet him at his $4M request for pay. Robert Redford campaigned for the role, but Evans thought the character should be 'dark haired' and not blond. Director Jack Clayton pushed for Redford, and eventually convinced Evans. Bruce Dern was sexy and handsome as Tom Buchanan.

Eventually, MacGraw left the project, and Candice Bergen, Katharine Ross, and Tuesday Weld were offered the role, but none were interested. Faye Dunaway campaigned for the role, even did a screen test - but Clayton couldn't envision her as Daisy. He eventually went with Farrow (perfect in the role).

(As a child, I had seen Redford, Farrow and other cast members throughout Newport, RI where much of the movie was filmed in the summer of 1973).

Any fans of this movie on DL ? Is the DeCaprio film worth watching ?

by Anonymousreply 84July 9, 2025 3:40 AM

Nicolson as Gatsby? NO.

I love this movie. Redford, Farrow and Waterston are perfect,

by Anonymousreply 1July 7, 2025 2:45 AM

Fuck you OP.

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by Anonymousreply 2July 7, 2025 3:10 AM

I liked it when it came out. Redford was gorgeous. Farrow captured Daisy's essential callowness so well—an aspect of the character missing from many interpretations.

by Anonymousreply 3July 7, 2025 4:49 AM

Alec Baldwin and his wife are like Tom and Daisy Buchanan: They come in and destroy things and then retreat behind their money. Instead of Daisy mowing down Tom's mistress, Baldwin shoots and kills the "Rust" camerawoman.

by Anonymousreply 4July 7, 2025 8:23 AM

The only problem I really had was the casting of Jordan and Tom's mistress. They looked too much alike. At times, it was too tough to tell them apart. I think Jordan could've been replaced by a blonde.

by Anonymousreply 5July 7, 2025 11:51 AM

R4 That's a very long reach you got going on there.

by Anonymousreply 6July 7, 2025 11:52 AM

Brooke Adams is an extra in one of the party scenes. The camera moves down a long table of guests and then you think, “Oh, that’s Brooke Adams!”

by Anonymousreply 7July 7, 2025 12:22 PM

Waterston never seemed particularly heterosexual to me.

by Anonymousreply 8July 7, 2025 12:26 PM

I saw it for the first time on TCM last week. Sam Waterston was quite fuckable back then. The movie wasn't the trainwreck I thought it would be and the cast was great.

by Anonymousreply 9July 7, 2025 12:32 PM

Lois Chiles did a series of high profile movies in the 1970s before people noticed she could barely act.

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by Anonymousreply 10July 7, 2025 12:35 PM

I watched it last night too but found it kind of airless and dull. I was struck by how handsome I thought Sam Waterston was, though his looks weren’t conventionally attractive. I thought he, Dern and Wilson gave good, direct performances, but Farrow and Black were self-conscious and prone to over-doing their scenes. And the extras in the party scenes acted like extras appearing in a madcap1920s party scene instead of people having fun in a period that happened to be the 1920s. Those scenes of supposed glamour seemed tacky more than anything else, but maybe that was the point.

Redford was at the height of his beauty but I’ve never considered him a very interesting or powerful actor and he isn’t here. I never believe his yearning for Daisy, he’s always too inscrutable and never seems vulnerable, just hesitant. He has the elusiveness of Gatsby down but not the naivete and deep emotion.

The whole thing felt dead and muffled despite the opulence. On balance, I prefer the Baz Luhrmann version from 2013.

by Anonymousreply 11July 7, 2025 12:46 PM

People noticed very quickly Lois Chiles couldn’t act but she was beautiful, had a husky voive and was apparently pleasant and easy to work with so she got a few jobs trading on her looks after this, but nothing major. She’s perfect as Lynette Ridgeway in “Death on the Nile.”

She was smart enough to get out of the business and marry the wealthy Richard Gilder, a stockbroker and philanthropist — their names are all over the New York Historical Society. Gilder died in 2020, and she has kept a tastefully low profile since, though she is reportedly an artist shuttling between NYC and Houston. And per Wikipedia, she has given acting lessons, if you can believe that. Maybe she tutors beautiful daughters of the rich in elocution.

by Anonymousreply 12July 7, 2025 12:54 PM

Redford sexy? HA!

by Anonymousreply 13July 7, 2025 12:57 PM

The darker hair Redford had in this movie is close to his REAL color. The blond stuff came out of a bottle.

by Anonymousreply 14July 7, 2025 12:59 PM

R13 - Babs Brolin

by Anonymousreply 15July 7, 2025 1:07 PM

R15 = Robert Redford’s ugly German wife

by Anonymousreply 16July 7, 2025 1:28 PM

Lean, dark Sam Waterston might have made a good Gatsby. You can believe that, no matter how polished his exterior, he might be a gangster, and someone with intense passions.

by Anonymousreply 17July 7, 2025 1:31 PM

I the casting was spot on with the exception of the always “extra” Karen Black and the always inscrutable Robert Redford.

Dern and Waterson were the best.

by Anonymousreply 18July 7, 2025 1:38 PM

Lois Chiles expected to be cast as Daisy and flipped out in anger when she wound up as the golf cheat Jordan (which is still a great role!).

I remember this from a thread about Robert Evans’ book, The Kid Stays in the Picture, but I can’t find it now. Does anyone remember the details?

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by Anonymousreply 19July 7, 2025 1:42 PM

Maggie/Josette from Dark Shadows also had a small part in the mistress's apartment scene. I love this movie. I thought the Leo version was shit. All flash and no substance and didn't like Gyllenhaal as Nick or that other one who played Daisy.

by Anonymousreply 20July 7, 2025 2:37 PM

Tobey Maguire was Nick! Opposite Elizabeth Debicki (excellent) as Jordan.

Carey Mulligan was Daisy, and she was very dull. Mia Farrow’s inherent oddness and fragility with a hard metallic core made her much better casting.

by Anonymousreply 21July 7, 2025 3:53 PM

I was such a weird movie kid. While my friends were all out playing I was in a movie theater watching films none of them wanted to see.Costa-Gavras' "Z" at eight years old by myself at a Saturday matinee. I saw Gatsby three times. Of course it was before VCRs and cable wasn't mainstream yet so if you liked a movie you had to go to the theater to see it again.

by Anonymousreply 22July 7, 2025 4:44 PM

[quote]Redford sexy? HA!

You betcha.

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by Anonymousreply 23July 7, 2025 4:50 PM

Agree that this is a much better film than the 2013 Baz Luhrmann debacle.

by Anonymousreply 24July 7, 2025 5:34 PM

Redford’s natural hair color was closer to red than blond, but a Hollywood law had it that women didn’t like redheads, so natural redheads like Danny Kaye and Redford had their hair dyed blonde until age naturally dulled the color. Now Redford walks around woth his hair a weird dark auburn. I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling at 88.

And when you see him in his big hits from the ‘70s and ‘80s, it’s so obvious he’s a bottle blond, it’s ridiculous that no critics remarked on it. It proves that his withholding Don’t Look At Me routine was a cover for his intense vanity and self-seriousness.

by Anonymousreply 25July 7, 2025 5:35 PM

Lois Chiles was quite good in her brief role in Broadcast News.

by Anonymousreply 26July 7, 2025 5:47 PM

Karen Black won the Golden Globe but was surprisingly snubbed for the oscar. A rare instance where only one Globe nominee went on to be nominated for an oscar, (though Madeline would be nominated for her role in Blazing Saddles).

Karen Black – The Great Gatsby as Myrtle Wilson

Beatrice Arthur – Mame as Vera Charles

Jennifer Jones – The Towering Inferno as Lisolette Mueller

Madeline Kahn – Young Frankenstein as Elizabeth

Diane Ladd – Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore as Flo Castleberry

by Anonymousreply 27July 7, 2025 6:14 PM

Karen Black was terrible in “The Great Gatsby,” chewed the scenery and mostly in closeup, which made her performance look even worse. She was probably nice to the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press and posed for individual photos with each member. That’s about all it took to get a nomination then.

I blame director Jack Clayton for his uninspired direction. And for a man who was one of the most talented Technicolor cinematographers in the history of movies, the images in this are often muddy, soft and the color design doesn’t pop at all.

by Anonymousreply 28July 7, 2025 8:03 PM

[quote]R26 Lois Chiles was quite good in her brief role in Broadcast News.

Yes, well, that was almost a decade and a half later, and luckily she’d enrolled in Roy London’s acting class.

by Anonymousreply 29July 7, 2025 8:31 PM

She’s interviewed for this - that might be her doing the voice over

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by Anonymousreply 30July 7, 2025 8:35 PM

There’s a heartless fashion model in Judith Krantz’s 1978 novel SCRUPLES who’s described as “killingly beautiful.” I always imagined Ms. Chiles as that character.

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by Anonymousreply 31July 7, 2025 8:56 PM

Lois Chiles spent most of her career being William Paley's mistress.

by Anonymousreply 32July 7, 2025 9:28 PM

This movie is about clothes, or should I say wardrobe. Beautiful wardrobe.

Robert Redford is totally miscast in this movie because is is incapable of conveying emotion. He's never good with women on anything but the most superficial, they should have known that. Nice clothes, though.

Mia Farrow is actually pretty good as the flighty Daisy. She and Redford make absolutely no connection at all, as if they were filmed separately and spliced together.

Bruce Dern is an actor I've always felt a bit sorry for because he was usually stuck in edgy psycho roles. I really liked him in romantic comedy - in Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot.

What really makes me hate this movie is the hair on the men. Totally wrong, not close to the way men really wore it at the time its supposed to take place.

by Anonymousreply 33July 7, 2025 9:36 PM

Loved Dern in Silent Running.

by Anonymousreply 34July 7, 2025 9:38 PM

Good God, this film was dull. I've never made it through the whole thing.

by Anonymousreply 35July 7, 2025 9:43 PM

[quote]I saw it for the first time on TCM last week. Sam Waterston was quite fuckable back then. The movie wasn't the trainwreck I thought it would be and the cast was great.

This is exactly what I said above. I can't believe how sexy and fuckable Waterston was in the movie, with such an understated, quiet performance. He said so much with his eyes and facial expressions, more than scripted words could say. He deserved an Oscar nomination.

[quote]Mia Farrow is actually pretty good as the flighty Daisy. She and Redford make absolutely no connection at all, as if they were filmed separately and spliced together.

When the movie was panned by critics, this is one of the things they pointed to - no chemistry between the two stars. Farrow admitted this was true, and blamed Redford. She said he was very cold and distant towards her off-camera, so they never got to know each other on a personal level. He would retreat to his trailer and watch the coverage of the Watergate investigation which was unfolding at the time, instead of mingling with the cast and crew. Of course, his next movie was 'All the President's Men'.

by Anonymousreply 36July 7, 2025 9:43 PM

[quote]I think Jordan could've been replaced by a blonde.

No! Chiles was perfect in this role, as was her wardrobe. I think the book describes Jordan as being all in the colors of autumn leaves.

by Anonymousreply 37July 7, 2025 9:45 PM

Not true, R36. There were two movies before All the President's Men - a stupid film about plane wing walking called The Great Waldo Pepper that came out in 1975, also Three Days of the Condor. In Condor, Redford has the same problem with DL fave Faye Dunaway as he had with Mia Farrow - no chemistry at all, he seems to have very little real interest. In some movies, Jane Fonda or Barbra Streisand can provoke feelings out of Redford, but it's mostly them doing all the work, he phones it in. As Jane Fonda said after their last collaboration, he has a problem with women.

by Anonymousreply 38July 7, 2025 9:54 PM

I liked Jordan Chiles in this movie.....and I loved the music. I only wish they had somehow been able to use the final words of the novel:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

by Anonymousreply 39July 7, 2025 10:20 PM

OP, I think it followed the novel pretty closely.

by Anonymousreply 40July 7, 2025 10:43 PM

Lois Chiles stopped acting when she married Wall Street financer Richard Gilder.

When he passed, she moved back to her native Houston.

by Anonymousreply 41July 7, 2025 10:49 PM

I didn’t hate the Paul Rudd/Mira Sorvino version (ducks).

by Anonymousreply 42July 7, 2025 11:03 PM

Passed what?

by Anonymousreply 43July 7, 2025 11:03 PM

Now Redford walks around with a haystack wig on his head...

by Anonymousreply 44July 7, 2025 11:12 PM

Don’t think he can walk anymore, R44.

by Anonymousreply 45July 7, 2025 11:19 PM

Redford presents hole at r23!!! 😃

by Anonymousreply 46July 7, 2025 11:49 PM

Mia’s wig always troubled me in this film. Party City?

by Anonymousreply 47July 8, 2025 2:32 AM

The music! I forgot how cornball all the Myrtle musical cues are — so old-fashioned and melodramatic.

by Anonymousreply 48July 8, 2025 3:58 AM

R25, DL favorite Pauline Kael wrote in her review of The Sting that Redford had gone beyond platinum blonde into ——- a word I can’t recall. A little help Paulinettes?

by Anonymousreply 49July 8, 2025 5:14 AM

[quote]R47 Mia’s wig always troubled me in this film. Party City?

She wrote in her memoir she hated that wig, calling it “stiff.”

by Anonymousreply 50July 8, 2025 5:24 AM

Plutonium. And he looked great with plutonium hair.

by Anonymousreply 51July 8, 2025 5:38 AM

I watch this film on mute. I find it visually stunning, but I care not for the film itself. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books, but it never seems to translate well to the screen. This 70s version is such a beautiful production though, from the fashions (as mentioned) to the cinematography to the cars (classic car collector) to the mansions, the set design and on and on. I love to view it, but that's all.

The Baz Luhrmann treatment looks like a hooker's visual recounting of a recent acid trip. I suppose his motto is: More is more.

by Anonymousreply 52July 8, 2025 4:25 PM

R52 Baz's take would've been a LOT better if they didn't use that terrible anachronistic soundtrack. Aside from the DH Orchestral Version of Lana del Rey's Young and Beautiful, the whole thing sounds like shit.

by Anonymousreply 53July 8, 2025 5:42 PM

[quote] (the 2.5 hours fly by).

Said no one ever.

by Anonymousreply 54July 8, 2025 5:53 PM

R40 Many thought too closely.

by Anonymousreply 55July 8, 2025 5:54 PM

I remember it was widely reported that Mia Farrow had a temperature (the flu?) when she tested for Daisy.

Seeing this in 1974, at the beach where we went on vacation (either shortly before or after seeing Mame, at the same theater), I remember people laughed at some of the wrong places. Maybe since it's now an "old movie," an old movie that is set in an even older time period, it doesn't provoke the same reactions. It seemed, at the time, pretentious and slightly unreal--and overacted by some of the cast. As well as slow and dull. But then the seats in that old barn of a theater were wooden, with no padding.

by Anonymousreply 56July 8, 2025 6:01 PM

This is another film almost ruined by Redford. He’s so stiff and delivers lines like set pieces. He’s awful in Out of Africa and not much better in The Way We Were. Bryant Brown should been opposite Streep in “Africa”. Redford is much more talented as a director and producer. There are exceptions when he’s carefully cast (Butch Cassidy).

by Anonymousreply 57July 8, 2025 6:18 PM

I liked Redford in Barefoot in the Park. He was funny. Later (like Gregory Peck) he seemed to just get more and more wooden.

by Anonymousreply 58July 8, 2025 6:23 PM

Redford character in Barefoot in the Park = stuffed shirt

Perfect casting.

by Anonymousreply 59July 8, 2025 7:08 PM

Redford was an LA kid who surfed at Hermosa Beach. Skipped school a lot, and I think was known for doing some dangerous stunts with his buddies. Not sure he was a stuffed shirt, even though he played one on Broadway and in the movies.

by Anonymousreply 60July 8, 2025 7:11 PM

Robert Redford #1 Bleached redhead:

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by Anonymousreply 61July 8, 2025 7:22 PM

Robert Redford #1 Plutonium blond

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by Anonymousreply 62July 8, 2025 7:23 PM

Redford was always ghastly.

And, him winninng the directing Oscar over Scorsese was ludicrous. Ordinary People is a fine movie but it's a well cast Lifetime movie with a budget.

by Anonymousreply 63July 8, 2025 10:26 PM

Buck would have never called Ordinary People a Lifetime movie!

by Anonymousreply 64July 8, 2025 10:32 PM

There was no such thing as a Lifetime movie when OP was released. So Lifetime movies are just low rent versions of “Ordinary People”.

by Anonymousreply 65July 8, 2025 10:56 PM

Robert Redford was originally offered the role of Guy in ROSEMARY’S BABY.

It would have been very creepy to have someone so wholesome looking playing a villain.

by Anonymousreply 66July 8, 2025 11:57 PM

[quote]Redford was always ghastly.

R63 = Gloria Upson

by Anonymousreply 67July 9, 2025 12:00 AM

[quote]Skipped school a lot, and I think was known for doing some dangerous stunts with his buddies

Where did you get that info, R60? Redford was known for being a drunk, not a surfer. He was kicked out of college for his drinking.

by Anonymousreply 68July 9, 2025 12:02 AM

What the heck did Beatty and Nicholson have against Ali McGraw?

by Anonymousreply 69July 9, 2025 12:23 AM

R68 I got it from the Hermosa Beach Daily Breeze newspaper, covering an appearance he made there.

I don't really understand the comment that he wasn't a surfer, he was a drunk. How are those two things related? He was too drunk to surf?

by Anonymousreply 70July 9, 2025 12:27 AM

The article in question.

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by Anonymousreply 71July 9, 2025 12:29 AM

I liked Farrow, Chiles and Black. Even as a kid I enjoyed watching them. Redford being blond was was good. He was OK. Gatsby is cipher so that works. One of the points of the novel is that nobody really knows Gatsby and we get to understand him as much as possible from everyone's different interactions. Any one character cannot know Gatsby because he is deeply inauthentic but touched by grace, and allure.

by Anonymousreply 72July 9, 2025 12:49 AM

Redford darkened his hair to play Gatsby, if that hasn't already been mentioned. It was publicized a lot at the time. (And I'm old enough to remember it was a big deal.)

by Anonymousreply 73July 9, 2025 1:03 AM

Some of the ties and the lapels (and maybe the collars) were too wide for the 1920s. They were wide in the 1970s.

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by Anonymousreply 74July 9, 2025 1:07 AM

R70 = dumb as a shrub

R73, dear, Redford skipped some of his bleaching sessions and let them do auburn for Gatsby. What was written at the time was PR. I’m old enough to remember too.

by Anonymousreply 75July 9, 2025 1:10 AM

AI Overview

Yes, Robert Redford was known to have surfed during his high school years in Southern California

He grew up in and around Los Angeles and spent his teen years surfing.

.Details:

He is reported to have learned how to surf in Hermosa Beach.

He surfed and engaged in other sports like climbing high-rise buildings during his high school years.

He was also described as having lugged a 40-pound wooden surfboard up and down the cliffs of San Onofre.

by Anonymousreply 76July 9, 2025 1:14 AM

Redford also prodcued the surf doc, Momentum Generation (2018). I'd say he had some interest in the sport.

by Anonymousreply 77July 9, 2025 1:17 AM

[quote]R69 What the heck did Beatty and Nicholson have against Ali McGraw?

The fact that, while a box office star thanks to LOVE STORY, she had the acting ability of a tree stump?

by Anonymousreply 78July 9, 2025 1:38 AM

[quote] And, him winninng the directing Oscar over Scorsese was ludicrous. Ordinary People is a fine movie but it's a well cast Lifetime movie with a budget.

“Lifetime movie” is code for feminine, as opposed to the masculine Raging Bull, about monosyllabic morons.

by Anonymousreply 79July 9, 2025 2:34 AM

How is Ordinary People feminine? Because it's about a family?

by Anonymousreply 80July 9, 2025 2:42 AM

Ordinary People reads as feminine because it’s domestic and about emotional frigidity; that’s why (male) critics have spent decades tarring it with phrases like “Lifetime movie”.

by Anonymousreply 81July 9, 2025 2:54 AM

It has three major male characters and only one main female character, but okay.

by Anonymousreply 82July 9, 2025 3:18 AM

Chiles was fine but imagine how much better Angelica Huston would have been in that part.

by Anonymousreply 83July 9, 2025 3:26 AM

There needs to be an Epstein reboot of this classic

I've heard of this Israeli intelligence-agent child-rapist & trafficker cum elite-financier as a "Gatsby-like" figure so many times.

I want to see this movie

by Anonymousreply 84July 9, 2025 3:40 AM
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