The conventional wisdom in certain circles is that this quasi-sequel/companion piece to 1952’s The Bad And The Beautiful is both a weak and weird sister to the prior film. I won’t deny the “weird” part; in fact I revel in it. “Weak” I of course take issue with. If Bad/Beautiful was a kind of bittersweet poison pen envoi to Old Hollywood, an attempt to make the best of the attendant hangover after taking stock of the note of the last meeting, so to speak, Two Weeks is a meet-the-new-boss suicide note that only steps back from the ledge because…well, wait a minute, does it really step back from the ledge? Is the film’s rushed (literally) happy end really putting the film’s protagonist “back” in “business?” That’s a tantalizing question, but in any event it’s the journey to that question that gives the film its rush.
The connective tissue between Two Weeks and Bad/Beautiful could not be stronger. Two Weeks has the same producer (John Houseman), same music composer (David Raksin), same screenwriter (Charles Schnee), same leading man (Kirk Douglas), and, finally and crucially, same director (VIncente Minnelli) as the earlier film. And of course the same theme: the lunatic three-ring circus of movie-making. But rather than speaking with the droll confidence of talents who were up-and-coming tyros when the models for Bad/Beautiful were making their brilliant mistakes, Two Weeks barrels ahead with the near-lunatic desperation of the potentially soon-to-be-washed up. The Hollywood that Minnelli and Houseman grew up in is dying or dead, replaced by the exotica and ruthless accounting of Cinecitta and international co-production. Without any reference to the politique des auteurs, Edward G. Robinson’s despotic, neurotic director boasts of the “Kruger touch” in reference to his own artistic signature. Countering him is an Italian anti-showman producer who lays out a ruthless bottom line to Kruger with not even a hint of apology for being so vulgar as to care about money. Lured into this web is the cracked actor Jack Andrus, who’s been keeping himself on ice in a tony nuthouse (in a sense, this is also a kind of sequel to Minnelli’s great 1955 The Cobweb). Here we find another crucial point of departure from Bad/Beautiful: whereas that film was about the various interactions and reactions of its characters to the brilliant and ruthless producer Shields, Two Weeks, even in scenes that stray from its lead character, is all about the interiority of Jack Andrus, just as Godard’s soon-to-come answer film to Two Weeks, Contempt, would be all about the (empty) interiority of its screenwriter protagonist. (Contempt also responds to Two Weeks’ two-bit Carlo Ponti with and Ugly American vulgarian producer played by Jack Palance.) Shields and Andrus are both, of course, portrayed by Kirk Douglas, and at the same precise emotional temperature at that. But while Shields is a force of nature, Andrus is, until the very end, fate’s chump. The demons that torment Jack are deliberately ridiculous, which is one reason those who call this film a “camp” classic miss the point; the heightening here is more Breughel-by-way-of-Al-Hirschfeld. Cyd Charisse’s impossible ex-wife of Jack is a cross between Jessica Rabbit and Baby Jane Hudson, or something; in any event it’s the most peculiar performance Charisse had ever given, or more to the point, been asked to give. Any doubt that Minnelli knew exactly what he was doing as he upped the film’s ante into ever-more absurdist realms need only check out the Three-Faces-of-Claire-Trevor shot below, in which the actress, playing Kruger’s appalling harridan wife, is multiplied into a veritable chorus of harpies.
The better you know the films that surround this one—The Bad and the Beautiful, Contempt, even 8 1/2 and La Ricotta—the better you’ll get this. But it is still awfully striking even on its own, and the Warner Archive disc of it is handsome indeed. There’s more I could say about this film—it really is very deep, and an old favorite of mine, and Daliah Lavi, seen at top with Douglas, is both beautiful and sensitive enough in the film to inspire a good number of prose poems—but the main thing I want to convey at the moment is that you need to see it, so please do.
More La Dolce Vita than 8−1÷2, I’d say, Glenn. I would’ve liked the explanation of why Robinson would suddenly side so one-sidedly and so completely with Trevor, after ignoring, cheating on, and complaining about her through their whole married life, beyond the petulant (and pat) one of feeling jobbed by Douglas when he so clearly hadn’t been. That’s what made the ending feel unearned for me–well, that and the hero getting on a plane with his new girl and apparently all his problems solved. I prefer B&B’s approach–its last shot told you really everything about not just Shields but also the trio’s relationship to him, and nothing was solved or resolved. That shot was pure poetry; Douglas getting on a plane, not so much. I’m also sure one of Claire’s three faces belonged to Shelley Winters. She ought to give it back to her.
The first hour is a dilly, though–it lays its fingers on the pulse of the end-of-the-studios era the way that Singin’ in the Rain did for the advent of talkies. The film-within-the-film’s cheesiness was perfect; I hope to see it someday on a double-bill with “Fritz Lang’s ‘Odyssey’ ”. Even more bracing was the attempt to enlighten audiences about the hoops movies have to jump through in order to get financed. As Jack Horner says, “It’s an important part of the process.”
I’ve always wondered why this doesn’t have a better reputation. Is it because of the cuts MGM imposed? Even in his autobiography, Minnelli seems to dismiss the released version, but is apparently quite proud of the movie he originally made. He should have been pleased anyway–it seems obvious that this was his last great film.
The cameraman in the movie within the movie is named Mario. : )
And I’m sure the sportscar-out-of-control sequence was in the back of Fellini’s mind, maybe even right up front, when he was making TOBY DAMMIT.
I [heart] the shit out of this movie. Saw it as part of the Minnelli series at MoMA a few years back, will never forget it.
Do you like YOLANDA AND THE THIEF?
The second greatest George Hamilton picture of all time.
@ Jaime: Yes, I DO like “Yolanda,” not as much as “The Pirate,” but very much.
@ Michael Adams: Yea, verily.
Maybe this is one of those cases where I had to be there at the time or maybe know something about what was cut out to understand why it doesn’t have a better rep, but you know what? I love this movie. I think it’s absolutely beautiful.
GK, one thing you didn’t get into is the amazing shift in tone – and,cough, mise-en-scene – that gets underway at Kruger’s anniversary dinner. The first hour or so is pretty conventionally staged by Minnelli’s standards and often just not that good, I think, but from then on we’re flagrantly in delirium land. What I couldn’t detect is a switch-throwing moment that would tell us we’re watching Jack’s fantasy of vindication, but is there one that you can see?
Wonder why this isn’t available on Netflix. This is a film I have been longing to see for years, since it popped up rather unaccountably in some otherwise conservative Greatest Films Ever Made book I had as a kid (was it Bosley Crowther’s book? Nah, couldn’t be).
I really love the rear projection in this film. Especially the iris splashes of yellow headlights in the sportscar sequence. I read Shaw’s novel last summer. In the book, Andrus isn’t in a sanitarium, but is stuck in a dull reality of a PR job with a boring wife and kids in Paris. At the end of his two-week delirium in Rome, he runs back to “reality” while in the movie he races toward unreality of Hollywood, and as you suggest, perhaps to another round of disappointment. Both scenarios work in their respective mediums. Damn good movie.