chauge-73253 Mister Buddwing is the name James Garner's character gives himself when he wakes up on a New York City parkbench and starts asking people who he is and what he is doing there because he can't remember anything that has happened in his life, including his own name. The one name that seems stuck in his head is Grace, and as you watch the movie you start to realize that this is the woman in his life he is desperate to find. He runs across three women who remind him of the early, middle, and late stages of his relationship with her. Katherine Ross plays early Grace, Suzanne Pleshette plays middle Grace, and Jean Simmons plays late stage Grace. Each women play versions of their real selves as well when Buddwing first meets them. The movie goes back and forth between the real versions and the Grace versions in the middle of the scenes, which can be quite confusing. I had to press the rewind button more than a few times to get a handle on which is which, because the director, Delbert Mann, doesn't make it easy for you. By the end of the movie you figure out what happened to the real Grace and why Buddwing has his amnesia, but it doesn't really lead to a satisfying experience for this viewer. It's kind of an interesting psychological study of what a traumatic experience can do to a person, but not necessarily all that entertaining.

Eric266 For a movie with an interesting premise and a stable of talented actors, this movie really left a lot to be desired. A man who wakes up in Central Park with amnesia and sets out on an odyssey of discovery, should have been riveting. With a tighter script and a better director, this could have had Oscar buzz.James Garner plays the amnesiac who encounters several women through the day whom he imagines are a woman he once loved named Grace. Katherine Ross, Suzanne Pleshette (always a personal favorite) and Jean Simmons play the ladies. Along the way he also encounters a helpful Angela Landsbury and Jack Gilford. You could also count the City of New York itself as a character as Director Delbert Mann beats you over the head with the scenery.The story is compelling, but the characters are not believable. This takes place in the 60s so maybe attitudes were different, but all these women invite this stranger into their homes/lives with almost no thought. Even when he becomes agitated about not remembering things, they don't kick him out. Each scene seems to be its own entity and doesn't really tie to the next one. There is a sub-plot about an escaped convict who may or not be Mr. Buddwing, but this plot is dropped quickly and never developed. It would have been interesting to keep that going. Then, just when it appears the movie is about to pick up some steam, it just...stops. We never get a denouement of any kind. Perhaps that was the director's intent, but after having to slog through the slowly paced film, we should have gotten something. A saving "grace" if you will.Not to say the movie isn't good. The actors/actresses do a fine job. It was odd seeing Garner play against his hero type for once. Pleshette is lovely in her role which is the best written of the three main females as well as the most touching. Jean Simmons was fun as a spoiled rich girl out for a good time. Character actor Gilford had some nice chemistry with Garner but his scenes are brief and then he is gone.I wanted to like this film, but it felt like a college drama class project with all the artsy shots of New York rather than a taut drama about a man trying to find himself.

Eric-1226 I only recently caught this on TCM cable the other day. After watching it twice (and yes, it really does merit multiple viewings) I asked myself, "where has this little gem been hiding?" This movie came out in 1966, and this is the first time I've ever seen it.Jim Garner is cast somewhat against type as the not-so-granite character we've come to know and love: here, he plays a man suffering from a bad case of amnesia. He wakes up on a park bench in New York City and, armed with only a few scant clues found in his pockets - a scribbled phone number without a name, some pills, a train schedule - he starts on a scatter-shot quest through the edges and byways of New York City in an attempt to discover who he really is.The movie has some interesting vibes going on: it's edgy, dark and suspenseful, also eerie and at times darkly comic. The plot is a bit convoluted, with odd flashback scenes juxtaposed with odd events and characters that occur in present time. If all of this makes the viewer a little disoriented, then the director has done his job well, because that is precisely how James Garner's character feels throughout the movie, right up until the very end.Along the way he encounters a colorful batch of characters, each of whom directs (or misdirects as the case may be) our hero to his final destination and ultimate discovery of who he really is, and how he came to end up on a park bench in New York. The interplay between Garner and these assorted characters - who play like a sort of human sampler of New York City - is what makes the movie so worthwhile. There's lots of interesting dialog going on, enough to make it worth your while to watch the movie several times.Nicely filmed in black and white, with an excellent supporting cast and excellent soundtrack, this is an engrossing and fast-moving story that never bogs down, and turns out to be one of the best offbeat movies I've seen in a long time. Highly recommended.

Robert J. Maxwell Sometimes jazz musicians trade bars. The drummer solos for a bar or two, then back to the tenor man who takes another, back to the drummer, and so on. The listener doesn't really get lost, because it's not a complicated arrangement. And it gives the soloists a chance to take some real chances because his piece is so short that he doesn't have to build anything out of it.This film is something like that. There's a kind of central theme that we can follow without too much trouble. Garner wakes up nameless and bereft of memory in Central Park, invents a name for himself after seeing a beer truck and an airplane, and wanders around the city running into people who take some kind of interest in him, friendly or hostile, as he goes through flashbacks.Angela Lansbury gets the first couple of bars as a lead to his identity that turns out to be a dead end. There are a few briefer encounters, including one with Jack Gifford, who is convinced Garner is a Jew who has changed his name and forgotten his original name because he is ashamed of it. (It's a bizarre scene but a very funny one. Anyway, all the scenes have an element of the surreal in them.) If you have to be nearly broke and an amnesiac in a big American city, New York isn't the worst place. The fact that people constantly engage you, kvetching about their mothers-in-law or something, is reassuring. At least when you're arguing with someone or flirting with them you know you're alive. In La-La Land, Home of the Purple Taj Mahal Motels, you can't even make eye contact with strangers. You're not only amnesiac, you're invisible too.I don't think I'll let New York off the hook so easily though. Almost every city gains in comparison to L.A. In the mid-60s when this film was shot, New York's streets were safe to stumble aimlessly around in. Within a few years you could still easily get attention from others but the nature of the attention had changed.Come to think of it, this is the second time that James Garner has played an amnesiac, except that in the other case ("36 Hours") he wasn't a real amnesiac and had to be fooled into believing he was one.The first half hour swung. The rest of it jumped around a lot without really showing us much that's gripping. A good deal of time is spent with Garner and his wife arguing about where they will get the money to provide for the baby that she wants and he does not. The dialog is thin and the scene seems pointless. The final realization comes to Garner at the end of the movie and it seems arbitrary.Let's call it an interesting experiment. Maybe the novel was better organized.