Mr_Ectoplasma Based on Nathanael West's equally Hollywood-Gothic novel, "The Day of the Locust" revolves around the lives of several Los Angelenos: Tod, a Yale art graduate working on a painting; Faye, an aspiring and out-of-touch actress, and her ostentatious father; and Homer, a sexually-repressed outcast. The film charts each of the characters' aspirations that come crashing into one of the most apocalyptic and ghastly endings in film history.I had read West's novel years ago before finally seeing this film, and it's evident that director John Schlesinger took heavy cues from the source material. This adaptation stays true to the novel, only making minor alterations where it has to cut its losses. It's dark, wacky, grotesque, and at times flat-out disturbing, and there is a strange dreaminess to the film that recalls the novel's borderline-absurdist approach to the material. There is a phenomenal attention to detail here and sophisticated cinematography, capturing the hazy underworld of Hollywood that houses its rejects and wannabes. The film's greatest asset is, inarguably, its stellar cast. William Atherton plays the leery painter with conviction, while Donald Sutherland captures the eccentricity and quirks of Homer. In the novel, West draws all the characters to the tipping point of caricatures, and Karen Black perhaps best embodies this as Faye, the starry-eyed and artless aspiring actress— Black evokes the childlike sensibility of the character with a purposeful sexuality that is what makes her character in particular so disturbed. Burgess Meredith (also Black's co-star in "Burnt Offerings") is appropriately hammy as her gimmicky showman of a father. Geraldine Page makes a brief but grandiose appearance.The oft-discussed ending is worthy of the talk it is the subject of; it is one of the most well-shot and harrowing conclusions in film history, edging on the apocalyptic and the orgiastic, much like the source material. While typically discussed as a drama, I consider "The Day of the Locust" to be a horror film just as I consider the novel to be a horror novel— unconventional, albeit, but the film captures something wildly grotesque that challenges its audience, and some may find it a difficult a film to find merit in. There is a terrifying nucleus to this story that trumps its less-horrific finishings. All in all, "The Day of the Locust" is a classic and important film; like its source novel, it serves us with a grim portrait of society that is not exclusive to Hollywood, but is perhaps best exemplified in the city of stolen water and stolen dreams. Barring "Mulholland Drive," which came over two decades later (and was undoubtedly influenced by Schlesinger's film), "The Day of the Locust" remains the greatest fictional representation of Hollywood ever, and perhaps the most horrifying film to lay claim to Los Angeles. 10/10.

mark.waltz As if they were mocking the love of everything 20's, 30's and 40's on TV, Broadway and the movie screens, the writers of this screenplay tear apart the legend of movie's so-called "Golden Age". Karen Black, fresh from flying the plane in "Airport '75" (and free from that knife-wielding monster in "Trilogy of Terror"), is a blonde bombshell in 1933 Hollywood who appears in a 1937 Eddie Cantor movie called "Ali Baba Goes to Town" and is upset when most of her one scene is deleted. She selfishly leads lovers along until she meets Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland), a not-so-cartoonish loner who saves her father (Burgess Meredith) during an attack of exhaustion. Black gives a really mesmerizing performance, especially in scenes where she deals with her father's death and her own insecurities, but ultimately her character is too unlikable.Billy Barty, who in 1933 was making cameos in Busby Berkley musicals, plays a troubled neighbor, and Geraldine Page has a dramatic one-scene cameo as an Aimee Semple McPherson type evangelist. Vintage 30's music, like the previous year's "The Great Gatsby", provides the only real nostalgia since the theme is actually dark and depressing. Burgess Meredith's funeral sequence is interrupted at the Hollywood Cemetery when it is announced that a movie star named Mr. Gable has just arrived. The attitude is satirical but inappropriately so, since the comedy is actually pretty mean spirited. A genuine 30's atmosphere is felt, but this is is not a pretty look at Tinsel Town. Audiences who expected "The Sting" or even "Gatsby" got stung here, and I'm sure many walked out. There is a violent scene involving an attempted rape over jealousy between two men organizing a cock fight. Backstage scenes at Paramount where a film about Napoleon is being shot while everything goes wrong seem genuine, although "College Swing", advertised in the background, wasn't made until several years after this took place. But get a load of "Gilligan's Island"'s Natalie Schafer as a Hollywood madam who shows porno at her parties, a drag queen who performs Dietrich's "Hot Voodoo", and a Shirley Temple like performer so hatefully obnoxious that she (?) makes Temple's rival Jane Withers seem like an angel.If director John Schleshinger's goal was to create a film audiences wouldn't soon forget, he reached his goal. Technically (especially visually), it is outstanding. However, for me, it was not in the way he intended to. This moves past the darkness of his previous nostalgic film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", taking tastelessness to a new level that only seemed appropriate in 1975 in John Waters' underground movies.

nihao Every now and then a true gem pops out of the past... that is, if you are a keen cinema-goer (or movie-viewer...as, nowadays, only kids go to the movies). The day of The Locust is what John Schlesinger had up his sleeve after the huge success of 'Midnight Cowboy'. It was his 'pot shot' at Hollywood. It was his Guy Fawkes beneath Parliament. It was his warning that the Twin Towers story COULD just be a sordid masquerade...although, of course, he didn't know it yet. They say that Hawthorne's book is far more engrossing. Sure... books take up ten times more time to unravel. His characters are mean-spirited, calculating, 'cold fish'...and what they get is what they deserve. But I feel Schlesinger and his script-writers made a worthwhile effort to imbue even these squirming serpents and cold-blooded insects with a breath of pathos, and humanity. And rightly so... the story GAINS points. 'Locust' sometimes feels more like Bergman, Fassbinder or (even) Fellini than like an American film. It reminds us of Grosz. Of German decadence between world wars. We are, often sub-consciously, led down grim corridors of analogy.... Nazi hysteria... Hollywood Boulevard madness. We are voyeurs... we watch a giant Dream Machine which spawns future mutants... frustrated maniacs. And literally DEVOURS its pathetic 'extras' and hopefuls. That is why the overtones of the film seem ,somehow, biblical. David Lynch's source-material is suddenly openly revealed. THIS MOVIE! We have Twin Peaks themes and characters... Mulholand Drive, even more so... Blue Velvet...and so on... But hey! Let's be fair.... anyone who has ever REALLY known Hollywood can only nod and say..."Yes...It's all true.... And if I'm still here, in the industry,.... I'm either a hypocrite, a victim, or a pervert of sorts." ALL the characters are crazed atoms of the American Dream Factory. And Schlesinger opts for a finale worthy of another British, but surprisingly hot-bloodedly so, director... Ken Russell. Madness on the rampage. But is he only a fine line away from exaggeration? Is he not symbolically 'spot on'? That's for you to decide. Meanwhile, the film has done the job it came to do. Maybe even better than 'Chinatown'. And, believe me, the HEY DAY of Hollywood may seem far away and long ago... but the manic drive and sexual black-mail we observe in this reptilian display is all too contemporary to our time. Bon Apetit! (If your digestive system is up to it).

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews I haven't read the novel that this is based upon, but I would like to. Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be trapped in front of a car crash just about to happen, with no means of preventing it? That's what this is. You see the people, the situations, and you want to crawl through the screen and stop them. This movie hurts. At no point did this make me smile, or inspire any hope. I see another reviewer has called it nihilistic, and I agree. Is this a failure on the film's part? I don't think so. It's what it set out to be. On principle and as a personal test of strength, I try to never look away from what I'm watching, unless it's visually disgusting(not the case here). Yet this often had me avert my eyes. Not in response to the presentation, which is excellent, but the content. It is rather unpleasant. Set during the Great Depression, this shows us several youths in California, with dreams of making it big. What happens is that Hollywood chews them up and spits them out, and proceeds to walk out the door like it was nothing. This could also be argued to be somewhat about materialism. While I realize that this is not the only famous picture about this, it is the only I have seen, as far as I can remember. We see intolerable, superficial celebrities(not to mention wanna-be's) and those that suck up to them. The climax is extremely visceral, and I'm not sure when I was last that gripped and affected by, well, anything. Atherton is Tod, who wants to make it in the art department. Sutherland is Homer Simpson(no relation), an incredibly pitiful, lonely middle-aged man. And Black is miscast as Faye, the object of the males' desire. She nails the obnoxious, unrealistic and spoiled aspects, and I can't complain about her empty, glassy-eyed stare. Where she comes up short is that she isn't sensual or sexy. Yes, she is meant to have been mangled by the city as well; however, we don't find her attractive or alluring, and it harms the overall result. The acting is great. These characters are not likable; they are interesting enough, and I wasn't bored following them. I've heard others describe this as excessively long... I suppose cutting it down could help it. The dialog is well-written. This is sardonic and darkly comical in tone. There is a lot of disturbing content, some brutal violence and blood, and a little sexuality in this. The DVD comes with no extras. I recommend this to those that this sounds appealing to. 7/10