Benedito Dias Rodrigues A kind of re-telling story from the thirties where great film studio were managed by some genius pick up among them,the master Elia Kazan were a remarkable director and made a fine work here,the first half hour is very interesting around studio's matters,but when the Tycoon meet a young girl who suppose to be your late woman alike,since then the whole thing collapse and lose the magic,a fine performance from De Niro disappear in the dust of lack imagination,in fact they missed a good oportunity to make a great movie....for Kazan and De Niro and just for them 7/10.Resume:First watch: 1985 / How many: 3 / Source: TV/DVD / Rating: 7

blanche-2 Robert De Niro is handsome, slim, and elegant as "The Last Tycoon," a 1976 film with a screenplay by Harold Pinter and directed by Elia Kazan. The original story is by F. Scott Fitzgerald.Some background: After Norma Shearer retired, she wanted Tyrone Power to film "The Last Tycoon," which she planned to produce. Fitzgerald modeled the main character, Monroe Stahr, after Shearer's late husband, Irving Thalberg. The film never happened.Like Hemingway, Fitzgerald is difficult to put on film, though for different reasons. Fitzgerald was a true poet, and his words did everything. There's not much action. Thus is the case in "The Last Tycoon," where nothing happens for what seems like hours.The film sports a fabulous cast of old-timers: Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, Jeanne Moreau, Ray Milland, Dana Andrews, and John Carradine; and it introduces us to Theresa Russell, Angelica Huston, and Ingrid Boulting, who now teaches yoga in Ojai California and looks exactly the same as she does in this film. Don't ask me how. Jack Nicholson has a small role, as does everyone except De Niro and Boulting. The rest jump in and out like pop tarts.This is a somewhat fictionalized version of Thalberg's life at MGM. He is involved in a romance with Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting) who seems to be playing mind games with him. She says goodbye when she means hello, tells him that she can't see him again and then shows up, writes him farewell letters five minutes after she sees him, that kind of thing. Cecilia (Theresa Russell), the daughter of the studio head Pat Brady (Mitchum) is madly in love with him, but he doesn't even notice as he's so fixated on Kathleen, who is engaged to someone else but keeps coming around.Brady, modeled on Louis B. Mayer, resents Stahr, as Mayer resented Thalberg, but Brady only says he resents him. We never see him REALLY resent him. No one really does much interacting. Tony Curtis sports a mustache as Rodriguez, a sexually confused leading man who is playing opposite the temperamental Didi (Jeanne Moreau) in a Casablance ripoff that has Moreau in Ingrid Bergman's same hat and coat, and Curtis playing the piano. P.S. Moreau can sing about as well as Ingrid Bergman hummed "As Time Goes By" -- not well. There is a moment of humor when, as the film ends with Moreau saying 'Nor do I,'there is a moment of silence. Then Brady says, "The French actresses are so...compelling." Silence. Stahr says, "'Nor do I. Nor do I.' When has anyone ever said to you, 'nor do I?' The scene has to be completely reshot, it's awful. I want four writers assigned to it tonight." De Niro is perfection as Monroe Stahr, from the way he sits at his desk wearing his horn-rimmed glasses, to his posture. Boulting is exceedingly dull. I never thought Theresa Russell could act her way out of a phone booth, though she had a few decent moments in "Black Widow." Most of the actors are completely wasted. One interesting thing: Viewing this film today, one becomes aware of how un-used we are now seeing older actors sans face lifts, big lips, and botox.All in all, I found this film disappointing. Pinter's script is slow and long, there's no excitement, let alone much story. Elia Kazan was a great director, but there probably wasn't much that he could do."The Last Tycoon" has been lauded by some as an unappreciated masterpiece, but one of the reviewers on IMDb also felt Theresa Russell gave a brilliant performance. I didn't see what some of these enlightened viewers saw, nor have I been haunted by the movie. In fact, I find it easy to forget.

Murtaza Ali The Last Tycoon, Elia Kazan's swan song based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's final, unfinished novel of the same name, is an important work of cinematic art. The Last Tycoon can be approached in different ways depending purely on the viewer's taste and his level of understanding.First, at its most basic level, it is a film about films and people who make them: writers, directors, actors, producers and studio bosses, not in the increasing order of their creative importance but in terms of their actual influence as prevalent during the Golden Age of Hollywood.Second way to approach it is to look upon it as a tale of unrequited love. Third, as a film about the fall of a man from omnipotence to oblivion. Fourth, The Last Tycoon is about the inflated human ego and the Lear-like grand operatic collapse it so often triggers. Fifth and the most complex way to approach it would be as a surrealistic expression of an artist working at the height of his powers and desperate to make the most of the final few opportunities left with him.The Last Tycoon features quite a few memorable performances including cameos from Tony Curtis, Jeanne Moreau and Jack Nicholson. The film revolves around a Hollywood movie producer, named Monroe Stahr, slowly working himself to death. Robert De Niro is absolutely breathtaking to watch as Stahr—a role fashioned upon Irving Thalberg, the production chief at MGM during the late '20s and '30s. The scenes that he shares with Jack Nicholson—the only ones that the two legendary actors ever shared on the celluloid—are pure gold. De Niro shares great chemistry with the two female leads who complement him really well. While Ingrid Boulting is delectable to watch in her enigmatic portrayal of Kathleen Moore, Theresa Russell creates a strong impact in the limited screen time she gets. The Last Tycoon, as underrated as it is, deserves much more attention than what it has received over the last four decades. The movie succeeds in breaking the glittery image of the Tinsel Town, which is often portrayed as some kind of a Shangri-La for the young and upcoming artists, by presenting a caricature that's far more realistic. The movie may lack the refinement of a work of commercial art but its unfinished crudeness definitely makes it more lifelike. It's a movie that hasn't lost its relevance with time and perhaps that's what makes it a timeless gem of cinema. The restless viewers can afford to stay put, but those with patience must check it out, for they would be thoroughly rewarded.For more, please visit my film blogsite:http://www.apotpourriofvestiges.com/

samkan F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing is beautiful, very lyrical but his character's words are not to be taken at face value. His description is vivid though he does not use fancy - or too many - words. He has a clear point of view or opinion about the people he writes about. But if his writing appears matter-of-fact, fly-on-the-wall, etc. it is anything but that. In THE LAST TYCOON he wants to tell us about his problems with alcohol and women, the effect of communists unionizing Hollywood writers, and - like always - the unique agonies of the very wealthy class. Like his other fiction, dialog is a minor inconvenience serving to support the overall description of what's happening - better conveyed by mood, atmosphere and pretense. Not in spite of but as a result of FSF's talent, his writing can simply put blunt description in his characters mouth and allow it to melt with his narration. His ability to convey mood is that compelling.Translating such to film creates a problem. The scenes in TLT are comically bad. Irony is given new definition when Stahr rejects a scene on the basis that 'People don't talk that way". People don't talk like the characters in TLT. Allow me to suggest that a successful adaptation of an FSF story would contain limited dialog, even to the extent such requires omitting what dialog the novel or short story contains. Sometimes a literal interpretation is not necessarily faithful.