Marjorie Morningstar

This film has some of the most bizarre casting in Hollywood history - who could possibly conceive of Gene Kelly playing a Jew? Yes, an 'assimilated Jew," but a Jew nonetheless. Maybe the same Warner exec who a few years later envisioned WASP-ish Rosalind Russell as Mrs. Jacobi in A MAJORITY OF ONE? With the exception of Everett Sloane (who may have been Jewish - I've never been able to confirm this) and Ed Wynn (who was), this is the most goyishe-looking family imaginable. Claire Trevor was from Brooklyn - I guess they thought this qualified her to "pass". Everyone looks like they just got back from church, not a synagogue.

Hollywood and the movie industry were built by Jews - except for Darryl F. Zanuck, all the major movie moguls - Mayer, Selznick, Cohn, Goldwyn, Warner, Laemmle - were Jewish - yet they were frightened of portraying Jews honestly on screen, and many an actor had to subdue his "Jewishness" and change his name to 'blend in' - could John Garfield have become a movie star under his real name, Julius Garfinkle?

MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR hasn't held up well as a film or on the printed page - maybe in the 1950s she was the gal every young woman wanted to be or know, but when I finally got through the book a few years ago, I found her to be not only irritating but a tease of the first order - few men or women would have much patience with her superficial personality today. I wondered at the book's popularity - somehow it managed to nudge past AUNTIE MAME and become the #1 bestselling novel of 1955.

I find Marjorie Morningstar curiously affecting but I'm not exactly sure why. I must have seen the movie twenty times from its original release in 1958 to 2004. When I first saw it it seemed a coming-of-age movie of a very beautiful New York Jewish girl. It also seemed prissy and prudish. The best thing about the movie was Ed Wynn as Uncle Samson. I felt at the time he gave an Academy Award perfor mance. I still do! When I saw the movie in the 1960s I thought it was the dumbest, squarest most ridiculous movie I'd ever seen. Natalie Wood camping around in clothes her Grand Mother would have been embarrassed to wear. Gene Kelly, [who I used to idolize} looking fat and pale with an obvious rug on. And talk about lack of chemistry! Kelly and Wood acted like they hated each other. Marty Milner was just absurd. Would anyone want to marry this nerd? Within the last five years I've probably seen it ten times and even made a a trip to Schroon Lake, N.Y. where it was filmed and stood on the beach where Kelly and Wood went swimming. I now see the movie in two ways. First, it's about values and once again Ed Wynn seems sensational because he believes in what he is saying. I doubt if any of the other Hollywood cynics believed a word of it.Second, and this has a lot to do with the haunting song, "A Very Special Love" which Kelly keeps singing.It speaks to me of my youth and my Summer loves with a wistfulness that calls me back to a gentler time. I'm sure I'll see this movie again.

Great, great book. TERRIBLE movie. Natalie Wood is lovely, to be sure, but not a great actress. Gene Kelly is a great actor and dancer, but horribly miscast. The simpering! The overacting! Spare yourself. Read the book.

The movie suffers in two ways when compared to the magical novel about theater and love: (1) by losing the late-Depression setting, when show-business was very different than in the 1950's, and (2) by casting Gene Kelly (who himself felt he was wrong for the part) as the tall, blond Noel Airman (Warner Brothers must have lost its mind not to use its contract star Tab Hunter). But those two compunctions aside, there is no other movie like it. Natalie Wood, not yet a superstar, had to read fourteen times for the role, but all of us who loved the book knew there was no one else for it. Natalie's acting ability may have been limited to looking pretty and poignant, but there's not much else that ambitious, innocent Marjorie needs to do. This story is a loving tribute to a nice girl, and a tender acknowledgment of how hard life is for one. So far as I know, no other story captures those years when a pretty young American female has the world to choose from--or how confusing her multitude of choices are. As Marjorie slowly travels through the gauntlet of family and education (and the foggy fantasies of fame that tempt any attractive teen who draws attention and compliments) toward her inevitable, bittersweet fate, a whole world is revealed--the world of The Pretty Girl, a world of school and dates and dancing and romance--with no one really to guide her--because everyone either envies her or wants to take advantage of her. By taking her story seriously, novelist Herman Wouk created a highly individual and yet universal character, and Natalie simply WAS her. The scriptwriter did a marvelous job of condensing a long and elaborate book into an entertaining and moving photo-play--and kept enough of Wouk's dialog from the novel to give flashes of the book's insight and sophistication. All of the actors must have read the book, for they dig into their roles far deeper than the screenplay does. Not a great movie, but until someone makes a better one, it stands alone as Hollywood's most honest and endearing tribute to--The Nice Girl.

I have watched Marjorie Morningstar on video a few times and have read others' review of it. As a Jew, I was not bothered by the stereotypes. They rang true because in that day an age, that is how parents viewed marriage for their children. Interesting that the Bar Mitzvah was held in an Orthodox synagogue where there is separate seating men and women though the religious observance of the Morgensterns is questionable. In any case, while the premise of a young woman falling for an older man with great passion is believable, Gene Kelly as Noel Airman to me was not even likable. And it is wonder why they needed to cast a 46-year old man in a role of a 33 year old. Ed Wynn and Carolyn Jones were a delight, while most of the other characters were not particularly noteworthy. The movie ending is far different from the book, and honestly, I think I prefer the movie ending though the book's end was probably more true to life.