The King of Marvin Gardens

This is a brilliant little character study from the fabulous team that brought us the classic "Five Easy Pieces". If this last reviewer didn't get it (and obvious he didn't), than that's his problem. The detail, the beautiful photography, and the incredible use of Atlantic City locations make this film all the more worth while. Shot when Atlantic City was a dying resort town, it is used as a metaphor for this strange symbiotic relationship between two very different brothers. Nicholson as the intelligent David, and Bruce Dern (never better) as the scam artist Jason, out to make a quick buck. Do yourselves a favor, and check out this little gem.

A truly great film and sadly overlooked and under rated, following up Five Easy Pieces and showing Nicholson at his most awesome. A far better take on Atlantic City than the Louis Malle's film of that name. Incredible acting from Nicholson, Dern, Burstyn... great direction and cinamatography. The movie is set in a pre-casino Atlantic City, sort of Coney Island perfected. A real actors film that we rarely see anymore. Perhaps difficult to watch because of that yet immensely rewarding. A film that perfectly captures the time and place. Dern plays an over the top hustler while Nicholson, of all things, plays an intellectual radio dweeb. Go on... see it... "no one reads anymore..."

Alienation and disconnection -- the uncomfortable mood gripping the nation would soon degrade into deep malaise and acute paranoia as America was stunned and traumatized by revelations of the government's deceptions and lies about the failing war in Viet Nam and then soon enough the vaudevillian scandal of Watergate. This film strives to capture the infinitely subtle drama of when innocence isn't so much lost as it's cynically packaged and sold. Dreams may die hard, but delusions usually expire with barely an audible whimper, and there was no more epic delusion expiring at that moment in our history than the vainglorious belief in the USA's infallibility. God, himself, had ordained this vast land exceptional and anointed its multitudinous inhabitants, or so we'd been told.

Like the crumbling, decrepit, musty seaside resort town which plays host to this tragicomic farce, America was not living up to its slogan as the Shining City on the Hill. Atlantic City in the early 70's not only manifested the startling decay of so much of this nation's urban spaces, but also poignantly symbolized the inner decay of our national psyche. And while it's certainly sad and scary to witness the gruesome, slow, writhing death of the Great American Delusion, it's also somehow comforting and reassuring to know that just beneath the still warm corpse germinates tender seedlings incubating the merest wisps of hope for our nation's future. Amidst the emphatically strained and tortured metaphors which comprise this modest cinematic tragedy lurks genuineness and sincerity and psychological resonance. It's an awkward, peculiar little picture story that will haunt your psyche, if you're not already dead, or too delusional.

Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson's creative relationship began because of The Monkees. Rafelson directing and Nicholson writing their weird and wonderful psychedelic cult classic 'Head'. After that the two teamed up for one of the early Seventies best loved movies 'Five Easy Pieces'. A couple of years later they did it again with 'The King Of Marvin Gardens', though inexplicably it doesn't have the reputation or the high profile of their previous collaboration. I really fail to see why. File it under "great lost 1970s movies" alongside 'Scarecrow', 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia', 'Tracks', 'Fingers' (and add your own personal favourite to the list). Marvin Gardens features a really strong and controlled performance from Nicholson in the lead role, an introverted DJ with a show in which he spins "true" tales. But even better than Nicholson is Bruce Dern, a wonderful actor who never became a superstar like Nicholson, Pacino or De Niro, despite a long career of consistently good character roles in movies by Hitchcock, Roger Corman, Walter Hill, Hal Ashby, John Frankenheimer, Elia Kazan, Sydney Pollack and many others. Dern is absolutely wonderful as Nicholson's brother, a dreamer and Mob hanger on. He comes back into his brother's life with a nutty get rich quick scheme which ends up going horribly wrong. This is one of the very best performances by Dern I've ever seen, and his scenes with Nicholson make this essential viewing for any 1970s buff. Added to that are excellent performances from Ellen Burstyn ('The Exorcist', 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore') and newcomer Julia Anne Robinson (her only movie role - too bad!) as the women in Dern's life, and nice bits from legendary musician/actor Scatman Crothers ('Black Belt Jones' and appearances in no less than four 1970s Nicholson movies) and the underrated John P. Ryan ('Runaway Train', 'It's Alive', 'Class Of 1999'). 'The King Of Marvin Gardens' is a slow and thoughtful movie, but once you get into the rhythm of it, an extremely rewarding one. One of Nicholson's best, and Dern is just dynamite. Highly recommended.

The King of Marvin Gardens was Bob Rafelson's experiment at doing a film where the leads are switched around- the actors playing them, anyway. You rarely get to see Jack Nicholson in the role of the quiet, observant, and really more intuitive characters in any film, and to see it in his prime in-between doing films like Carnal Knowledge and The Last Detail is a revelation. Every once in a while he pulls out a performance that is attuned to a sensibility that is surprising, even if the film is not. One of those that worked best was About Schmidt. But this time in Rafelson's vision, he plays second fiddle to the more personable, idealistic, talkative, pushy, and far more conflicted brother played by Bruce Dern. For Dern this is also a somewhat different role, as he often could play roles with a good deal of dialog well, though with also a lowered guard. Here he plays a guy with lots of ideas, and those of which he really wants to impress upon his more detached but not too unresponsive brother. It's a mix that works, though it's very understandable why I've only seen it once, and not only do I not really desire to see it again, it's not too much of a wonder why its still one of the real underrated films of the 70s.

Keep in mind it's not just the men to see here, but Ellen Burstyn too, in one of her other great parts of her real prime, as she plays Dern's depressed, loopy, over-the-top girlfriend. She has her counterpart too in Julie Anne Robinson. Her character is maybe a little more like Nicholson's, though not really as withdrawn. These are all characters who are estranged, if not from themselves then from each other, and amid the big plans in the (correctly chosen) sights of dreary Atlantic City they're cast against a glow that just poses a kind of nothingness for them. And in the end, when tragedy strikes, it finally comes when the emotional cork gets pulled completely off. And bookending the film are Nicholson's monologues on the airwaves to his listeners, whomever they may be, and they're some of my favorite scenes I still remember from the film. If it's less than really memorable and affecting like the best of 70s subversive cinema, it's because its content in its low-key ways. It's a smart movie that isn't really at the heights of Five Easy Pieces- Rafelson's masterpiece that's also low-key in its way but reaches higher in psychological hang-ups- but it does come as close as anything the director's done since. Most noteworthy is the challenge of reversing the roles for Nicholson and Dern pays off in that independent-film way. Look for Shining co-star Scatman Crothers in some scenes late in the picture.