No Down Payment

I'm so glad I bought this movie. The acting is superb, and as someone before said, it's definately Oscar-worthy. Although Joanne Woodward won an Oscar for another movie ('The Three Faces Of Eve') the same year, she should have been nominated for this one as well. This movie is SO well-acted I can't even believe it. I expected a riveting, stand-out performance from Joanne Woodward, because you can always count on her for that. But I didn't expect the rest of the cast to give wonderful performances as well. The one thing that got me is I never knew which characters to like. They all had their good points and their bad.

If for nothing else, see the movie for Joanne Woodward. If you're ever feeling doubtful about the acting ability of some of today's actors, go watch a Joanne Woodward movie. She'll renew you. I'm so amazed by that girl's talent.

"No Down Payment" is truly one of the great lost Fifties movies. Released in 1957, the year that the forced integration of Little Rock and the Soviet's launching of Sputnik forced America out of it's smug complacency, this movie truly shows us another side of suburban utopia. This flick was filmed when suburban California seemed to be everyone's ideal of the good life which, from the start, this movie portrays quite well. Barbecues with the neighbors, kids playing in the yard, trimmed lawns and freshly painted houses, this neighborhood has it all. What could go wrong?

The fact that Jeffrey Hunter and Patricia Owens were, frankly, not as good in their vocation as their fellow actors, somehow works very well here. They play the new couple in the neighborhood. They're naive, filled with expectations and enthusiastic to make a home in this cozy corner of the suburbs and they manage to give the viewer a similar feeling. We want what they want - the perfect neighbors - supportive friends and caring advisers who still allow us our privacy and our boundaries. That's what this great cast has to offer...they're perfect.

But are they? Skillfully, we begin to catch on to these neighbor's individual character defects. Joanne Woodward, fresh off "Three Faces of Eve", plays her character with her usual complex aplomb. Sheree North and Barbara Rush, two Fifties beauties, are comfortable here with their good looks and their knack for understanding men..or perhaps it's manipulating men? As always, Cameron Mitchell takes his man's man character in an unexpected direction. And Pat Hingle, often the embodiment of stability in his roles, takes it all in stride or does he? Then there's Tony Randall, sidekick of Rock Hudson in all those great light Doris Day comedies. Tony Randall gives us a character we'll never forget...this performance proves Randall was and is a great, great actor.

Four husbands, four wives, eight stunning acting performances. Was the dream offered to us by "Father Knows Best" and Ozzie's family really too good to be true? Maybe not - suburban California is a far cry from the inner city tenements so many of our ancestors dwelt in...Except, this is 1957. The turbulent Sixties are just around the bend. California is about to explode into riots, war protests and hippies searching for the bum trip tent. Besides, you know what they say about something being too good to be true..........

It may not be Peyton Place but this tight-knit Californian community is still plagued by maritial infidelity, heavy drinking, domestic abuse, rape and, of course, racial prejudice. Martin Ritt's "No Down Payment" benefits from being well-written, (Philip Yordan), nicely photographed in black-and-white Cinemascope, (Joseph LaShelle), and it features a good cast of up-and-coming Fox stars headed by Joanne Woodward, (very good), though it's Tony Randall and Pat Hingle who walk off with the picture. Considered very daring and adult in its day, it now seems pretty tame but it did pave the way for a number of 'grown-up' American movies in the late fifties and early sixties and is actually a very good example of its kind. Worth rediscovering.

The script is sharp and at times, poignant, the acting is superb, and the overall impact is overwhelming. It peels the label off of the seemingly happy suburban couples and, in so doing, provides the sharpest snapshot ever put to film about a time and place that no longer exists, the one that was written about by such giants as Updike and Cheever. The only problem with this movie is that it's only shown on TV about once every ten years and it's not available on video. One last comment. After watching this movie, you'll never look at Tony Randall in the same way.

I caught this movie at a film festival at UCLA this week-end. It was excellent. Great screen play and acting. I almost didn't recognize Tony Randall as his nose is suspiciously larger than it seems in later films. Unlike the reviewer who felt this was essentially a "Soap Opera" that was well acted, I think that this film had an obvious dark side. It wasn't just the telling of the business of others, it was the unveiling of the dark underbelly of suburban life. Not for the sake of entertainment, but for the sake of exposure. This movie reminded me a lot of a William Inge play. An expose more-so than a side show. I loved it much more than I expected to.