Un pugno di polvere

About 15 years ago my daughter (about 13 at the time) and I were surfing channels and got in on the last 30 or 45 minutes of this movie. WOW, I had to own it and finally found it on VHS. A wonderful movie. One of my favorites of this genre.

And Gary Cooper had his own style. This was a bit unlike his other... But he played it to a T... Cooper was a gentleman, and his wife an overbearing witch. His failures result from his being too nice of a guy to make him into the man she wanted him to be. It was wonderful that his daughter found out that he had been happy. And even in that happiness he was still a gentleman.

Gary Cooper plays Joe Chapin, a very successful man turning fifty years old, prodded into state politics by his nagging wife, played by Geraldine Fitzgerald. Chapin shuns the political scene when he finds it going against the standards and principles he lives by. His wife soon makes him feel a loser and he finds solace in the arms of his daughter's roommate, half his age.

Romantic and consuming; from the pen of Philip Dunne. This is an over looked drama shot in black and white. Daughter Ann is played by Diane Varsi and her roommate Kate is played by the lovely Suzy Parker. Also in the cast are Stuart Whitman and Ray Sticklyn.

I found this on YouTube in perfectly crisp black and white 1950's Cinemascope and was gripped by it from beginning to end. Philip Dunne was in my opinion a variable director, but he directed this very well and my other film of his I especially like is ' Hilda Crane ' with Jean Simmons at her best along with Guy Madison who was never better. I mention this because all of the actors in this film are on top form and clearly Dunne knew how to get the best out of actors, which is not that usual as it should be. Gary Cooper is excellent as a man abused in subtle ways and not so subtle ways by others. Geraldine FitzGerald as his aspiring wife is cruel to him beyond belief, but in the eyes of society she has her hands clean. Their marriage due to political disaster for Cooper collapses into marital infidelity. No spoilers but to say that their two children equally suffer, and Diane Varsi ( what a great actor ) as the daughter suffers appallingly. To sum up this is a film about how people can inflict pain and torture and because it is so quietly done and without bloodshed no one intervenes or cares to. Quiet cruelty is simply part of the so-called normal social fabric. A film with depth and should be more widely known than it is. Perhaps it is too saddening in its content to be universally liked, which says a lot about us as human beings.

John O'Hara's best selling novel, described by one critic as 'a brilliant portrait of the personal and political hypocrisy of mid-century America', has been adapted by one of cinema's finest screenplay writers Philip Dunne who also capably directs although he himself admitted that he had 'started directing too late'. Albeit truncated, this version apparently met with the approval of the author.

The political ambitions of leading character Joseph Chapin in the novel have been reduced here and Dunne has opted to develop a brief fling between middle-aged Chapin and Kate Drummond, a woman half his age, into a full blown romance. It must be said that the beautifully understated and sensitive playing of Gary Gooper and lovely Suzy Parker has resulted in one of the most moving and heartbreaking Spring/Autumn affairs ever committed to celluloid.

By all accounts Mr. Cooper jumped at the chance to play the part originally turned down by Spencer Tracy and would no doubt have identified with his character as he had earlier called off his relationship with Patricia Neal and returned to his wife who was hopefully more forgiving that his spouse in this, played by the superlative Geraldine Fitzgerald. There were also distinct echoes of Diane Varsi's own life in her role of Chapin's daughter, having come from a broken home and been twice divorced by the age of twenty one. This talented but fragile artiste suffered a breakdown during filming and was later to quit Fox studios as she felt she was 'heading for destruction'.

Great support from John Emery, Philip Ober, the ill-fated Tom Tully and the inimitable Barbara Nicholls as a party girl. There is a splendid score by Leigh Harline but the confounded Cinemascope format alas proves itself once again totally unsuited to intimacy. The phrase 'they don't make them like that anymore' is used to describe the character of Joe Chapin. It might just as easily refer to Gary Cooper.

The disillusionment, regret and sense of failure depicted here cannot fail to strike a chord with most of us and call to mind Whittier's 'Of all the sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.'

John O'Hara whose Pal Joey was brought to the screen the year before wrote the book Ten North Frederick on which this film is based. For some reason this is a film of Gary Cooper's that is rarely shown any more.

Cooper is the WASP type upper crust patrician who has some political ambition. He's a well respected man in his area, except apparently in his own home.

He's married to a woman who makes Lady MacBeth look like Mary Poppins. Geraldine Fitzgerald steals the acting honors in this film with her portrayal as the exponential shrew of a wife. Though I haven't seen Ten North Frederick in years, it's Fitzgerald's performance that has stayed with me and I suspect will stay with you if the film is ever going to see the light of day.

Diane Varsi and Ray Stricklyn are the rebellious kids in the household who can't quite figure out all the hostility there, but they not something is radically wrong. Suzy Parker plays Varsi's friend with whom Cooper has a midlife crisis affair with. Believe me when you see Fitzgerald in this film, you won't blame Cooper in the slightest.

Ten North Frederick set the standard for John O'Hara type soap operas and I'm surprised no one picked up on this one. With some updating this could easily be a plot for a prime time soap opera pilot.