Dois na Gangorra

Shirley MacLaine (with an unconvincing New York accent that wavers constantly) plays a free-spirited beatnik who falls for a soon-to-be divorced attorney who's just moved to the big city to find himself. The film feels about a half hour too long and the pacing slugs along like molasses pouring out of a jar. MacLaine's character also suffers from terrible ulcers which leads to some seriously overdone melodrama towards the end of the film where she's acting like she's about to die of consumption. It makes everything cheesy. At least the ending is fairly realistic and not what one would expect from a film from the 60s.

Maybe the play was better?

The frustrating loop-de-loops of an uncertain love relationship between a Greenwich Village kook-dancer and a Midwestern suit-and-tie lawyer on the verge of divorcing his wife of 12 years. Though highly entertaining, this light-drama obviously derives from a play, as the lines of dialogue have not been reworked for the screen. It gets awfully pedantic at times; for instance, we know the characters' names, they know their names, so why do they keep saying to each other, "Jerry?", "Yes, Gittel?" "I'm sorry, Jerry." "I know, Gittel." The performances by Shirley MacLaine and Robert Mitchum are excellent (we like them even before their self-doubting, insecure characters take shape), but this stage-vehicle hasn't been turned into a star-vehicle. The leads banter back and forth in a curiously under-populated vacuum, however their increasingly tense conversations contain the startling ring of truth. Ted McCord's black-and-white cinematography provides a terrific compensation for the film's minor weaknesses; André Previn's "Apartment"-like score is rapturous as well. *** from ****

Recently got a chance to see this movie and thought the performances by Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine were great. Especially like the part that Shirley MacLaine played. I am not to used to seeing Robert Mitchum in roles like this but thought he did well. He plays a man going through a divorce who meets a younger woman played by Shirley Maclaine. Having both different life experiences they somehow try to make their new relationship work. I gave this film an 8 out 10 and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was this good. Read in another post that at the time of this films release critics didn't think that Mitchum's role was believable enough because of perhaps the age difference. I had no problem with buying into this story and the actors that portrayed the characters. Good Movie!

There are no special effects, no graphic sex........just GREAT ACTING. I could watch movies like this all day and night. Shirley McLaine is at her best.......Robert Mitchum is........well...Robert Mitchum............did you know he smoked pot quite a bit? Anyway, give me two excellent actors and a great script over blowing up buses and the latest and greatest computer graphics any day. (ie; SHREK) I was home sick and forced to watch this, which is how i see many of my movies. two thumbs up. I think she(Shirley McLaine) was nominated for an Oscar for this or did she win an Oscar? I love good black and white movies. It engaged me from the beginning to the end.

This film is a good example of why I love black & white movies.

Director Wise, cinematographer Ted McCord, and production

designer Boris Leven craft light, shadow, and line into two hours of

absolutely lovely images, making the most of such elements as

the contrast between MacLaine's hair, eyes, and skin, and the

juxtaposition of the hard lines of doorframes and shadows with

the softness of rumpled fabric and fluid dancer's movement. (And I

loved the split set.) Total eye candy for B&W lovers, and an

incidental, abrupt reminder of what a beautiful woman the young

Shirley was.

Unfortunately, the script seems very dated here in the twenty-first

century. The characters' relationship is frustrating, and (reported

offscreen chemistry notwithstanding) MacLaine and Mitchum look

very much mismatched. (Supposedly it was originally to be Liz

Taylor and Paul Newman. I can't see Liz here, but a MacLaine- Newman pairing could have been hot. But we'll never know.) I

found MacLaine's character to be much more believable--more

rounded, containing more nuance--than Mitchum's. While this

seems mostly the script's fault, I do feel that MacLaine here brings

more quirky humanity to her work than does Mitchum (who I like

very much in general).

"Seesaw" stands out for me as one of those films that, because of

its meticulous attention to visual detail, becomes an archetypal

period piece as it ages--firmly among the films everyone making a

movie set in the early 1960s should study carefully.