Du haut de la terrasse

I guess they butchered the book to keep the movie within 2 hours. The book has subtleties and plots that make this an INTERESTING chronicle of life in the 20th century for a typical upper class white male. This movie is not interesting. This features a good cast -- Newman and Woodward and Patrick O'Neal. Newman takes the harder path to success, wins the girl of his dreams (Woodward) and should live happily ever after. For some reason he falls head over heels with a girl 20 years his junior and his wife decides at the same time to return to college boyfriend O'Neal. The movie somehow manages to make Woodward look like a tramp and Newman like a long-suffering man. In reality they are both cheating. So I guess hollywood couldn't admit that there was a guaranteed network of prep school and clubs for the white protestant male. They had to rewrite the book to make it appear like Newman struggled. Then the entire WW2 sequence so important to the plot of the book is skipped which means we have a happy ending instead of a man who ends up a pathetic loser.

Screenplay based on a novel by John O'Hara in 1958. One of a dozen films Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward did as husband and wife. They stayed married until Newman died in 2008. The film cost $3 million and grossed $5 million. So it was major deal in those days but was not a runaway success. There was quite a lot of adult content for the time which was surprising. It was certainly apt for the time but all the concern about divorce makes it a period piece but an accurate period piece. I find all the filming on sets restrictive as I am spoiled by modern location and outdoor shooting. Although it is certainly not a great work. Will give it a solid 7. RECOMMEND

As both From The Terrace and The Young Philadelphians have their original settings in the City of Brotherly Love and they both star Paul Newman and they have similar plot situations, it's easy to confuse them. I often do and have to correct myself.

From The Terrace derives from one John O'Hara's less critically received work and for that I fail to see why. The film and I'm sure the novel has some interesting things to say about American values and success. Breaking it down for the film version it's almost as if two books were written with the vaguest connection in plot. The first part is young Newman coming home after World War II service and finding things worse between his unhappily married parents. They've fallen out of love, mother Myrna Loy drinks like a fish and sleeps around, and Leon Ames has never gotten over the death in childhood of Newman's brother and became mean and embittered. That's a scene he leaves first to go into business with navy buddy George Grizzard and then after a fortuitous event I won't mention becoming a wolf of Wall Street with very family values oriented financier Felix Aylmer.

Along the way the parental issues drop away and Newman marries spoiled rich girl Joanne Woodward. He doesn't tend to the marriage and it becomes as loveless as his parent's. She starts spending time with old flame psychiatrist Patrick O'Neal and he eventually finds some true love in Ina Balin.

It must have been an interesting acting challenge for the Newmans to play a loveless couple, in many respects their greatest acting job for this Hollywood couple of long standing. Joanne really ratchets it up playing the rich princess who wants it all and damn the hypocrisy.

Felix Aylmer has an interesting role, one that thank God we see fewer and fewer of. An employer who finds divorce the worst thing in the world, he sees it as a business contract two people enter into. Just live up to it, no matter how unhappy both partners might feel. Newman's rival in the firm is Howard Caine who is in the firm because he is Aylmer's son-in-law. Caine is a real bottom feeder and not above a little stealing on his own just as long as respectable appearances are preserved.

Leon Ames who is usually a nice man really does an against type part here playing the bitter industrial tycoon. And Myrna Loy usually the perfect wife, well imagine if William Powell's drinking in the Thin Man had led to all kinds of physical and mental abuse and Nora Charles started drinking and catting around, you've got what Loy does with the role of Newman's mother.

From The Terrace is a bit old fashioned, but quite a commentary on its times and the cast does well by O'Hara's work.

As a youngster, I saw Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in person, a few years after they finished this picture, in New York. They were appearing on Broadway in a comedy called "Baby Want A Kiss," and I was passing by Sardi's on 44th Street, I believe. First to come out was drop dead gorgeous Joanne, still wearing her FROM THE TERRACE hairstyle (shoulder-length pageboy flip) & dark movie star sunglasses, accompanied by two men in suits. She ignored the crowd who screamed, "Joanne, over here!" "Hi, Joanne!" Next, Paul Newman came out (two suited men on either side) as he held a cocktail glass in his hand. Obviously on his fourth or fifth drink, he looked like Alfred Eaton in TERRACE. But, unlike Joanne, he smiled and flashed the bluest eyes I've ever seen! He even toasted the screaming crowd. Women AND men were fainting unashamedly.

Personally, I loved FROM THE TERRACE. I was just fascinated by all the glamour, wealth, sex, adultery and sheer drama (especially between Leon Ames (Paul's father) and Newman.

Joanne as Mary St. John was a stone nympho, similar to Susanne Pleshette's over-sexed character in another John O'Hara book-to-film, A RAGE TO LIVE.

It was just a joy to see Woodward wear all those fabulous clothes and look spectacular in those hairdos and 60's makeup (it was all in the eyes!) After getting propositioned on the dance floor, Mary rebuked the man who knew "all about her..." donned a tremendously long white satin coat and "floated" like a regal queen to the limo (hair in a French Roll and a tiara!) Gorgeous.

Yes, she was an adulteress, but what was a "hungry" girl like her to do when her husband didn't want to touch her?

This movie should get more attention now, and it should have gotten more attention when it was released, because it's a good one. I liked the script, even though it's a little bit melancholic at times, it still works. Paul Newman's performance was on a level, a classy one (there's no other way you can play this kind of character, because it wasn't a kind of troublemaker or a bad boy character, which is what got attention at the time this movie was released), Joanne Woodward was good too.

The Story is treated fairly, it doesn't get boring at any specific point, and the ending is a dramatic one.

The problem is that it is hard to find it, most of the people that have seen it, have done so from the cable.

And for those who have enjoyed this one i would strongly recommend Paul Newman's "The Young Philadelphians" (1959), - absolutely ignore the ratings and give it a shot.