Le propriétaire

As one of the scruffy underdog filmmakers of the 1970s- who's career unfortunately faltered in the 80s before his untimely death at 59- Hal Ashby was good at taking a set of characters and a particular idea or theme and getting under the surface just enough to make a mark, while also keeping it an oddly entertaining and accessible as a picture for the art houses. Also, it shows Ashby coming out of his cocoon of editing jobs (he even won an Oscar, for Jewison's In the Heat of the Night) by giving the Landlord a very particular rhythm. Many times he'll just let a scene play out, giving the actors the freedom to work with the script their way, and then other times he'll implement montage- or just a subliminal cut-away (or not so subliminal, as Lee Grant envisions an African tribe going to the Park Slope building, and a whole pack of black babies upon hearing about a little 'accident' her step-son caused late in the film).

I was really struck by how he uses experimentation for equal uses of humor, abstraction, and to just feel out the mood of the character(s) in the scene. Like when Brides runs to meet with Lanie at her school, and it's inter-cut with images from Fanny at her apartment, and Lanie, and a couple of other things. It can be called 'European'- and Ashby was an admitted fan of Godard's- but it feels unique to the sensibility of the production and the 'radical' feeling of the period. Meanwhile, Ashby has the best photography back up a first-time director could ask for: Gordon Willis and Michael Chapman, who give the film a look sometimes of lightness, especially when Elgar is at the family home and the walls are all a bland white, or seem to be; then other times they light it darker, like in a more intimate setting like Elgar and Lanie out by the beach at night, or just when at the Park Slope apartment. A scene especially with Elgar and Fanny is effective, not simply because she actually comments on how the red light makes her look a certain way- it's the timing of the actors, the awkward but strong sexual tension, and the red light, and the soft soul music coming up, that makes it one of the best scenes Ashby's ever filmed, thanks to the right team.

If the style verges on being a little "dated" here and there, like in the opening minutes as Elgar talks to the camera and says what he intends to do with the tenement, or those extreme close-ups of Elgar kissing with Lanie (which are quite striking on their own), its attitude towards the pure human problems of race haven't diminished that much. I liked seeing Bridges, who is spot-on as the total naive future yuppie who's heart is in the right place but confused how to really go about it as the new landlord, interact with the other apartment dwellers, their 'welcoming' by chasing him away with a flowered pot in his hands, or at the party when after getting him good and drunk tell him what it's really all about in first-person takes. And most of all it's funny and challenging to see, especially during a tense period around 1969 when it was filmed, how essential decency on either side of the race coin could get complicated by love and lust, of the rich family understandably not understanding how Elgar could go through this- not to mention the eventual 'mixed' dating and the pregnancy- and at the same time the tenees never totally knowing why, aside from foolish design ambitions, wanted to run the place to start with.

The best laughs end up coming from the awkward moments, and the obvious ones, as the subtle moments are meant to be more quiet and the 'big' laughs to come from the interaction of not just in terms of race but class; watch as everyone in the building uses the drapes from Joyce (Lee Grant in a well deserved Oscar nom performance) as clothes and head-dressing, or when Joyce has some pot liquor with Marge, who knows her better than her own family probably does. And who can resist the NAACP joke? Or a throwaway joke about dressing up as a historical figure for a costume ball? Ashby and his writers (both screenwriter and novelist were African-Americans) know not to slam every point home either, which uplifts the comedy to an honest playing field, which means that when a scene like the quasi-climax when Copee finds out about the pregnancy and flips out with an ax at Elgar it's not really all that jokey, when it easily could've been played as such for an exploitation effect. Only the very ending, which feels complicated by a sort of need to tidy things up with Elgar, Janie and the baby, feels sort of forced (not helped by the end song, not too ironic, called God Bless the Children).

But as it stands, the Landlord is provocative fun, if that makes sense, as it works as cool satire, led by sure-fire performances (Bridges has rarely been this good at being true to a mostly unsympathetic character), and it points the way for a career that the director would have where oddball slices of life wouldn't mean there wasn't larger points being made. It's one of the best bets as an obscure find a film-buff can have from 1970.

Certainly one of the Top 10 films of 1970, this ingenious comedy directed by Hal Ashby has never gotten the recognition it so deserves. Beau Bridges in this and Gaily, Gaily showed what a wonderful young actor he was, every bit as good as his brother, but never made that Star leap. Lee Grant (one of the best) is coy and cunning and wonderful as Bridges' mother and Diana Sands is heartbreaking, with excellent work from Lou Gossett and Pearl Bailey.

Great music and a topical plot, you can't help but get involved with this rich young man's "plight". One of Ashby's better films. A high 8 out of 10. Best performance = Lee Grant.

Our hero here is Elgar Winthrop Julius Enders (Beau Bridges), age 29, a White, rich, and very naïve man who, much to the disgust of his hateful bourgeoisie family, cheerily buys a rundown urban tenement building, filled with Black, poor, and very sophisticated adults and street-wise kids. Elgar thus sets himself up to be caught in the middle of an inevitable culture clash.

Director Hal Ashby creates a cinematic social commentary suited to the late 1960s and early 70s that is both comedic and thoughtful. Elgar's tenement dwellers wrestle with serious issues, like how to pay the rent. Elgar's snobbish mother worries about what Elgar wears to an elitist banquet. The plot doesn't "flow" in a traditional way; instead, it feels "jerky"; long scenes are followed by very short scenes, followed again by long scenes, and so on.

This change in rhythm, brought about by cross-cutting, amplifies ironic contrasts between these two social classes. The resulting editing is satisfying in that the comedy takes the edge off of the anger attendant to the more serious subtext. This film style works well until the final twenty minutes when the plot becomes too heavy handed and alarming. The bow and arrow scene in the middle is okay, but the fearful ax scene toward the end, sans humor, is not okay because it disrupts tonal balance.

Ashby also wanted the cinematography to be darker in the tenement scenes than in Elgar's aristocratic family segments. The result is cinematography so dark in ghetto interior scenes I could sometimes not distinguish people from furniture.

Casting and acting are quite acceptable. The standout performance is Diana Sands as Fanny, "Miss Sepia of 1957". And then there's wonderful Pearl Baily; I never realized she had been that young looking.

Social commentary films do not usually age well. And "The Landlord" certainly shows its age. I kept expecting a Simon and Garfunkel song at almost any moment.

Overall, this film is an enjoyable throwback to a bygone era of hippies, social consciousness and the generation gap. It has its flaws, but hippie Ashby gets his message across effectively, owing to an adroit mix of seriousness and humor.

After 33 years things have certainly changed but this film still touches on issues that were very controversial back then and even now some of the events that take place are subject to debate. This story is about a young white entrepreneur named Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges) and he buys a New York tenement in a ghetto with plans on having the tenants move out so he can renovate it into his own place to live. He moves in and meets Marge (Pearl Bailey) who tells him about the people that live there and he finds out that many of the tenants owe back rent for several months. Elgar also meets Franny (Diana Sands) and they both seem to like each other but she is in love with Copee (Louis Gossett Jr.) who doesn't like Elgar and is always threatening him. Elgar gets a lot of flack from his parents and his mother Joyce (Lee Grant) who doesn't understand him says she will help him with new curtains. Elgar meets a light skinned black woman named Lanie (Marki Bey) and he falls in love and wants to marry her but Franny shows up at his door one day and tells him that she is pregnant with his child.

This film was directed by the great Hal Ashby who makes his directorial debut after spending many years working as an editor. Ashby had worked on some of Norman Jewison's films and the two had become good friends. Jewison wanted to help Ashby on his first film and he was one of the producers. The script is sharply written and each character is very well detailed so that by the end of the film the viewer has a good understanding of each of them. The script does tackle racism and its look at on both perspectives of whites and blacks. Ashby uses colors to make points like the all white house and white clothing that the Enders have while the run down tenement that is occupied by mainly black residents has mainly gray tones with some of the interior shots having red. Along with the sharp script and direction this film has several very good performances in it. Lee Grant picked up an Oscar Nomination for her funny role as Bridges mother and the scene with her and Pearl Bailey is a classic. Bailey was making a rare film appearance and she would only appear in one more film until her death. Arguably the best performance comes from Sands. She shows so many layers to her character Franny and if a role ever deserved an Oscar Nomination it was this one. She's terrific here and sadly she would pass away from cancer only 4 years later. Bridges was still a very young actor when he was cast and even though he hadn't yet developed into the fine actor that he is today his performance is still sincere. Several up and coming actors appear in small roles like Susan Anspach, Robert Klein, Gloria Hendry, Trish Van Devere and Hector Elizondo. After all the time that has passed this film still comes across as poignant and pertinent.

Gentrification is one of the issues covered in this comedy-drama. The plot also covers post-Civil Rights era feelings, race relations, and class distinctions. Elgar is a clueless 30 year old rich boy who thinks he's going to turn a Harlem tenement into a bachelor pad. The poor and working class African-Americans who live there will not be displaced so easily. There are good performances all around, especially by Lee Grant and the late Diana Sands. Robert Klein has a small role as a party guest at Elgar's parent's house who shows up in blackface.