Jeunes Gens en colère

The great Kim Stanley had been cast in the Jennifer Jones part and like so many times before, Kim Stanley was replaced at the last minute. The year is 1966, Daniel Petrie, a director without a clear, personal vision, he renders homage to some of the truly greats of its day. Antonioni comes to mind. As an interesting piece of trivia, take notice of Michael Parks. He was Adam in John Huston's "The Bible" and the sheriff in Kill Bill Volume 1 and a double role in Kill Bill Volume 2. The Idol, is one of those pointless films that becomes a sort of guilty pleasure with the passing of time.

The Idol was announced and starring Michael Parks and Kim Stanley. Ms. Stanley withdrew from the film and Parks is on record recommending Jennifer Jones- a true superstar - of the 1940's and 1950's with such hits as The Song Of Bernadette, Duel In The Sun, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing. Jennifer had not appeared on the movie screens since 1962 with the starring role in Tender Is The Night which was an obsession of her late husband and Svengali David Selznick. Jennifer was beautiful and was a glamour star of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Jennifer's husband David Selznick was negotiating with Ross Hunter to star Jennifer in one of Hunter's soap operas that were so popular : Imitation Of Life ( Lana Turner) Back. Street (Susan Hayward )etc. Jennifer and Ross Hunter seemed to me to be the perfect combination. However Sekznick died and. Jennifer was offered this role and had to quickly make up her mind. There was also an offer to join Stephen Boyd in he Oscar at Paramount

The Idol was Directed by Daniel Petrie The Idol moves along well with the attraction of Parks to Jennifer Jones. Filmed in gorgeous black and white in England, Jennifer gives her always intelligent performance. The film was distributed by Embassy Pictures and faded quickly from the movie audiences.

Jennifer was molded and promoted by David Selznick into a world famous superstar with the films cited above and also with great roles in Since YouWent Away, Madame Bovary, and a remake with Rock Hudson in A Farewell To Arms.

Jennifer stayed off the screen for 5 years from 1957 to 1962-too long for a major star. Compounding this was a very difficult private life: Her first husband Robert Walker died at age 32 from a combination of drugs, Walker never got over losing Jennifer to Selznick, JJ had a difficult relationship with one of her sons Michael, and a disastrous relationship with her daughter Mary Jennifer who committed suicide shortly after Mother's Day from a skyscraper overlooking the 20th Century Fox backlot where Jennifer made many of her films such as The Song Of Bernadette, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, Tender Is The Night and The Towering Inferno among others,.

Jennifer Jones was a fine actress and one wished she had worked more especially in the later part of her career to take her mind off her personal troubles.

See The Idol to see a fine actress at work. Parks is very fine

It looks like a parboiled cross between Douglas Sirk and Michelangelo Antonioni ,with a touch of French nouvelle vague thrown in for good measure.It depicts a spoilt youth playing with trash.None of the young actors became a star afterward,which is easily understandable;for instance,John Layton was supposed to play nineteen-year old Jones' son,and he was already 27 (!) at the time if IMDb informations are accurate.

Jennifer Jones is the only reason why you would watch this boring "psychological" melodrama.She had already worked in GB for "gone to earth" (1949)but Daniel Petrie cannot hold a candle to Michael Powell.Her character(a still attractive middle-age woman who falls for a two-bit James Dean) is nothing short of worthless:only the open ending might make this part a bit original ,but it's too little too late.

One scene is particularly unpleasant nay obnoxious:the would-be drunk idol asks a prostitute to "evaluate" the girls of the party.

After a four-year absence, Jennifer Jones finally returned to the screen in the 1966 indie British flick The Idol. Her character was randomly supposed to be American, even though she spoke in an affected accent, used English expressions, and had an English son, John Leyton. I wonder why she took the role, unless she happened to be vacationing in England at the time and thought it would be fun to attend a couple of onscreen parties. She also doesn't do much actual acting until her big finale in the second half of the movie. If you love Jonesy like I do and are thinking of turning it off in the beginning because it doesn't seem to feature her at all, you might want to stick it through for her big dramatic scene.

If you don't, though, you're not missing a quality movie. You're missing a low-budget, indie British movie that wouldn't stand the test of time even if anyone remembered it. Jonesy is protective over her son and makes a lot of decisions for him, because he's pretty spineless and never stands up for himself. He has a bad-boy friend, Michael Parks, who thinks he should leave the nest and let Jonesy fend for herself. He dislikes her immediately, and the feeling is mutual. She thinks he's crude, cheap, and disrespectful. Michael is a total recreation of James Dean. At one point, he even staggers towards another character, anguished, with his hands offered like in the "take the money" scene from East of Eden. If he or the director intended an imitation, it was very good. If he just wanted to be his own sexy bad boy in the 1960s, he also succeeded. It would take a lot of guts and rebelliousness to try and seduce Jennifer Jones in 1966. She's wealthy, cultured, mature, and old enough to be his mother - so what does he have to offer? A lot of sex appeal and a daring glint in his eye for her to try and tame him.

If you like films like Alfie and Room at the Top, try this out. You'll probably get a new crush out of it, even if it won't be your new favorite movie. Indie movies in the 1960s weren't known for being wonderful.

This is the worst film I have ever seen - Michael Parks' performance as a tortured artist is so bad it practically surpasses criticism and moves into another zone where terms like "ham", "pretentious" and "posturing" seem barely adequate to impart the true awfulness that is his portrayal. I first saw it one night in a hotel bedroom in Portugal when I couldn't sleep ;after 5 minutes my instinct was to turn it off but I then developed a morbid and masochistic desire to see if the rest of the film could get worse than the few minutes I had already seen - it did not disappoint! Such was my disbelief that anyone would finance such meretricious tripe that I actually spent time trying to find out the title to enable me to tell my friends! (I missed the starting titles and thankfully fell asleep before the end). Move over Plan Nine From Outer Space and The Swarm - This is a turkey the size of Turkey!