Jeunes Gens en colère

As I just watched Wild Seed (1965), I wanted to try with another movie where Michael Parks looked his best and I found it. Someone here compared it with Plan 9 From Outer Space by Ed Wood...C'mon! It's not that terrible. That's an exaggeration. Plan 9 is senseless and terribly acted. Hilariously horrible, though.

The Idol is not the best movie, but not the worse. I love that it was shot in London. The problem here is that I never understood the motivation behind The Idol (Parks). And I believe it's a problem with the script. They don't hint why he is self-destructive and obnoxious towards people around. As some reviewer said here, James Dean had a reason behind his rebelliousness. Here, we're left with nothing, but a bad taste.

I thought I was going to hate Jennifer Jones' character, but then, I kind of understood her point of view of a repressed woman from a different era, who felt a bit thrown-off by the modern generation and their liberties. It was an interesting and entertaining story, but without much explanation by the end.

Academy Award Winner Jennifer Jones replaced the great Kim Stanley in this British made film. Jennifer Jones husband David Selznick who both created Jennifer Jones as a world famed star and controlled Ms. Jones' career to just about an Obsession had just died and Jennifer Jones per reports took this film on sudden notice. Michael Parks in interviews noted that He- Mr. Parks-suggested Jennifer Jones to replace Kim Stanley, and I am glad Joe Levine listened to Michael Parks! Jennifer Jones is fine as always in this movie filmed in brisk black and white. (How those films today seem so special!).

Daniel Petrie who had previously directed another great female star Susan Hayward in the fine 'Stolen Hours' (aka Summer Flight)- also set in Britain- directs Jennifer Jones here, and displays a fine hand.

Jennifer Jones is so good in this film and looking typically stylish one wonders why Jennifer Jones did not work more given her great talent, glamor, beauty, and fame. 'The Idol' did not get the typical for the time Joseph E Levine super charged PR campaign and the film was quickly released to fair reviews. It was really the end of Jennifer's standing as a superstar. What would follow would be the dreadful 'Angel Angel Down We Go', and her cameo in the all star 'Towering Inferno'.

Jennifer Jones did try and get both "Terms of Endarment" ( Shirley MacLaine, and The Jean Harris Story ( Ellen Byrstn) but failed. Jennifer Jones would retire.

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

Michael Parks, like his counterpart Christopher Jones, is no James Dean. Dean had more depth, and underneath his alienation and rebelliousness were a profound vulnerability and a need for approval. Parks' character Marco has none of these redeeming attributes and merely acts as a cold, selfish vehicle of contempt for authority and traditional values, an all too common theme of 60's films. There was also a great flowering of discovery and a burning desire to improve or expand stultified paradigms... There isn't a lot of motivation for Marco's antisocial behavior...other than a deep-seated hatred of women which is insufficiently explained. Though the camera dwells lovingly on his interesting features in close-ups, it leaves a void where there should be some feeling for the character. He purposely destroys all his relationships without cause or merely out of resentment of the overbearing maternal control of his friend Timothy (sympathetically played by John Leyton). His callous seduction of Timothy's dignified but vulnerable mother (Jennifer Jones) is out of all proportion to his fancied slights and particularly nasty after her befriending him despite her initial dislike. It's hard to generate any care for this empty idol, who's ultimate self-destructive acts do even more damage to those who survive him.

Having finally acquired a copy of this film after years of searching, I expected the worst, having heard stories about what a disaster and a piece of trash it is. Instead I found a rather tame, but very dark character study: certainly flawed, but interesting nonetheless and well worth the wait for Jennifer Jones fans. She gives an interesting, complex, disciplined performance, and is very striking looking at this late stage in her career. The movie seems to meander and lose some of its believability from time to time, but it leaves one with a haunted feeling that is hard to shake. Not great stuff, but not the bomb that legend has made it out to be.