SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION (1971) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Paul Newman
Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Lee Remick,
Richard Jaeckel, Michael Sarrazin, Linda Lawson
Paul Newman plays Hank Stamper, the hard-headed, beer-guzzling older son in a family of loggers living together in a waterbound fortress somewhere around Coos Bay, Oregon. Henry Fonda plays Henry Stamper, Hank's crotchety old man, and if you think Hank's a hard case, you ain't met Henry. Richard Jaeckel plays cousin Joe Ben, who's found the Lord and a loving wife, and refuses to see the serious side of anything. Michael Sarrazin plays Leland, Hank's half-brother, newly arrived from the East, full of anger and self-pity after a comically botched suicide attempt. There's a strike going on, and all the local loggers are in on it except the Stampers, who have a contract and will make sure they honor it, come hell or high water, which is pretty much what they get. Newman's screen version of the Ken Kesey novel can't capture what Kesey did with prose. What it does capture fairly well is the lifestyle and attitude of loggers and logging towns, and the inherent danger that goes with that line of work. And it works as a character study, with the leads all perfectly cast, including Lee Remick as Hank's wife Viv, a girl from Colorado whose dreams have stalled out in this rain-drenched spot on the Oregon coast. But the movie ultimately belongs to Fonda as the ornery, foul-mouthed patriarch, stomping around banging on doors to wake everybody up at four in the morning and railing against pinkos and Bolsheviks, a philosophical counterpoint to Tom Joad. He might not be on screen at the end, but the grisly, defiant gesture that concludes the film belongs to him, too.
Michael Sarrazin
(1940-2011)
