This engaging film focuses on the changing roles and relationships of eight Vassar graduates during the years before WWII and stars Candice Bergen and Joan Hackett. Important Note: This film has been manufactured from the best-quality video master currently available and has not been remastered or restored specifically for this DVD release.
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Fans of Sidney Lumet and screen adaptations of 20th-century literature may want to check out The Group, a relatively faithful film version of Mary McCarthy’s seminal post-graduate “campus” novel of the same name. The elliptical and rather familiar plot follows a group of young women–all classmates, friends, and recent graduates from a certain single-sex liberal arts college–as they face the inevitable pressures to sand the rough edges off their personalities and to surrender their independence to the men in their lives and the institutions they represent. Lumet (The Verdict, Dog Day Afternoon) lends to this tale his peculiar sense of lighting, pacing, and rich, captivating color, but he directs with a ponderousness and seriousness that the source material perhaps does not deserve, and certainly cannot comfortably withstand. The wedding-funeral framing device employed here is one we’ve all encountered before, and Lumet does not afford his young actresses much latitude of expression or interpretation. Particularly stiff (in her first film role, and, boy, does it show) is Candace Bergen; as Lakey Eastlake, the “beautiful one” among the friends, she’s asked to provide a moral center for the story, yet her scenes are wooden and rarely develop any dramatic momentum. The lovely Elizabeth Hartman fares better as Priss, an innocent whose blunt sexual initiation still feels harrowing. Amid the gravity of the proceedings, an ensemble cast (which includes, among others, Joan Hackett, Shirley Knight, and Joanna Pettet) strains to replicate the searing wit of McCarthy’s prose; and, in several winning scenes, the script preserves some fine examples of her dialogue. Nevertheless, the source novel–by no means War and Peace–doubtlessly would have benefited from a lighter touch. –Miles Bethany
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December 28, 2010
#1
A class-act soap opera – brilliantly staged.,
This version of Lumet’s THE GROUP is presented in the original 1:66 to 1 aspect ratio – however the DVD is letterboxed instead of anamorphiccally enhanced for 16:9 television screens. Fox/MGM on demand DVDs would do well to follow suit with the WARNER BROS. archive collection and present their widescreen films progressively scanned, and with anamorphic enhancement. I would expect that scope films in their catalogue (like TRAPEZE and TWO FOR THE SEESAW) are anamorphic, or there will be further customer complaints at their price point. That said, the print used is acceptable and true to the theatrical look of the picture.
As for the film, it’s a superb soap opera, thanks to Sidney Buchman’s excellent adaptation of the Mary McCarthy novel. The character vignettes are energetic, and combine for a telling mosaic of the decade preceding World War II. The performances are perceptive ones, and by the time the picture is over, you’re convinced that these characters have honestly evolved. Photographed by Boris Kaufmann with a handsome clarity. Sharp and smart.
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|December 28, 2010
#2
COMPELLING ODDITY,
Sidney Lumet gives this movie a glossy sheen, and it is certainly dated with a sense of pretension. However, the story, about a group of lberal-educated women in the 30s/40s, is fascinating in its truly bold depiction of issues rarely raised in the movies of the 50s and 60s. The issues these women confront as they weave themselves into ordinary life play like a prequel to Valley Of The Dolls — with some camp intact. Jessica Walter plays her frigid society girl to the hilt, while Shirley Knight has a gorgeous glow as perhaps the most humane member of the group. The costumes and art direction are much more 50s/60s than 30s chic — and this detracts from the story, which is infinitely more compelling and even shocking knowing that these women — who speak freely of communism and lesbianism — are essentially products of a Depression-era college. Still, what fun to peek into the living quarters of these Manhattanites, and watch the soap suds rise.
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|December 28, 2010
#3
amazon has unfortunately managed to butcher this hard to find masterpiece,
When viewing the DVD, I was mystified and appalled to see that the film, which was not made originally in widescreen due to director Sidney Lumet’s general dislike for that process, has been visually mutilated to make it appear to have been “letterboxed”. What kind of perverse thinking is this? How disrespectful to this brilliant film’s legendary director!I love this film so much, I’m keeping it anyway, however I am extremely disappointed…
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