Move
1970
There are films that endure the test of time
and place and seem to reach the heart and head in any
country or decade because they zip along with some
combination of witty dialogue, interesting characters,
lofty ideas, poignant moments and cleverly constructed
plots.
Move is not one of those films.
It was made in 1970, and there it stayed, along with
go-go dancers, Laugh-In, and its star, Eliot Gould. He
seemed to be in just about every 1970 movie. Thanks to
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, as well as Robert
Altman's M*A*S*H, Gould inexplicably became the hottest
property in Hollywood, although he was not an especially
attractive man nor a very versatile performer. His
entire schtick seemed to consist of leering and mumbling
sardonically, skills which were tailor-made for Altman's
universe, but which traveled outside that realm with
difficulty. A little of that went a long way. It just
didn't work here.
Gould plays Hiram Jaffe, a 30-something New Yorker who
aspires to be a legitimate playwright. In the meantime,
he walks dogs and writes soft-core romance novels to
play the bills. In his frustration over his
lagging career and the ennui of his domestic life, he
turns to fantasies. This presents a major problem for
the film. The distinction between his fantasy life and
reality may have been clear in the mind of the
scriptwriter, but it certainly isn't clear to the
viewer, which makes the film difficult to follow, and
continually prompts a reaction of "Did that happen, or
did he imagine that?"
The entire film takes place during a couple of days in
Hiram's life, during which he is trying to move from one
apartment to another. The mover is a mysterious man
whose telephone conversations indicate that he seems to
know every detail of Hiram's life, although the two have
never met. Hiram's attempt to meet with the man and/or
get him to commit to a specific moving time is the
driving force of the alleged plot. In the course of the
film, that mover makes those mysterious all-knowing
phone calls to Hiram, visits Hiram's wife, and
ultimately steals all of Hiram's furniture. Or does he?
Does any of that actually happen? Does some of it
happen? Or is it all in Hiram's head? Just who is this
mysterious mover, and what is he supposed to symbolize?
Similarly, Hiram may or may not have an amatory
adventure with a strange woman he meets in the park
(played by Genevieve Waite, the mother of Bijou
Phillips) , may or may not foil a burglary with the
assistance of his faithful St. Bernard, and may or may
not have a series of adventures with a persnickety
mounted policeman.
The viewer neither knows nor cares. Although the film
runs an economical 90 minutes, the pace is so languid,
the nature of reality is so blurry, and Gould is so
laid-back, that the film seems as long and static as
that Andy Warhol film which is just eight hours of a
stationery camera trained on the Empire State Building.
(How did Andy know when that film was finished? I'm
guessing he just ran out of film.) Gould's character
comes across as a whiny, white-privileged jerk who has
every component necessary for happiness, but has trouble
dealing with petty annoyances (ooh, I'm so bored with
married life and I need a bigger apartment). His
concerns, and the movie's themes, seemed banal and
unimportant in an era when most people were concerned
with serious global issues like Vietnam, Civil Rights,
Charles Manson, and the generation gap inspired by the
new counter-culture.
Plus the movie is supposed to be a comedy, but just
isn't funny.
Move bombed at the box office, despite the alleged draw
of Gould's star power. Nothing fails worse than a
confusing, unfunny comedy. While the film was merely
tedious, the aftermath of the film bordered on, then
reached the level of tragedy.
- Gould swore never to work with director Stuart
Rosenberg again, characterizing him as a nice man
and a competent professional who just didn't "get"
comedy. (A pretty fair appraisal, in my estimation.)
Rosenberg did not need to grasp humor in order to be
successful. He was able to direct some successful,
acclaimed and laughless films. He had already
directed Cool Hand Luke before Move, and would later
achieve some box office success with The Amityville
Horror, and some critical love with The Pope of
Greenwich Village.
- Joel Lieber, the author of the screenplay and the
eponymous novel upon which Move was based, was not
so fortunate. He also abandoned comedy and wrote a
depressing novel, Two Way Traffic, which was a
thinly disguised version of his own unhappy life.
Shortly after completing that novel, and within a
year after the film version of Move was released,
Joel Lieber jumped out of his high-rise Manhattan
apartment. As his friends and family told the story,
his girlfriend and her mother were sipping coffee on
the terrace when Joel walked past them wordlessly,
simply stepped into the air, and plunged to the
sidewalk below. Like the Eliot Gould character in
this movie, he seemed to have a great life spoiled
by self-pity and "white people problems."
Eliot Gould does hirsute rear nudity.
Paula Prentiss also posed topless in a
bathtub with Gould for a promo picture (the bathtub
scene is in the film, but no naughty body parts are
exposed).
And Genevieve Waite exposed the top
of her butt for another promo still.
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