Il giorno della locusta

For many years John Schlesinger's "Day of the Locust" was *that* movie with a character named Homer Simpson and that earned Burgess Meredith his first Oscar nomination one year before his second one for "Rocky". Apart from that if you told me the film was really about an apocalyptic invasion of grasshoppers, I would have believed you.

Simply said, "The Day of the Locust" is like a giant hallucination put into screen, certainly one of the most bizarre pieces of film-making of the 70s adapted from a 1939 novel by Nathaniel West about a certain moral degradation of America incarnated by Hollywood and its cohorts of delusional outcasts at the eve of World War II. Like the decadent Roman Empire before its downfall, or a modern Sodoma whose daily sunshine provides the illusion of a heaven in what might be the most hellish place to be.

This is a place indeed where people are so self-centered they let automatic sprinklers do the job, turning in mechanical nonchalance all day long in a way that mirrors their own monotonous routine, where the dregs of a falling society gather to fulfill some crazy dreams to make up for the broken ones, an existential dumping ground. In these Great Depression days, Los Angeles was an oasis for the Okies or wannabe starlets, the Mecca of cinema, the one industry that didn't suffer the crisis and yet the uncompromising portrait painted by Schlesinger is as gloomy and depressing as a close-up on a Goya painting.

It's hard to reduce "Locust" to a plot, this is more a series of dispatched events that involve different characters who meet together, interact, kiss, make love, express themselves to their most pathetic, authentic and awkward way and leave us viewers with interrogations we try to reassemble like pieces of a big nightmarish picture.

William Atherton who wasn't yet the cool-to-hate jerk of his 80s roles plays a handsome and ambitious set designer, assigned to storyboard a movie about the battle of Waterloo, which foreshadows a lot when you think about it. He picks a little bungalow called the 'Earthquake' one for the still non-repaired cracks on the wall and meets his neighbor, a poor man's Jean Harlow named Faye Greener and played by Karen Black; the first thing she sees in Todd is that he hasn't a car, she's the kind of woman who wouldn't pick any man but one that can make her feel important or with enough money to provide the illusion of luxury. She wants to make it big in Hollywood, whatever she lacks in acting, she makes up in pretension.

Her father Harry is a con-artist played by Meredith; every morning he visits houses, dancing and playing his little shtick to sell an elixir, he elicits a few smiles first but once the bottle shows up, exasperation ensues and doors are closed on his face. His performance (truly Oscar-worthy) says one thing: people can handle the oddest things but they're exiled in that very place for taking, not giving. There's something in his eyes filled with sorrow and lucidity, but he's got to stick to his routine, without it, he better be dead.

Speaking for giving, there's still a man who manages to be an outcast among the outcasts, Donald Sutherland is so heart-breaking as a meek accountant full of repressed feelings, that I didn't even laugh when he introduced himself. He accepts to sponsor Faye, chaperoning her so she can fulfill her dream, but it's a foregone conclusion that she will cheat on him, at least Tod had the merit of being rejected. What Faye sees in Homer is perhaps the fact that he sees something in her, he satisfies her narcissism and that's a good alternative for love.

There are other bizarre people who populate that pit of repulsiveness: an aggressive macho dwarf (Abe Kushish), an androgynous child, a religious bigot (Geraldine Page), the gallery is made of people who're all so genuinely insane that the closest to that implausible world is either a madhouse or hell... or maybe in a place where dreams are sold in form of movies, the human leftovers build their own reality through their delusion, a sort of isolation from the norm that turns L. A. into a purgatory. And at the end it all implodes in the way of a climax that is so brutally conceived, so graphic that the fact that the novel was written in 1939 takes its full meaning. But let's not overthink it, we're talking about the film.

When it ended, I kept scratching my head... would I watch it again? I don't think so. Is it a bad film? Far from it. Well acted? Certainly one of the best performances from Sutherland. Too many bizarre people? That was the year "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" won the Oscar. So what went wrong? Nothing, the film was a vision, had a vision, was based on a vision and not all the visions are promised to posterity, and maybe not the most nightmarish ones. I enjoyed the film to the degree that it kept hooking me from beginning to end but so did a masterpiece like "Freaks" and it wasn't a pleasant experience.

It's very telling that one year after, Schlesinger made a standard thriller with "Marathon Man", as if himself too had to get "Locust" off his head, as if that was the kind of creation you can't emerge totally unscathed from it. A strange film really that I'm in no hurry to watch it again... but I'm glad I did... for the performances of Meredith and Sutherland and for the relevance of the story.

One could certainly remake the novel and adapt it to our social-network era and the poisoning narcissism Internet generated... it so happens that yesterday I had the thought that our world was screwed, if anything, one should make a "Day of the Locust" for the 2020s.

Many critics consider The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West to be the best novel ever written about Hollywood. The screen version directed by John Schlesinger and written by Waldo Salt is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book to film ever made. Initially overlooked upon it's release in 1974 (to mixed reviews), it has since developed a huge cult following and is now considered to be a forgotten masterpiece of 70's cinema.

It tells the story of Todd Hackett who comes to Hollywood in the 1930's (but it might as well take place in the present) hoping for a career in set design, he soon finds that the road to success in the film industry is a difficult one and his journey takes a downward spiral as he falls in with the users and abusers of Hollywood, the desperate, disillusioned souls who, consumed by boredom and their own emptiness, search out any abnormality in their insatiable lust for excitement - drugs, perversion, crime.

Aside from top-notch direction, the film contains gorgeous (Oscar nominated) cinematography by Conrad Hall, a haunting score by John Barry, authentic period costume and art design, and outstanding performances from the entire cast. Notably: William Atherton as Todd, Karen Black (her finest role) as Faye Greener, a selfish, wannabe actress and extra, Burgess Meredith (also Oscar nominated) as her alcoholic father and former vaudeville star, and an almost unrecognizable Donald Sutherland as the sensitive, socially retarded misfit who is torn apart by those around him and triggers the films much talked about finale.

One thing is for certain, anyone who has seen the last 20 minutes of this disturbing film will never forget it. A must-see for film students, art directors, and anyone interested in the "golden" years of Hollywood.

Related reading:

Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger

Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion

Less than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis

Superb adaptation of the Nathanael West novel, gets better with every viewing. Terrific cast and director (John Schlesinger) capture the look and feel of 30s Hollywood. Karen Black, Donald Sutherland, William Atherton, Burgess Meredith, Geraldine Page, and Billy Barty are all perfect in their roles, and all were deserving of recognition. Atherton is the new boy in Hollywood; Black is an extra with big dreams; Sutherland is the dope trying to escape his life; Meredith is a washed-up vaudevillian; Page is a miracle worker; Barty may be the smartest man in Hollywood.

Great period detail in cars, clothes, and the feel of southern California. Terrific backstage look at a studio and the politics therein. The Day of the Locust ranks as one of the best films about Hollywood in its cynical looks at glamour, fame, ambition, and movie making.

Terrific supporting cast includes good work from Richard A. Dysart, Pepe Serna, John Hillerman, Natalie Schafer, Gloria LeRoy, Jackie Haley (as the odious child actor), Bo Hopkins, Jane Hoffman, Lelia Goldoni, and Paul Jabara. There are also nice bits by old-timers like Florence Lake, Queenie Smith, Madge Kennedy, Alvin Childress, Nita Talbot, Gloria Stroock, and Ina Gould.

Among the many memorable scenes, the final sequence of the Hollywood premiere (with Dick Powell, Jr. playing his father) is just superb. Playing the excitement of the screaming crowds against the sad events across the street is just brilliant, especially when the radio announcer uses the violent noise and commotion to hawk premiere movie. Irony,sadness, futility, and lies plague all the main characters in this great story. The mob scene is the best I've ever seen. Totally unforgettable.

Karen Black and Donald Sutherland turn in great performances.

It took over 35 years and the collapse of the big studio system before anyone in Hollywood, in this case Paramount, brought Nathanael West's novel The Day Of The Locust to the big screen. That climax at a Hollywood premiere is certainly not something the studios would want to show the public as a typical event.

The book is based on West's experiences while writing B pictures in Hollywood during the Thirties and some of the characters he knew. His main protagonist is William Atherton, an aspiring artist who is making a living doing set designs. That's one competitive business and he's got to go over his immediate supervisor John Hillerman's head to get his work noticed by producer Richard Dysart. Like the rest of West's characters, he's sacrificed pride a long time ago. It's his eyes that we see the other characters through.

But he's a paragon of virtue compared to starlet Karen Black who will do anything and anybody to advance her career. Atherton would love to get something going with her, but he's mindful of how amoral she's become. Her only real attachment is to her father, an ex-vaudevillian and now door to door salesman, Burgess Meredith. Even trying to do his shtick with sales doesn't gain him clients.

But the saddest one in the lot and the fellow with the best performance is Donald Sutherland who is an outsider to the film people, a businessman named Homer Simpson who Black uses and abuses. Sutherland's performance is not too different from the hapless cartoon character. Imagine the cartoon Homer Simpson dealing with real life heartbreak and you've got Sutherland's character. The line between tragedy and comedy can be a very thin one.

Geraldine Page has a brief role as an Aimee Semple McPherson like evangelist, shamelessly bilking the Depression's downtrodden. She's great in the part as is Jackie Earle Haley, a really rotten child star of whom I'd love to know who West's model was.

The Day Of The Locust was directed by John Schlesinger who got an Oscar for The Midnight Cowboy. Like that film, The Day Of The Locust deals with some fringe people just trying to get by. Burgess Meredith got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and the film also got a nomination for Costume Design.

Before Newton Minow referred to television as a vast wasteland. I think that's what Nathanael West had in mind in writing about his experiences in the movie capital. I'd recommend seeing the film to see how well Schlesinger put West's vision across.

I first saw "Day of the Locust" because I thought Karen Black was keen. I liked the film, but I can't say I understood its point at the time. What's with the faceless people, Sutherland's hands, and the angry dwarf? Sounds like David Lynch to me, especially in light of "Mulholland Drive" and its scathing, unsympathetic view of Hollywood (it even has a cowboy!)

I finally got around to reading the Nathanael West novel -- which is absolutely brilliant -- and decided to watch the film again. And I need to say that, as much as I still appreciate and enjoy the movie, it really missed the boat, trying to cram bits and pieces of ideas from the novel (the strange, artificial relationship between Faye and her father, the barely-restrained violence of those who "come to Hollywood to die," the anachronistic and cold facade of Hollywood and the people in charge of it), meanwhile stuffing in some 70's ideas, reflecting back on the beginnings of WWII (which wasn't an issue in the book at all), and -- strangely enough -- adding warmth and humanity to characters whose sole characteristic (in the novel) was that they had NO warmth or humanity whatsoever.

And that's the weird thing about this movie. I remember, when I first saw it, I was amazed at how unlikeable all the characters were. After reading the book, however, I can say that the characters in the movie are FAR TOO likeable to support any of the book's themes. This is most notable when it comes to Faye's little breakdowns, letting the viewer know that she's really a good person who wants to be loved, turning her into a VICTIM of the star system. But the point of the book -- as I gathered, anyway -- was that these people aren't victims at all. They're greedy people who victimize each-other, and usually in sloppy, stupid ways ("Jeepers, Creepers!") Faye isn't capable of an unaffected tender moment, all she can do is pretend. The same goes for her father: even his moments of genuine sickness and pain are filtered through his never-ending vaudeville routine.

Homer Simpson, as well, is portrayed (in the film) as a sort of unfortunate lump, and a bible-thumper to boot, taken advantage of by Faye. But that destroys one of the great levels of nastiness in the novel: Homer is just as much as an opportunist as Faye, and he deserves everything he gets. Why is he being so generous, letting her stay with him and hold cock-fights in his garage? Because he's a pathetic, incapable human being who barely has a human feature to him: he's just a collection of nervous ticks. He lusts after her, and he seems to delight in his thwarted lust. He's got less going for him than that lizard on the cactus, eating flies.

The film suffers from an attempt to make the characters likeable, almost without exception. The only person who escapes this "Hollywood-ization" of the book is Adore, the horrible child star whose fate nobody who has seen the movie (or read the book) will ever forget. Jeez!

If you find yourself watching this movie and "just not getting it," do yourself a favour and read the book. It won't make the movie any clearer, but you can at least view the movie as a clear-cut example of the sort of thing the book was pointing out and railing against, way back in 1939 when this idea was still a novel one: Hollywood films are manipulative and full of fakery, and so are humans in general, and people in general are also ghoulish and horrible, and no amount of eyelash-fluttering or smooth tango-dancing will disguise that. You might be the owner of a big studio and have an inflatable dead horse in your pool, but you still can't relate to your wife, and the only thing left in your life is pathetic thrill-seeking (cock-fights, cheesy stag flicks).

(Incidentally, I'm amazed at how many quirky things ended up in the screenplay that WEREN'T part of the book! Kudos to the scriptwriter for that at least!)