THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS (46)

Directed by: Bob Rafelson (1972)

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Ellen Burstyn

The Pitch: A timid DJ gets involved in his brother's grandiose money-making schemes.

Theo Sez: Despite its intriguing (if largely negative) reputation this is actually a GODFATHER PART III-type deal - a disaster for most people, a neglected masterpiece for a demented few, but basically a sad and rather dull movie that's more about the perils of film-maker's hubris than the pain of memory or the tragic hollowness of the American Dream (or whatever else it pretends to be about). If all - or even some - of it were like its opening scene, Nicholson's side-lit monologue to camera, it would still be indecipherable but also undoubtedly brilliant ; instead it's a curiously flat experience, the lines witless and functional when they're not being pseudo-poetic ("illusions begin to drift and fade like white snow"), and even the much-touted images disappointing - this Atlantic City is drab and dilapidated when it surely needed to be more like the mythic, near-surreal place of Louis Malle's eponymous movie, a place of impossible dreams. Of course there's skill and imagination in the way the town's grey light is set against the burnished look of the interiors, all crimson and dark blue ; in the same way that, for example, it's clear Nicholson has thought a great deal about his dozy performance, getting a specific look and posture, even if we have no idea why he behaves as he does. It's a well-crafted symbolic drama that forgot to bring the symbols - they're either feeble or meaningless. A film without a centre, which is why it only kind of works when it drops the self-importance and makes for the loose Rafelson style of the great STAY HUNGRY (in the long everyone-talking-at-once scene near the end, or in exchanges like "Hey, what do they call you?" "Teddy the Wonder Boy" "Well I wonder why the hell you don't stay out of my kitchen"). When, at the very end, it tries for real emotional force, with one brother dead and the other pensively watching old home movies - two little boys playing peacefully at the beach - it's a complete non-starter, not touching or profound or anything : quite simply, we neither know nor care who these people are.