The Last Tycoon (1976 film)

Plot synopsis

Monroe Stahr is the young production chief and the most creative executive of one of the biggest studios of the Golden Age of Hollywood. He is a tireless worker in a time of turmoil in the industry due to the creation of the Writers Guild of America; Monroe being accustomed to make his underlings, including screenwriters, do whatever he says.

Monroe's life flows between film shootings, industry bosses' machinations, discussions with writers and actors and a battle with an union organizer named Brimmer, whose intrusion he resents. In the meantime, Monroe becomes obsessed with a young woman with a troubled past, Kathleen Moore, who is engaged to be married to another man, while Cecilia Brady, the young daughter of a studio board member, tries in vain to make Monroe see how she truly feels about him.

Pat Brady and other studio executives resent Monroe's neglect and disrespect for their wishes. Seeing his treatment of the union organizer as the last straw, they insist that Monroe go away for a long rest. As his difficulties grow bigger and his health declines, Monroe's life runs to an uncertain but inevitable twilight that echoes a long gone era.

Cast

Adaptation

Author F. Scott Fitzgerald did not live to finish The Last Tycoon, so that the version published in 1941, edited by Edmund Wilson with Fitzgerald's notes, is technically a fragment. The film preserves that fragment through an abrupt kind of editing style and a narrative that flows without conventional shape.

In one of his final notes for The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald wrote in capital letters: "Action Is Character." This is an objective Kazan, Pinter and De Niro addressed in the attempt to transfer the character of Monroe Stahr to the film.

Jeanne Moreau and Tony Curtis make brief appearances as idols of Hollywood's golden age, whose film in progress is being overseen by Stahr.

Themes

The character Monroe Stahr is full of associations to Irving Thalberg, the production chief at M-G-M in the period between the late 20's and 30's. The background is Hollywood in the Golden Thirties, when studios made 30 to 40 productions a year and every backlot could simultaneously contain pictures set in places such as New York City, Africa, the South Pole and Montmartre. The background of the film has a close bond to stories of Hollywood at that time, as well as to Fitzgerald's own life and career.

Thalberg, a "boy genius" until his death at the age of 37 in 1936, was held in high regard inside and outside Hollywood. He appeared to be able to divine successful films continuously, knowing in his head how much a certain kind of picture would gross, which, in turn, told him how much could be spent on its production and still have a profitable venture. Monroe Stahr, played with reticent passion by Robert De Niro (whose lean, dark good looks seem an idealization of Thalberg's) has the same knack, but eventually becomes a casualty of the "new" Hollywood of Wall Street investors, bankers and union organizers that Fitzgerald could see in the future. Thalberg died before being overtaken by defeat, while in the film, Stahr does not.

The theme of unfinished ambitions and the unattained love of the young and beautiful in Hollywood, embodied by the beach house, have great significance for both the Novelist and Director at the end of their luminary careers.

Reception

The critical reaction to The Last Tycoon has been mixed. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected reviews from 17 critics to give it a rating of 41%.