A good-enough film but I did not like it much. I guess it's because I didn't like the most important character.. It's the story of a rich guy victim of an inferiority complex that he can't let go played by Robert Stack. Unfortunately I didn't like him much, and could hardly understand a word he was saying. His best friend is poor but better man Mitch played by Rock Hudson-he was ok, nothing thrilling but ok. The woman they both love is Lucy, played by Lauren Bacall-like the actress, but not so fond of the character, especially in the end.
The film starts with a gunshot, but then things move back: it was November 1956 and we watch how it all started in October 1955.
Lucy meets Mitch and he takes her to meet Kyle Hadler: big money, big attitude, son of the big boss of the company, a plane he pilots personally, but he speaks highly of Mitch although he's clearly jealous of him and the consideration his own father has for him. Also not sure why Mitch follows him around everywhere, he doesn't seem to like it one bit, so why is he playing nanny bites me.
Kyle takes them to Miami, and in the hotel room Lucy finds lots of clothes, purses, everything she might need (and much more) considering she brought no luggage. Mitch is disappointed "I had Lucy figured out wrong. I figured she'd be different than all the rest" - Kyle:"she is" - Mitch:"no she's not, if she were she'd have spit right in your eye".
Lucy doesn't do that, she came along because it was a sort of adventure like had never happened to her before, and because she kind of likes Kyle, but doesn't accept the gifts and leaves without a word. Kyle goes after her, talks to her and gets her to get off the plane. He says he wants to start over with her, that he's in love with her, and who knows why she likes him and buys it all, and they get married!
After five weeks Kyle and Lucy come back home from their honeymoon, and now she knows all about Kyle's anxieties and fears, but she has never seen him drunk yet; quite an incredible thing as he said himself that he drinks too much.
There's another character to complicate matters: Kyle's sister Marylee who keeps causing troubles because she can't have the man she's obsessed with : "I love you Mitch, I'm desperate for you", problem is he only loves her as a sister, he says, but personally I doubt even that.
She's a real troublemaker, who says: "married a whole year and still sober. And still faithful. It can't last much longer". When their father dies falling down the stairs, it's even worse because she's a terrible company for Kyle, and her jealousy is dangerous. She hints at her brother that his wife might be having an affair with Mitch, because she has understood that Mitch is in love with Lucy.
One could already see how deep was Kyle's complex when he couldn't beat up a guy but Mitch did, and then when Kyle talked to the doctor: "is Lucy alright? Can she have children?" and he replies: "there's nothing wrong with Lucy" implying that there might be something wrong with him. Kyle was again feeling little, I guess. What's more, the doctor says: "the tests we took show a ... let's call it a weakness. Believe me you're not sterile" and "in time we'll be able to correct this weakness". Definitely not the right word to use with him. He starts drinking again, heavily, and Mitch and Lucy have to bring him home (on Mitch's shoulder). He suffers, but he won't talk about his torments to anyone.
When Mitch finally tells Lucy he loves her, she tells him that she's pregnant :-/ Kyle is out drinking again, and when she comes back home Lucy tells him the good news, she thinks, but he's so wasted and broken he thinks it can not be his baby so it must be Mitch's baby, and he hits her. She screams and Mitch comes to help her and to send Kyle away. Mitch calls the doctor but Lucy loses her baby. A miscarriage, he says.
Lucy is afraid, and wants Mitch to take her away. Kyle comes back looking for a gun and finds it. He threatens Mitch who tells him the truth, Kyle would have been the father, that he never tried anything only because she was his wife. Marylee stops Kyle from trying to shoot Mitch by sort of fighting with him, and Kyle shoots himself, by mistake I'd say but then at the inquest it is said that he killed himself because he was depressed. Marylee said it.
Five people could testify that Mitch had threatened Kyle's life, and Marylee could have been the end of Mitch. She tried to blackmail him, marry me or I'll say that you killed Kyle, and Mitch refused the deal, so he was actually worried about what she might say at the inquest. It was not going well for him up to that point, but at the end she didn't, she told the truth, (more or less, maybe she lied so Kyle would look like a suicide and not like an attempted murderer, after all he was rich and he was family, so maybe she protected her family's name).
It all ends with Mitch driving away with Lucy and Marylee alone in that big house, crying in her father's chair.
Now, I appreciated the psychology of the drama, but many things left me like :-/
Why did Mitch go and get Lucy at her office if they had never met before (just an excuse for Kyle being in the city? to force a secretary to have lunch with Kyle?), and why he introduced her to Kyle in the first place. The two of them could make anything up to explain Kyle's presence there, and anything would probably be better than getting the secretary out of the office, taking her to another city and marrying her.
I also didn't like the ending, that it all depended on a spoiled girl growing up and doing the right thing, and that Lucy went away with Mitch as if she loved him now while nothing indicates this: sure she said she needed him there when he said he was going away, but to need a responsible man in the house when you're having all those troubles is not the same thing that being in love.
ITA come le foglie al vento
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