Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Forgotten Movies, Me, Natalie, 1969



This was certainly not a successful film critically in 1969 (directed by Fred Coe) when it was lambasted for any number of sins, but it has a great cast, including Pacino in first role and it captures the times pretty well. Natalie is a girl convinced she is ugly, and this supposed "ugliness" is enough to drive the plot. She runs off to pursue a Bohemian life style in the Village, apparently a place that will accept her.
I doubt any movie today would be quite so blatant in its thesis but maybe I am wrong. I hate the voice over, but it's fun for the ambiance, its cast, and its odd POV. Despite its flaws, Duke won a golden globe for it, being a darling of the media at the time.

10 comments:

George said...

I'm not a fan of voice overs in movies, either.

Anonymous said...

Wow, it's been years - decades - since I saw this one. We saw it when we were dating and went to the movies pretty much every weekend. I know Jackie liked it a lot more than I did. The best part of watching movies like this for me is seeing how many familiar actors you can recognize. This had a lot of well known New York actors.

Apparently it also had Susan Lucci as "cheerleader" according to IMDB.

The worst-ever voice over: when they "edited" (by which I mean butchered) RED SKY AT MORNING for television they added a voice over narration that was not in the original film and basically undercut the tone of the whole thing.

Jeff M.

pattinase (abbott) said...

It must work on occasion but it certainly has ruined more films than helped them Hated it in KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, which I recently watched.

Anonymous said...

It can work. One that comes to mind is a candidate for another Forgotten Film thing: LITTLE BIG MAN.


Jeff M.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Yup. Let's do that as a post one day. Best use of voiceovers.

Deb said...

Blade Runner and The Two Jakes had dreadful "tell don't show" voice-over narration--and I believe both were added after the fact because the filmmakers did not trust that they had told a coherent story. Best voice-over (because used sparingly): All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard.

pattinase (abbott) said...

HA! I just put up a post for next week where I said my favorite was SUNSET BOULEVARD.

Anonymous said...

Deb, those are definitely two of my favorites, especially ALL ABOUT EVE.

Jeff M.

Todd Mason said...

Some narrated films use the device pretty well, including those which blatantly play with it (STRANGER THAN FICTION, START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME, MP AND THE HOLY GRAIL). Others, such as LITTLE CHILDREN, might be a bit precious, but still do the job rather well...PERFECT SENSE did it more sparingly and perhaps a bit better.

Wow. Duke not only not even "Hollywood plain" but also unusually fit (in terms of muscle tone) for a H'wood actress of the time...

Todd Mason said...

Didn't much care for it in THE VIRGIN SUICIDES.