![\"Patricia](\"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fountainhead.jpg\" "\\"fountainhead\\"")
Patricia Neal found that Gary Cooper's acting wasn't his only wooden attribute<\/p><\/div>\n
Of Underdogs and \u00dcbermensch<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n[xrr rating=4\/5]<\/span><\/p>\nThe Fountainhead<\/em><\/strong>. Starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Robert Douglas, Henry Hull, Ray Collins, Moroni Olsen, and Jerome Cowan. Cinematography by Robert Burks, A.S.C. Edited by David Weisbart, A.C.E. Music by Max Steiner. Screenplay by Ayn Rand, based on her novel. Directed by King Vidor. (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1949, Black and white, 114 minutes. MPAA Rating: Not Rated.)<\/strong><\/p>\nBecause David O. Selznick (producer of Gone With the Wind<\/em> and Rebecca<\/em>) didn\u2019t produce this as a faithful adaptation of Ayn Rand\u2019s novel, but Henry Blanke (The Maltese Falcon<\/em> and Casablanca<\/em>) did<\/em>, I recommend seeing the movie before reading the novel. The problem of properly sequencing these events is one familiar to too many of fans of Ayn Rand\u2019s novel about Howard Roark, an architect of uncompromising integrity: When you read the novel first, you cast it, design its sets, and play it out in your mind. And in my mind, Howard Roark is played by Burt Lancaster, Ingrid Bergman is ice queen (who melts at Roark\u2019s touch) Dominique Francon, Farley Granger as Peter Keating, and Orson Welles plays a thinly-veiled Charles Foster Kane, a.k.a. Gail Wynand. (I would keep<\/em> Robert Douglas as Ellsworth Toohey, he is so perfectly cast). Screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Ben Hecht, directed by Howard Hawks, Technicolor, music by Bernard Herrmann.<\/p>\nAnyways, since that\u2019s all in my mind\u2019s eye, let us deal with what\u2019s actually<\/em> there:<\/p>\nWithout giving away the plot too much, the story deals with one of novelist Ayn Rand’s most crucial themes: The individual versus the collective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her loner individualist is architect Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), loosely based on the seminal real-life modernist Frank Lloyd Wright. Through Roark, Rand demonstrates the injustices that come hand-in-hand with being a misunderstood genius. That is, at least, by society’s drab masses. Manipulating them is rabble-rousing columnist Ellsworth Toohey (Douglas), a fastidious, fascistic little man who understands Roark’s genius all-too well–and thus wants him destroyed. \u00a0Toohey also has evil designs on press baron Gail Wynand (Raymond Massey), who runs his media empire by controlling public opinion on a macro scale. Yet, Wynand learns only too late that the devil’s in the details.<\/p>\n
As a work of cinema, The Fountainhead<\/em> is one of the greatest examples of post-German expressionism after World War II. Visually, it\u2019s overflowing with Licht und Schatten<\/em> worthy of Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau. This is the movie\u2019s greatest achievement, deftly accomplished by cinematographer Robert Burks, who confines martyred saint Cooper \u00a0in a shadow-world so oppressing, that it rivals Martin Scorsese\u2019s Taxi Driver<\/em> and Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s I Confess <\/em>(the latter for which Burks was also director of photography, as he was on all Hitch\u2019s films from the early 1950s through Marnie<\/em>, in 1964, with the exception of Psycho<\/em>) for the sense of loneliness and psychological isolation which crowd in the hero.<\/p>\nBurks owes a lot to Citizen Kane<\/em> in the use of low-camera-angles employed in projecting the movie\u2019s tragic hero, Gail Wynand. Actor Massey brings a British-Canadian flair to the role that is completely outrageous and totally incongruous with the its Hell\u2019s Kitchen origins. So what! As with Cary Grant, Massey succeeds in the \u201cwilling-suspension-of-disbelief\u201d department when it comes to ignoring his British accent.<\/p>\nBurks\u2019s camera lingers longingly and tenderly on screen siren Patricia Neal, as Dominique. This is when real hot women with ample bosoms<\/em> got Hollywood roles, and when the likes of Marilyn Monroe \u201creplaced\u201d Jane Russell and Kim Novak was groomed as the next Rita Hayworth. The scene in which Neal visits Coop\u2019s apartment with the none-too-subtle white fur bust ornament topping her evening gown is priceless in the glamour department. Some of today\u2019s critics call this movie \u201cdated.\u201d If by \u201cdated,\u201d they mean not having untalented, unalluring, and underfed matchsticks such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Calista Flockheart, then, yes, The Fountainhead<\/em> is \u201cdated.\u201d<\/p>\nEnglishman Robert Douglas plays Toohey, the demagogic columnist with searing intelligence and over-the-top, villainous aplomb. Wielding his ever-present cigarette holder with blatant swishiness designed to circumvent the Hayes\u2019 office censors, Douglas gives the best flamboyant homosexual villain performance this side of Robert Walker, as the tortured Bruno in Hitchcock\u2019s Strangers on a Train<\/em>.<\/p>\nRounding out this bombastic Expressionist tour-de-force<\/em> is Max Steiner\u2019s equally plush and bombastic Romantic score, which uses heavy brass and low strings to provide an aural sledgehammer that sets the action onscreen to the passionate S<\/em>turm und Drang<\/em> of Tristan und Isolde<\/em>. They don\u2019t make movie music like that anymore. Composer David Raksin (Laura<\/em>) once quipped that 1940s movie music overwhelmed the listener not only with foreboding, but with \u201cfifthboding.\u201d<\/p>\nAgain, compare Steiner\u2019s \u201cmaximalism\u201d (pun intended) with the oat-bran sparseness of today\u2019s so-called composers, such as Philip Glass (\u201cminimalist\u201d is too big a word to describe his simplistic, monotonous, scratchings) and Michael Nyman.<\/p>\n
The Fountainhead<\/em> is a movie made about giants, by giants. Reality be damned, this pic is worthy of Citizen Kane<\/em>, Metropolis,<\/em> and The Big Sleep.<\/em><\/p>\nNow, once you\u2019ve seen the movie, then read the book, which is even better! Do it the other way around, and you\u2019ll find yourself \u201cwhat-if\u2019ing\u201d The Fountainhead<\/em> that could\u2019ve been, rather than basking in this sterling example of 1940s cinema.<\/p>\nRobert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Of Underdogs and \u00dcbermensch [xrr rating=4\/5] The Fountainhead. Starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Robert Douglas, Henry Hull, Ray Collins, Moroni Olsen, and Jerome Cowan. Cinematography by Robert Burks, A.S.C. Edited by David Weisbart, A.C.E. Music by Max Steiner. Screenplay by Ayn Rand, based on her novel. Directed by King Vidor. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,49,35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classic-movies","category-courtroom-dramas","category-dramas","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The Fountainhead<\/em><\/strong>. Starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Robert Douglas, Henry Hull, Ray Collins, Moroni Olsen, and Jerome Cowan. Cinematography by Robert Burks, A.S.C. Edited by David Weisbart, A.C.E. Music by Max Steiner. Screenplay by Ayn Rand, based on her novel. Directed by King Vidor. (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1949, Black and white, 114 minutes. MPAA Rating: Not Rated.)<\/strong><\/p>\n Because David O. Selznick (producer of Gone With the Wind<\/em> and Rebecca<\/em>) didn\u2019t produce this as a faithful adaptation of Ayn Rand\u2019s novel, but Henry Blanke (The Maltese Falcon<\/em> and Casablanca<\/em>) did<\/em>, I recommend seeing the movie before reading the novel. The problem of properly sequencing these events is one familiar to too many of fans of Ayn Rand\u2019s novel about Howard Roark, an architect of uncompromising integrity: When you read the novel first, you cast it, design its sets, and play it out in your mind. And in my mind, Howard Roark is played by Burt Lancaster, Ingrid Bergman is ice queen (who melts at Roark\u2019s touch) Dominique Francon, Farley Granger as Peter Keating, and Orson Welles plays a thinly-veiled Charles Foster Kane, a.k.a. Gail Wynand. (I would keep<\/em> Robert Douglas as Ellsworth Toohey, he is so perfectly cast). Screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Ben Hecht, directed by Howard Hawks, Technicolor, music by Bernard Herrmann.<\/p>\n Anyways, since that\u2019s all in my mind\u2019s eye, let us deal with what\u2019s actually<\/em> there:<\/p>\n Without giving away the plot too much, the story deals with one of novelist Ayn Rand’s most crucial themes: The individual versus the collective.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her loner individualist is architect Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), loosely based on the seminal real-life modernist Frank Lloyd Wright. Through Roark, Rand demonstrates the injustices that come hand-in-hand with being a misunderstood genius. That is, at least, by society’s drab masses. Manipulating them is rabble-rousing columnist Ellsworth Toohey (Douglas), a fastidious, fascistic little man who understands Roark’s genius all-too well–and thus wants him destroyed. \u00a0Toohey also has evil designs on press baron Gail Wynand (Raymond Massey), who runs his media empire by controlling public opinion on a macro scale. Yet, Wynand learns only too late that the devil’s in the details.<\/p>\n As a work of cinema, The Fountainhead<\/em> is one of the greatest examples of post-German expressionism after World War II. Visually, it\u2019s overflowing with Licht und Schatten<\/em> worthy of Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau. This is the movie\u2019s greatest achievement, deftly accomplished by cinematographer Robert Burks, who confines martyred saint Cooper \u00a0in a shadow-world so oppressing, that it rivals Martin Scorsese\u2019s Taxi Driver<\/em> and Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s I Confess <\/em>(the latter for which Burks was also director of photography, as he was on all Hitch\u2019s films from the early 1950s through Marnie<\/em>, in 1964, with the exception of Psycho<\/em>) for the sense of loneliness and psychological isolation which crowd in the hero.<\/p>\n Burks owes a lot to Citizen Kane<\/em> in the use of low-camera-angles employed in projecting the movie\u2019s tragic hero, Gail Wynand. Actor Massey brings a British-Canadian flair to the role that is completely outrageous and totally incongruous with the its Hell\u2019s Kitchen origins. So what! As with Cary Grant, Massey succeeds in the \u201cwilling-suspension-of-disbelief\u201d department when it comes to ignoring his British accent.<\/p>\n Burks\u2019s camera lingers longingly and tenderly on screen siren Patricia Neal, as Dominique. This is when real hot women with ample bosoms<\/em> got Hollywood roles, and when the likes of Marilyn Monroe \u201creplaced\u201d Jane Russell and Kim Novak was groomed as the next Rita Hayworth. The scene in which Neal visits Coop\u2019s apartment with the none-too-subtle white fur bust ornament topping her evening gown is priceless in the glamour department. Some of today\u2019s critics call this movie \u201cdated.\u201d If by \u201cdated,\u201d they mean not having untalented, unalluring, and underfed matchsticks such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Calista Flockheart, then, yes, The Fountainhead<\/em> is \u201cdated.\u201d<\/p>\n Englishman Robert Douglas plays Toohey, the demagogic columnist with searing intelligence and over-the-top, villainous aplomb. Wielding his ever-present cigarette holder with blatant swishiness designed to circumvent the Hayes\u2019 office censors, Douglas gives the best flamboyant homosexual villain performance this side of Robert Walker, as the tortured Bruno in Hitchcock\u2019s Strangers on a Train<\/em>.<\/p>\n Rounding out this bombastic Expressionist tour-de-force<\/em> is Max Steiner\u2019s equally plush and bombastic Romantic score, which uses heavy brass and low strings to provide an aural sledgehammer that sets the action onscreen to the passionate S<\/em>turm und Drang<\/em> of Tristan und Isolde<\/em>. They don\u2019t make movie music like that anymore. Composer David Raksin (Laura<\/em>) once quipped that 1940s movie music overwhelmed the listener not only with foreboding, but with \u201cfifthboding.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, compare Steiner\u2019s \u201cmaximalism\u201d (pun intended) with the oat-bran sparseness of today\u2019s so-called composers, such as Philip Glass (\u201cminimalist\u201d is too big a word to describe his simplistic, monotonous, scratchings) and Michael Nyman.<\/p>\n The Fountainhead<\/em> is a movie made about giants, by giants. Reality be damned, this pic is worthy of Citizen Kane<\/em>, Metropolis,<\/em> and The Big Sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n Now, once you\u2019ve seen the movie, then read the book, which is even better! Do it the other way around, and you\u2019ll find yourself \u201cwhat-if\u2019ing\u201d The Fountainhead<\/em> that could\u2019ve been, rather than basking in this sterling example of 1940s cinema.<\/p>\n Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Of Underdogs and \u00dcbermensch [xrr rating=4\/5] The Fountainhead. Starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Robert Douglas, Henry Hull, Ray Collins, Moroni Olsen, and Jerome Cowan. Cinematography by Robert Burks, A.S.C. Edited by David Weisbart, A.C.E. Music by Max Steiner. Screenplay by Ayn Rand, based on her novel. Directed by King Vidor. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,49,35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classic-movies","category-courtroom-dramas","category-dramas","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}