I loved the film but.... - The World of Henry Orient (1964) Discussion

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Forlorn_Rage 18 years ago

I haven't read the book, but I think I can relate to the character you're talking about.

When I was younger, I used to be VERY honest. Sometimes, I was so honest that I ended up hurting other people's feelings without realizing it.
Then, when I started talking to people more, I relaized to keep friends, I had to lie a little so I could keep my friends. - I couldn't keep them anyways, even when I lied. Then, sensing that others are lying (even to spare my feelings) it's the most annoying thing in the world and just reminds how disgusted I am at myself.

Today, more than anything I miss my complete honesty. I've become more honest than before, but I still miss my childhood honesty. A lot of people don't realize it, but honesty is a trait worth having, no matter what.

Sorry, I'm being melodramatic over myself. So back to the subject.

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Forlorn_Rage 18 years ago

^Yeah, constructive criticism.
My problem is though U'm so used to the lying that I just do it without thinking. My friend got mad at me for it and I nearly lost her. Actually, I already have...
Oh well, moving on.....

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[–] whitedogandharriet 18 years ago

They actually changed the film to appeal to the family audience, took out two scenes that would in my opinion have made it a more interesting film, one with Hermione Gingold and the Miss Universes of that year and one with a sexy lady Henry had over for the night, can't remember her name, we[Merrie and I] were not allowed to be on set that day.

Lying is a funny thing. I wish it didn't seem necessary, notice some people are better at firing away. Personaly I get confused when I can't tell the truth, unless my or someone I loves life is on the line, then I'm a rug. In zen intention is everything, so when it isn't also an asault to tell the truth it becomes more possible, eh?

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Forlorn_Rage 18 years ago

Wow... Thank you, FilmSon!
I didn't intend on my post to be funny, but I'm glad that you found it entertaining. ^^
The ending of the movie showed why I don't like "growing up."
I sound like a complete child (but that's what I like about me.)

Whitedogandharriet, thank you for takiing the time to share a personal problem.
If you want here's some advice:
Just try to be honest whenever you can if lying bothers you. Lying is in people's natures. Don't blame yourself for it. It's quite understandable.

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[–] whitedogandharriet 18 years ago

Gandhi made it a priority never to lie and it paid off for him and the rest of his country. I do have ridiculous standards of behavior, ridiculous seeming only because I lose my love flow. I forgive myself sometimes. My voice says to stay with it and I do and that pays off in gold; but staying with it can be quite the challenge. I can't be cynical or give up on the old ways because we want to pretend we are "modern" or different somehow because we have better machinery, no.

The website is coming along s l o w l y. Don has some stuff, Mary-anne has one day per week to work on it......patience, that's all I can say at this point. I need to get down and write about everything, but am moving soon and having to face cleaning up two years of living and all. Plus scanning the horizon for inspiration to take me God knows where.

I love coming by and writing here when I can.

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] anacho_onmale 18 years ago

Hi, I'm new to the site. Just finished watching the film on TCM. Was thinking about it the other day and, wow, there it was! I saw in 1964 when I was 14. At the time I thought the ending was funny but disappointing; no reason, just felt that way.

Seeing it again, after having been married for 34 years, raising kids, doing 20 years in the military, and then teaching elementary school for 14 years - well, now I grok the ending. It's about life stages, growing up, and moving on. The girls remind me of my daughter and her best friend at that age, with my kid in the role of Val. And then came boys.

RE: Prednisone. Our kids now are the dogs. Our four year old Brittany girl takes prednisone. I've seen her balloon up despite rationing food and lots of walks. Without prednisone she cannot open her mouth, it's like lockjaw. Imagine being a dog and not being able to pant on a hot day, or eat anyting but broth. She still puts the fear of God into rabbits, squirrels, deer, and turkeys when they come across the back fence, though.

Hope the website is coming along and that Elizabeth is doing OK. Thank you, Elizabeth, for a wonderful movie!

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] anacho_onmale 18 years ago

Thanks. Another thing about the movie was the innocence. Imagine two 14 year old girls being able to run through the streets of (Hollywood lot) NYC with no danger!

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] R-W-Watkins 18 years ago

Yes, I'm afraid I have to agree with you--this is the one basic-yet-considerable flaw with the film: Gil and (especially) Val start out in the picture as young girl-women, however, by the end, they have regressed to the level of one's standard 11-year olds. This outcome no doubt owes a lot to the period in which the film was made: in 1963/'64, the 'moral majority' and other censorial institutions and elements simply could not have allowed two 14-year olds to live a rather bohemian existence and pursue 30-year old avant-garde composers without conforming to 'age-appropriate' patterns of behaviour by film's finish. I'm rather amazed, in fact, that they actually allowed that quote from one of the girls at the end about wanting her mouth to "look like a red gash" or whatever.

Come to think of it, this sort of thing happens all the time in real life here in North America nowadays. Ever notice how teenagers tend to peak in maturity around 13 or 14 and then revert to dressing and behaving like 10-year old little leaguers and bubble gum addicts for the next decade or so? I've given it a little thought, and I think we have our lousy public school systems, ridiculously high legal ages, and lowbrow mediums of entertainment to 'thank' for this bizarre phenomenon....

posted by R-W-Watkins

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[–] Forlorn_Rage 18 years ago

I know that the ending was to provide a "realistic affect" to an otherwise incredible story and to make the girls' lives easier (rather than how they were living earlier) but I missed the naive innocence of the enthusiastic and adventurous girls from earlier.
When the girls see each other after Val comes back from her trip, I thought: Val looked adorable in her hat and dress and that Gil's new hairstyle looked very pretty on her.
Then they went to Gil's room and started putting on make-up and started talking about boys and necking. They did kind of talk about that earlier, but they didn't seem so one dimensional then. By the end of the movie, they lost all their unique and endearing qualities and became like the girls from my school. It sickened me.

The girls at my school put on tons of make-up at home, then come to school and hog the bathrooms putting on even more make-up. some girls even brought a straightener and started straightening each other's hair in the classroom, on the day of an exam.

No offense to anybody, but I can't feel for those kind of girls, especially in the case of Gil and Val.

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[–] R-W-Watkins 18 years ago

Judging from your last post, I take it that you are a high school student or possibly university freshman or sophomore. I can somewhat relate to your perspective on those around you. As I touched on in my previous comment on your original post, teenagers and early-twentysomethings today (Gen-Zers, as I have dubbed them) are very shallow and lowbrow in their tastes--not to mention dogmatically conformist. In fact, they are very similar to the young people of my age category (the latter half of Generation X) twenty years ago. The 'generation' ('sub-generation' would be more accurate) that came in between, Generation Y (who were teenagers in the late '80s and early to mid '90s), were far more open-minded, individualistic and broader in their tastes. This no doubt was due in part to the more experimental popular culture that was thriving during this period: The Simpsons, The Critic, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, etc. on television; directors like David Lynch and David Cronenberg, and actors like Jodie Foster and the late River Phoenix in intriguing roles on the big screen; Seattle grunge culture (Cobain/Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, etc.) and avant-noise rock (Sonic Youth, Eric's Trip, The Jesus & Mary Chain, etc.) dominating college radio and sometimes managing to break the commercial radio/video barrier; the titles published by the Fantagraphics comic book company out of Seattle (Eightball, Hate, Jim, etc.), etc., etc. The Gen. Y teenage period was unquestionably more interesting and therefore more conducive to mental and emotional contentment and affable/sociable behaviour on the part of people like you and me.

If you are looking for films that portray adolescents as intelligent, adventurous, and interesting human beings (as The World of Henry Orient does for the most part)--rather than lowbrow, conformist, overgrown children, here are a few titles you might be interested in viewing: Jeremy (Robbie Benson, Glynnis O'Connor; 1973), Echoes of a Summer (Jodie Foster; 1976; very difficult to come across--has never been released on VHS or DVD to the best of my knowledge), The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (Jodie Foster, Scott Jacoby; 1976; highly recommended--I've published a fanzine and a book of haiku poetry based on this suspenseful thriller), A Little Romance (Diane Lane; 1979; directed by TWOHO director George Roy Hill), Foxes (Jodie Foster; 1980), and Ghost World (Scarlett Johansen, Thora Birch; 2001; based on the aforementioned Eightball comic by Dan Clowes). Alicia Silverstone in The Crush (1992; good portral of a teenage psychopath) and True Crime (not sure of the date on this one) are not bad either.

I hope I've been of some help, encouragement and positive influence. (Now you can return the favour by commenting on my World of Henry Orient posting--no one has had the nerve or sociological vigor to do so as of yet.) Keep your chin up. Don't let those nasty, uncultured, all-too-typical other girls at school get you down. Ten to fifteen years from now, most of them will be undereducated, overweight, divorced and stuck in boring, dead-end jobs!

Good Luck!

R-W-Watkins

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] whitedogandharriet 18 years ago

Crimson gash. And yes the ending was kind of lamely predictable. Mr. Hill and Mr. Hellman weren't the most avantgard of people, didn't have an agenda at all with regard to molding public opinion accept to appeal to it. It was funny putting on make up on film, got it all over me at first, then could apply with some delicacy. Honestly, I remember feeling used in that scene, creepy, uncomfortable, but I was just the help, a paid hand, not on the scriptwriting committee, but had precious little to offer in the way of alternatives, a nice sheltered young girl from Rye, N.Y., all that really was needed was an uncomfortable, confused look between them, eh?

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[–] jackcarson 18 years ago

I don't really have a problem with the end. The girls were sophisticated teenyboppers, to wax paradoxical, to begin with. Their turning into teenage variations of such is fairly believable. (Granted, it's all a little too neat a wrap up, complete with that reassuring happy music). But who's to say the girls don't drop this routine a few years down the road anyway and become bohemian hipsters ? Sounds like a lot of the girls I grew up with back then.

Anyway, hats off to you, Ms. Walker. It's very telling of your fantastic performance that even the harshest film critic around, John Simon, singled you out as the best thing about the movie back then.

The stars (no pun intended) were wonderfully aligned when you and Ms. Spaeth were finally chosen over a number of name actresses for the roles. And nothing against the terrific Hayley Mills and Patty Duke, but they too had rather upsy-downsy careers following their early successes. You never had to live down a Valley Of The Dolls for the rest of your life, or like Ms. Mills, succumb to typecasting and eventually eke out a career appearing in inferior reprises of The Parent Trap. And there's always the great Mary Badham, who after To Kill A Mockingbird and This Property Is Condemned appeared in one of the most outrageously bad William Castle flicks, Let's Kill Uncle; was dubbed over in The Twilight Zone; and then virtually disappeared until recently.

BTW, I have a copy of Seven Came Back, in which you played a blind pregnant woman. You certainly did not spend much time playing bland ingenues like many of your other peers ! Kudos kudos kudos ! And I love the picture of you in the Academy Directory of Players of the time - you look beautiful with the long blonde hair and the ethereal expression !

I was curious if you ever caught the very short-lived Broadway musical version, Henry Sweet Henry, and if so, your opinion of it.

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[–] whitedogandharriet 17 years ago

Gee, this was written so long ago now. But I want to answer it anyway. I thought Seven Came Back was called Seven in Darkness, I like Came Back better. That job was fraught with problems as usual, and funny stories. I loved acting with Alejandro Rey, he was very funny and smart, and handsome(!) we had a great time. But oi we had to get up at 5 to met up to catch the ride to location for alot of it. I had to wear either a huge stomach or a smaller pad in that I was playing a very pregnant girl, she had her baby in the woods( for one take I snuck in my pug dog and they held him up at the end of the shot!). We had alot of time on our hands, so cause I looked so ridiculous I did this character, grabbed this broom and dragged it around like a moronic clown, everybody liked it laughed themselves silly except the director who had me barred from Paramount because of it- I played her after he objected to her, said he knew people like that. I wasn't being malicious, just clowning around. I burned alot of bridges that way, silly incidents over nothing.

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] dreamonforever1 17 years ago

i remember hearing great things about this film back when i was in college (and saw "a little romance" for the first time). unfortunately, it was nearly 20 years before i finally had the opportunity to see it. by then (now), i'd forgotten that it'd been directed by hill - i only remembered that it'd been directed by a 'famous' director.
i almost decided to turn away from it when i realised that 2 teenage girls were at the core of the story. but, once i saw how mature, intelligent and 'non-teenage girl-like' they actually are, it brought back memories of diane lane in "a little romance."
one of the reasons this film is fantastic is because of the time period, and how the girls reflect their surroundings in the film. "henry orient," beatnik that he is, wouldn't be half as interesting if val and marian weren't. some lament that they (the girls) become just your typical shallow, boy/makeup/fashion-obsessed little idiots by the film's end. but hey, that happens to the best of 'em. it's also typical of our early 21st-century culture. and, there's another thread on this board that deals pretty effectively with not-so-vacuous teenage girls in important film roles.
this film is a nice little gem.

gregory 061208

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[–] aafleming 12 years ago

To return to the original topic: The "happy ending" of the movie is the complete opposite of the ending of the book, which is very dark.

Although I like the movie, there are major changes from the book, because in 1964 mainstream films did not address the underlying themes of the book.

In the book, which by the way is very good although much more serious than the movie, Val's father does not leave her mother. He and Val's mother only care about themselves and have no use for Val. The book ends with Val having a nervous breakdown and being taken out of school and out of Marian's life, then having a meeting with Marian a year or so later in which they both lament their lost childhood. The two girls are individualistic non-comformists, who ultimately face the fact that they have to "go along to get along" and act like everybody else.

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[–] chas437 12 years ago

Very interesting. It seems like that sort of ending wouldn't have fit the mood of the film or the times.

I personally found the ending to be cliche, and a bad fit for an otherwise great film. The bond between Val and Marian is very unique, they are both "misfits" so to speak, that find each other, and what ensues is a special relationship. Their closeness seems to border on a subject that was absolutely taboo in 1964. At times the relatioship reminded me of the one in "Heavenly Creatures".

So, its a bad ending that is incongruous with the rest of the film, but the only acceptable ending for a film made in 1964.

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[–] profh-1 12 years ago

Thanks for the details. It makes me really glad they changed the ending. Tom Bosley as the father is one of the best characters in the film. He starts out almost as a cypher, but the last third of the film really sneaks up on you. The mother seems nice as first, then you're wondering, what's WRONG with this woman?? And there's such hypocrisy, she can only see the world thru her own eyes, and so she automatically believes the very worst about her daughter. The father, meanwhile, sees what's going on, and reacts in a very calm, low-key, rational way. It's clear he'd prefer if things were better and more civilized, but then near the end he can see it's reached a point where that's just not possible anymore.

When he goes upstairs to talk to Val, it was the warmest father-daughter scene I've ever seen in a film outside of SIXTEEN CANDLES. I wish I'd had a relationship with my father as good as the one Val winds up with at the end.

I suppose it's a matter out outlook. When life sucks bad enough, I have no desire to see movies that would make me more depressed. To me, fiction should be better than real life, and perhaps serve as an example to follow.

Every time I see this movie I fall in love with it-- and with Val-- all over again.

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