Don Juan DeMarco **** (1994, Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway) – Classic Movie Review 909

‘There are only four questions of value in life: What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for? And what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: only love.’ – Don Juan. Writer-director Jeremy Leven’s 1994 comedy is an adorable little gem.

Top-quality work proved hard to come by for Marlon Brando and even Johnny Depp in the early Nineties, but here they work well together as a psychiatrist and his patient – who believes he is Lord Byron’s character Don Juan. Brando’s character, Dr Jack Mickler, is only 10 days away from his retirement when he encounters a young man who attempts suicide. Jack manages to persuade his associates to put the lad in his care for 10 days.

The duo are a delight – especially the effortlessly offbeat Depp with his spot-on Hispanic accent and his graceful athleticism. And another neglected star, Faye Dunaway, also delights as Brando’s jaded wife.

With a witty, funny screenplay and nimble, adroit direction by unknown Leven, this romantic fantasy all adds up to an entrancing audience-pleaser, as sweet and welcome as a gift-wrapped box of custom-made chocolates.

Cinematographer Ralf D Bode films in attractive widescreen and Eastmancolor.

It wasn’t much of a hit, costing $25million and grossing $22million in the US.

Leven was a TV producer-director at the NBC outlet in Boston, a psychologist at the State Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts, a Mental Health Center Director, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Director of Children and Drug Treatment Programs for Western Massachusetts.

He wrote the screenplays of The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), Alex & Emma (2003), The Notebook (2004) and My Sister’s Keeper (2009). His next film as director and writer after Don Juan DeMarco is nearly 20 years later with Girl on a Bicycle (2013).

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(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 909 derekwinnert.com