The Paper Chase ***** (1973, Timothy Bottoms, Lindsay Wagner, John Houseman) – Classic Movie Review 4030

James Bridges’s 1973 drama film The Paper Chase showcases legendary film producer John Houseman’s finest hour as an actor, in a role that brought him an Oscar.

Writer-director James Bridges’s 1973 American comedy-drama film The Paper Chase showcases legendary film producer John Houseman’s finest hour as an actor, in a role that brought him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and surprise stardom at the age of 72. It made him one of America’s most trusted and famous figures when he re-created the role on American TV in 1978.

Houseman plays the waspish and grumpy Harvard Law School professor Charles W Kingsfield Jr, who picks on his bright student James T Hart (Timothy Bottoms in the obligatory Seventies long curly hair and moustache) and gives him an unfairly hard time, particularly when the young man falls for his daughter, Susan (Lindsay Wagner). When Hart befriends Susan, he is unaware that she has a connection to Kingsfield.

The Paper Chase is intelligent, upmarket entertainment, supremely literate and witty. A lot of credit goes to screen-writing director Bridges’s adaptation of the 1971 John Jay Osborn Jr source novel, John Williams’s score and Gordon Willis’s cinematography, but mostly to the work of the entire ensemble of actors. However, in the end, it is Houseman’s show.

Two series of the TV spinoff show (1978 and 1983) followed, both with James Stephens (replacing Bottoms) and Houseman.

Tony Award-winning Lenny Baker.

Also in the cast are Graham Beckel, Edward Herrmann, Bob Lydiard, Craig Richard Nelson, James Naughton, David Clennon, Regina Baff and as tutor William Moss, Lenny Baker, who also appeared in Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) and The Hospital (1971), and is remembered by theatre-goers for his Tony Award-winning performance on Broadway in I Love My Wife in 1977. He died of AIDS on 12 April 1982, aged 37.

The main cast are Timothy Bottoms as James T Hart, Lindsay Wagner as Susan Fields, John Houseman as Charles W. Kingsfield Jr, Graham Beckel as Franklin Ford III, James Naughton as Kevin Brooks, Edward Herrmann as Thomas Craig Anderson, Craig Richard Nelson as Willis ‘Liberty’ Bell, Bob Lydiard as O’Connor, Lenny Baker as tutor William Moss, David Clennon as Toombs, Regina Baff as Asheley Brooks, and Blair Brown as Miss Farranti.

The Harvard Law School exterior shots were filmed on the Harvard Law School campus, and the library scenes were shot in the Harvard Andover library at the Harvard Divinity School. The interiors were shot on stages in Toronto. Most of the extras for the Harvard Law School scenes were Harvard Law students at the time, paid by 20th Century Fox $25 a day.

It was nominated for three Oscars: Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium (James Bridges) and Best Sound (Donald O Mitchell and Larry Jost). Houseman also won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

The TV show ran for four seasons. CBS aired the series in 1978–1979 with John Houseman reprising his movie role and James Stephens playing Hart. Despite praise, ratings were low and it was cancelled after a year. PBS rebroadcast all the episodes. In 1983, cable network Showtime brought back the show with Houseman and Stephens, plus other members of the TV cast. Hart finally graduates from law school at the end of the fourth season.

Houseman said the inspiration for Kingsfield was crusty professor Edward ‘Bull’ Warren.

It is good to have friends – and to repay debts. Bridges wanted James Mason as Kingsfield but he was unavailable. So Bridges offered it to Houseman, who had rarely acted before, but knew Bridges as a stage manager in Houseman’s UCLA Professional Theater Group. Houseman had then recommended Bridges as a writer for the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, for which Bridges wrote 18 teleplays.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4030

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert