The Way We Were ***½ (1973, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Bradford Dillman) – Classic Movie Review 2272

Director Sydney Pollack’s double Oscar-winning 1973 romantic drama The Way We Were is a thoroughly professional old-style Hollywood piece of work, well intentioned and often entertaining but hollow at the centre and painstakingly but mechanically assembled. It’s entertaining but that extra magic isn’t there on screen. But still, it’s Streisand and Redford together!

Good though their individual performances are, Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford don’t prove a dream team together, never sharing that magical screen chemistry expected of them, and somehow just never able to make you believe that they care passionately for each other. It’s hard to imagine or accept Streisand as a radical political activist for whom romance and marriage is selling out or even Redford as a talented serious writer for whom writing screenplays is selling out.

Their two characters Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardner meet at college in the 1930s when she’s a kooky Jewish radical and he’s a WASP All-American popular jock sportsman. The two start an on again, off again relationship and Katie ends up giving up her interest in politics to hold on to Hubbell and they get married. Later he abandons his novels and starts writing screenplays in Hollywood. The duo enjoy a wonderful romance but their political views and convictions drive them apart.

Alas, the film founders as it bravely tries to tackle the serious issue of the McCarthy witch-hunt for communists among Hollywood writers. However, to be fair, this ambitious and serious-minded part of the movie was apparently severely hacked just before release. Arthur Laurents provides the patchy screenplay from his own novel and disapproved of this version. 

On the big plus side, there is an outstanding score from Marvin Hamlisch and songs from him (music) and Alan and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics), Indeed, the soundtrack album is far better than the movie itself, reflected at Academy Awards time when the score and title song both won Oscars – Best Original Song and Best Original Music. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. In addition, Streisand was nominated as best actress.

The other huge asset is that it is a striking-looking movie with a great production, as reflected in nominations for Harry Stradling Jr’s Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Stephen B Grimes, William Kiernan) and Best Costume Design (Dorothy Jeakins, Moss Mabry). All in all, fans of the stars or those who enjoy a good weep and a sentimental wallow will surely not be disappointed.

Also in the cast are Patrick O’Neal, Viveca Lindfors, Bradford Dillman, Lois Chiles, James Woods, Murray Hamilton, Herb Edelman, Sally Kirkland, George Gaynes, Dan Seymour, Allyn Ann McLerie (as Rhea Edwards), Diana Ewing, Marcia Mae Jones, Don Keefer, Eric Boles, Barbara Peterson, Roy Jenson, Brendan Kelly, Constance Forslund, Robert Gerringer, Susan Blakely, Edward Power and Susanne Zenor.

Harry Stradling Jr, two-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer for 1776 and The Way We Were, died on 17 October 2017 at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California, aged 92.

Allyn Ann McLerie died on 21 May 2018, aged 91.

Marilyn Bergman died on 8 January 2022, age 93. She won three Oscars.

Marilyn Bergman (born November 10, 1928) and Alan Bergman (born September 11, 1925) were an American songwriting duo, married from 1958. The Bergmans won three Academy Awards, three Emmy Awards, and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. They teamed up with Marvin Hamlisch to write Barbra Streisand’s hit ‘The Way We Were’.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2272

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