Two for the Seesaw *** (1962, Robert Mitchum, Shirley MacLaine) – Classic Movie Review 5678

‘All my life I never yet been able to beat up one lousy man.’ – Gittel ‘Mosca’. Sharing good chemistry, Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine shine in co-producer/ director Robert Wise’s enjoyable, though quite flimsy and artificial 1962 movie. It is pleasant if not entirely satisfying, with the performers outshining the material.

Unfortunately, it is a rather too stage-bound theatre adaptation (from William Gibson’s play) about impoverished Greenwich Village dance teacher, Gittel ‘Mosca’ Moscawitz (MacLaine), romancing a straight-laced lawyer, Jerry Ryan (Mitchum), who is wandering round New York after giving up his law career in Nebraska when his wife demanded a divorce. However, the New York City locations help to keep it filmic, and so do the performances, and it captures the flavour of a time and place very nicely.

In a comedy tour de force, MacLaine is effortlessly the daffy New Yorker, while Mitchum as the out-of-towner from Nebraska brings it some needed weight and substance, though somehow you expect to find Jack Lemmon in the role.

Also in the cast are Edmon Ryan, Elisabeth Fraser, Eddie Firestone, Billy Gray, Julie Allred and Harold Gould.

The screenplay is by Isobel Lennart, it is shot in black and white by Ted D McCord, it is co-produced by Walter Mirisch, it is scored by André Previn and designed by Boris Leven.

McCord was Oscar nominated for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White and Previn was Oscar nominated for Best Original Song, with Dory Previn [Dory Langdon] (lyrics), for the ‘Song from Two for the Seesaw (Second Chance)’.

It was to have starred Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman but Taylor became ill during Cleopatra (1963), freeing Newman to make the classic The Hustler (1961).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5678

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