Two Weeks in Another Town **** (1962, Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Cyd Charisse, Claire Trevor, Daliah Lavi, George Hamilton, Rosanna Schiaffino) – Classic Movie Review 2362

Director Vincente Minnelli’s literate and intelligent 1962 follow-up to MGM’s The Bad and the Beautiful has the same movie-making background and the same star (Kirk Douglas), writer (Charles Schnee), producer (John Houseman) and director, as well as several references to it, and even clips from it.

The emotional temperature of hysterical and decadent Hollywood film folk working in Rome is kept on the boil by Cyd Charisse, Daliah Lavi, George Hamilton, Claire Trevor, Rosanna Schiaffino, James Gregory, George Macready (who impresses as the agent) and especially Kirk Douglas and Edward G Robinson.

Douglas is particularly impressive as the alcoholic has-been former Hollywood film star Jack Andrus trying to restore his old career glory after spending three years in a sanitarium suffering from alcoholism, a traumatic automobile accident and a severe mental breakdown.

He is crestfallen when told that the acting part he was promised is no longer available to him but sees accepting a minor assignment of two weeks of dubbing work in Rome from his old director Maurice Kruger (Edward G Robinson) as a chance for personal and professional redemption.

Jack socialises with the beautiful Veronica (Daliah Lavi) but is under pressure from his manipulative ex-wife Carlotta (Cyd Charisse), a rising but self-destructive young star Drew (George Hamilton), the director’s shrewish and mean-spirited wife Clara (Claire Trevor), and a temperamental Italian diva Barzelli (Rosanna Schiaffino). Then Kruger, who is also under pressure from his Italian producer to complete the shooting of his romantic costume drama, has a heart attack.

Also in the cast are Joanne Roos, Mino Doro, Vito Scotti, Tom Palmer, Erich von Stroheim Jr, Albert Morin, Beulah Quo, Charles Horvath and Tony Randall. Hamilton complained he was cast as ‘a troubled, funky James Dean-type actor, for which I couldn’t have been less appropriate’.

It is based on a novel by Irwin Shaw, whose story was seen by some as a re-working of a relationship between actors Tyrone Power and Linda Christian and producer Darryl Zanuck.

On a $4million budget, it earned back only $2.5million, so, unlike its predecessor, this time it was not a box office success.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2362

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