From the Unseen 12: Move (1970)

Some months ago I posted a contribution to the 12 Hard-to-See-Movies meme, where I listed a dozen films from the 60s and 70s that I've long wanted to see. An extremely kind reader from the UK sent me three of the twelve, including Move, the lone entry in Stuart Rosenberg's 70s output that I hadn't seen. Though the DVD quality was awful (from a pan-and-scan PAL VHS), it was well worth the wait.

Rosenberg has always been something of a head-scratcher for me, for his films are so wildly inconsistent, both tonally and aesthetically. Perhaps a closer study would reveal some directorial signatures, but I never would have guessed that the same person was responsible for Pocket Money, Voyage of the Damned, The Amityville Horror and The Pope of Greenwich Village.

Move was one of two films Rosenberg released in 1970, the other being the nearly-perfect WUSA. Though nowhere as ambitious as the latter, Move finds Rosenberg at his furthest from the mainstream, and clearly taking inpsiration from the nouvelle vague. It's one of those 70s films you find hard to believe a major studio produced and distributed. Yet Twentieth Century Fox did just that.

It was in the 60s that Manhattan real-estate, specifically the issue of apartment space (and occasionally lack thereof) became a fairly common theme in New York-based cinema (and eventually television) -- where the apartment itself functions as a character. ( cf. The Apartment, Barefoot in the Park, Rosemary's Baby, Seinfeld, etc.) Move takes it one step further, addressing every New Yorker's secret dream -- to get out of a five story walkup and move into a proper building, with doorman and elevator.

Hiram Jaffe (Elliott Gould) and his wife Dolly (Paula Prentiss) want nothing more than to live that dream, yet their planned move from a cramped Upper West Side studio to a slightly larger one-bedroom just two blocks away becomes an almost Odyssian adventure -- ideal fodder for a situational comedy. Yet Move is nothing of the sort, and it can best be described as paranoid New York take on Waiting For Godot, with the Jaffes waiting for movers who never show, and whose existence is questionable.

The opening moments, a bit of reversed film which finds Elliot Gould walking forward through Times Square as the rest of the city walks backwards, brilliantly sets the tone for this absurd comedy that seamlessly blends reality and fantasy. The theme song, a bit of Bacharach-esque sunshine folk-pop by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan and Marilyn Bergman (sung by Larry Marks) is pretty amazing. (Click the link below.)

Hiram, a self-professed Zoroastrian (but in fact an echt New York Jew) is an unsuccessful playwright who makes a living writing cheap porn novels and walking dogs in Central Park. He spends most of his day lost in oddly perverse fantasy, including dreams that his ever-braless (ah...the 70s) wife Dolly is sleeping with her boss, or imagining a third breast on an attractive neighbor. Their drab, tiny apartment is in a state of flux, crammed with boxes for a move that's meant to happen that day. Their marriage is a happy one, though the stress of NYC compounded with his lack of success has created a rift between them, and Hiram bemoans the fact that he hasn't been able to sleep with her for months.

Permanently on-edge, and unable to sit still for very long, Hiram keeps leaving the apartment, which gives rise to the film's loosely episodic structure of one bizarre event after another, including a psycho-sexual phone call with the mover's wife, an epic afternoon sexual tryst with a breathy, British, child-like blonde (Geneviève Waïte, mother of Bijou Phillips), and a nightmarish costume party that would put a smile on Bunuel's face. Most of these encounters end with a nearly-nude Gould in all of his hirsuted glory.

Masculine inferiority is at the film's core, and many of Hiram's paranoid fantasies are rooted in his insecurities and fears. A pretty, topless breastfeeding neighbor is a threat to him, and the women he flirts with taunt him with details of their husbands' intense sexual prowess or immense endowments. He's convinced his wife is sleeping around, and even views his two-hundred pound St. Bernard as a sexual competitor. The moving from a the tiny apartment to the larger one can, I guess, be read as allegorical -- upsizing apartments as compensation for perceived penile inadequacy. There's a scene of Gould painting the new apartment in lusty bright colors, in the nude no less, that will keep Freudians busy for hours. 

Other Hollywood comedies around this time dipped their toes into the borderline experimental, but few were able to pull it off as successfully as Rosenberg has in Move. There are no comic set pieces, and it doesn't devolve into slapstick in the final act. That's not to say it isn't funny -- it's just that the humor is more cerebral than silly, and very New York. The inconsistent pacing, fragmented narrative, jagged editing and exaggerated use of sound is more in line with sixties Godard than with seventies Hollywood. What's remarkable is just how different it is from Rosenberg's other films.

1970 was a busy year for Elliott Gould -- besides Move there was MASH, Getting Straight, and the similarly-themed I Love my Wife. Audiences (and the studio) may have felt it was overkill, which might explain why the film quickly faded into obscurity. (I don't think it was even issued on VHS in the States.) It's a shame, for it's one of Gould best roles, on par with his work for Altman. Paula Prentiss, another seventies staple (and early childhood crush), is also at her best, though sadly her part is all too brief. I've heard that the Fox Movie Channel has aired the film, but I've never seen it listed. Fox recently released the inferior S*P*Y*S on DVD, so perhaps one day they'll get around to this one.

Related Link: Theme from Move - Larry Marks (mp3).

Comments

[MilkMan]

I can't wait for the inevitable reconsideration of Flakes in 2045. It seems like every movie ever made can be categorized like this:

1. Classic (that deserves to be)
2. Classic (that doesn't deserve to be)
3. Lost Classic

I can only assume that this is a side-effect of the Internet. So much infinite space that needs to be filled. Sometimes I wonder if you film bloggers just walk into a film rental store and close your eyes and grab whatever. You know, pretty soon you're going to run out of garbage, uh, I mean films.

No one has nutballed the socio-cultural attributes of Best Defense yet. I think that film held up a mirror to something we were all experiencing in 1985, didn't it? And don't forget Eric Red's Body Parts from 1991. Actually, forget about that one. That one's mine. That's the one I'm going to make my name on. Mind/Body Split and the Insecurity of Living in a Post-Cold War Environment.

Can't shit just ever be shit? Nope.

[mike]

how the HECK could you miss Rosenberg's greatest directorial achievement - Cool Hand Luke!!!!!!

C'mon, FB!!!!

[Filmbrain]

MilkMan -- Shit can be shit, yes. However, maybe there actually is something worthwhile about Move? Have you seen it? You're more than welcome to post a rebuttal if you disagree with my reaction.

Also, sorry to let you down, but it doesn't fall into any of the three categories you laid out. I think it's much better than its reputation, and far more daring a studio film than you'll ever see today. Perhaps it does require a critical distance of thirty+ years to see its merits.

As for your video store comment....oh to be able to walk into one and see the likes of Move on the shelf....

I can't speak for Best Defense, but I know someone who has a very strong case for Spies Like Us.

[Filmbrain]

Mike --

I didn't think it necessary to mention Cool Hand Luke -- everybody knows and loves that one. (But between you and me -- I think Newman's better in WUSA and The Drowning Pool, but don't tell anybody I said that.)

[David N]

Newman is great in both the Harper movies. I always liked him better when he let himself be a movie star than when he self-consciously tried to be an Actor.

Whereas Gould, in the 70s, was worth watching in pretty much anything. And he always seems so effortless...

[Filmbrain]

Oh, and MilkMan, I would argue that Stuart Rosenberg is one of the unsung American auteurs of the 60s and 70s.

[Filmbrain]

David --

Too true about Gould. There's a scene in the film where he talks with his mouth full, and I realized that he's a master at that -- nobody acts better with a mouthful of food than Elliott Gould.

[Tom Russell]

The story I heard, which could be completely false, is that "Pope" was mostly ghost-directed by Cimino. Anyone else hear about this? Is there any validity to it?

[colinr]

I agree on Body Parts MilkMan! Based on a Boileau and Narcejac novel!

I particularly enjoyed seeing the very British Lindsay Duncan as an obviously unhinged mad doctor! And if I ever start a blog of my own one of my posts will be on the career of the character actor Zakes Mokae (he was in this and in tiny parts in huge mid 90's blockbusters Waterworld and Outbreak, had a recurring role in the Oz TV series but really shone in Richard Stanley's film Dust Devil, one of my favourite 90s horrors)

[Michael Lieberman]

Wow, the theme to "Move" is total iPod material. Muchos gracias!

[Filmbrain]

Michael -- glad you enjoyed it. It's a shame there's some dialog in there.

Tom -- I never heard that story before. I guess you could see Cimino in there. Maybe I'll have to compare it with Year of the Dragon.

[colinr]

Ah, yes but it's Professor Frink style dialogue, which makes it fine by me! "Hey Layddeee!"

[john john]

Are you planning to review the other two films you got from "extremely kind reader?"

A rarely seen, mod-era Elliott Gould film sounds right up my alley. I'm a little envious. I'm a big fan of "Little Murders." Anybody who doubts Gould's ability to maintain interest just by sitting still and talking for three unbroken minutes should check out his monologue about the guy who is reading his mail in that film.

[Filmbrain]

Yes, I will definitely be reviewing those other films.

Couldn't agree more with you about Gould, which is why Move was such a pleasure to watch, for it's pretty much all him for the entire film.

[Griff]

Not only did a major studio finance and distribute MOVE, but it was produced by Pandro S. Berman and photographed by William Daniels. That's sort of breathtaking to imagine... the producer of TOP HAT and the other Astaire & Rogers musicals, NATIONAL VELVET and FATHER OF THE BRIDE and the favorite cameraman of von Stroheim, Garbo and Sinatra, collaborating with Stuart Rosenberg on MOVE. [It was the last film for both Berman and Daniels.] 1970 was a remarkable transition year for the movies.

I don't give much credence to the Cimino connection to THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE. He may have been involved in certain early stages of the project, but I don't believe that he directed any of the film.

[Todshi]

Do my eyes deceive me? Somebody is actually give this movie a POSSITIVE review?
I used to watch this flick a lot when I was a kid. It was a butched TV version and didn't make a hellava lotta sence, but I dug it because it was just pain weird.
The last time I saw it was on the day John Lennon died.