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Darling (1965 film)
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Wikipedia article
'Darling' is a 1965 British romantic drama film directed by John Schlesinger, from a screenplay written by Frederic Raphael. It stars Julie Christie as Diana Scott, a young successful model and actress in London in the 1960s, toying with the affections of two older men, played by Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey.
'Darling' premiered in New York City on 3 August 1965, and was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on 16 September by Anglo-Amalgamated. The film became a critical and commercial success, grossing $4.5 million and received
five nominations at the 38th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won three awards: Best Actress (for Christie), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Costume Design.
Plot
Diana Scott (Julie Christie) is a beautiful, bored young model married to Tony Bridges (Trevor Bowen). One day, Diana meets Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde), a literary interviewer/director for television arts programs, by chance when she is spotted on the street by his roving film crew and interviewed by him about young people's views on convention. Diana is invited to watch the final edit in the TV studio, and it's there that their relationship starts. After liaisons in bleak hotel rooms, they leave their spouses (and, in Robert's case, children) and move into an apartment.
As a couple, they become part of the fashionable London media/arts set. Initially, Diana is jealous when Robert sees his wife (Pauline Yates) while visiting his children, but she quickly loses this attachment when she mixes with the predatory males of the media, arts and advertising scene, particularly Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey), a powerful advertising executive for the Glass Corporation who gets her a part in a trashy thriller after she has sex with him. The bookish Robert prefers the quiet life; it is he who now becomes jealous, but increasingly detached, depressed and lonely.
Diana attends a high-class charity draw for world hunger for which she is the face. The event, adorned by giant images of African famine victims, is at the height of cynical hypocrisy and bad taste, showing Diana's rich white set, which now includes the establishment, playing at concern, gorging themselves, gambling and generally behaving decadently.
Already showing signs of stress from constantly maintaining the carefree look demanded by the false, empty lifestyle to which she has become a prisoner, Diana becomes pregnant, and has an abortion.
She flies to Paris with Miles for more jet-set sophistication. There she finds the wild party, beat music, strip dance mind game, cross dressing and predatory males and females vaguely repellent and intimidating, but holds her own, gaining the respect of the weird crowd when she taunts Miles in the game. On her return to London, Robert calls her a whore and leaves her, for which she is not emotionally prepared. Miles casts her as "The Happiness Girl" in the Glass Corporation's advertising campaign for a chocolate firm.
Diana finds comfort in the company of the gay photographer Malcolm (Roland Curram) who has created her now famous look and who is the only person who has shown her any real understanding and friendship. They go shopping and she engages in massive shoplifting. On location at a palazzo near Rome, Diana smiles in her medieval/Renaissance costume and completes "The Happiness Girl" shoot. She is much taken with the beauty of the building and the landscape and gets on well with the prince, Cesare (Jos Luis de Villalonga), who owns the palazzo (the Medici villa in Poggio a Caiano was used in the film). With the friendly Malcolm, Diana decides to stay on in Italy. They stay in a simple house by a small harbour in Capri. Diana flirts half-heartedly with Catholicism. They are visited by Cesare, who arrives in a huge launch, invites them on board and proposes to Diana. Cesare is widowed and has several children, the oldest of whom is about the same age as Diana. Diana politely declines his proposal, but Cesare leaves the offer open.
Diana returns to London, and still living in the flat she shared with Robert, has a party with Miles and other assorted media characters. Robert has aged. Soon disillusioned with Miles and the vacuous London jet set, Diana flirts with the Catholic Church again. Impulsively, she flies to Italy and marries the prince, which proves to be ill-considered. Though waited on hand and foot by servants, she is almost immediately abandoned in the vast palazzo by Cesare, who has gone to Rome.
Diana flees to London to Robert, who, taking advantage of her emotional vulnerability, charms her into bed and into what she thinks is a stable, long-term relationship. In the morning, in self-disgust, he tells her that he's leaving her and that he fooled her only as an act of revenge. He reserves a flight to Rome, packs her into his car, and takes her to Heathrow airport to send her back to her life as the Princess Della Romita. At the airport, Diana is hounded by the press, who address her reverentially as Princess. She boards the plane to leave.
Cast
* Julie Christie as Diana Scott
* Laurence Harvey as Miles Brand
* Dirk Bogarde as Robert Gold
* Jos Luis de Vilallonga as Prince Cesare della Romita (as Jose Luis De Villalonga)
* Roland Curram as Malcolm
* Basil Henson as Alec Prosser-Jones
* Helen Lindsay as Felicity Prosser-Jones
* Carlo Palmucci as Curzio della Romita
* Dante Posani as Gino
* Umberto Raho as Palucci
* Marika Rivera as Woman
* Alex Scott as Sean Martin
* Ernest Walder as Kurt
* Brian Wilde as Willett
* Pauline Yates as Estelle Gold
* Peter Bayliss as Lord Grant
* Richard Bidlake as Rupert Crabtree
* T.B. Bowen as Tony Bridges (as Trevor Nowen)
* Annette Carell as Billie Castiglione
* Jean Claudio as Raoul Maxim
* Georgina Cookson as Carlotta Hale
* James Cossins as Basildon
* Jane Downs as Julie (as Jane Bownes)
* Zakes Mokae as Black Man At French Party (uncredited)
Production
According to Richard Gregson, agent for John Schlesinger, the budget was around 300,000 and was entirely provided by Nat Cohen at Anglo-Amalgamated.
Shirley MacLaine originally was cast as Diana, but was replaced by Christie. Production on 'Darling' commenced in August 1964 and wrapped in December.[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059084/business Box office / business for 'Darling'] at the Internet Movie Database It was filmed on location in London, Paris, and Rome.[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059084/locations Filming Locations for 'Darling'] at the Internet Movie Database The final scene was shot at Heathrow Airport in London.
'New York' in 1971 wrote of mod fashion and its wearers: "This new 'dclass' English girl was epitomized by Julie Christie in 'Darling'amoral, rootless, emotionally immature, and apparently irresistible."
Reception
Despite receiving many awards at the time of release, the film later developed a mixed reputation. In his 'New Biographical Dictionary of Film' entry on Schlesinger, David Thomson writes that the film "deserves a place in every archive to show how rapidly modishness withers. Beauty is central to the cinema and Schlesinger seems an unreliable judge of it, over-rating Christie and rarely getting close enough to the action to make a fruitful stylistic bond with it".David Thomson 'The New Biographical Dictionary of Film', London: Little Brown, p.783. Published in New York by Knopf. 'Leonard Maltin's Film Guide' describes it as a "trendy, influential '60s film in flashy form and cynical content".Leonard Maltin (ed.) 'Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2009', New York & London: Plume, 2008, p.318 Tony Rayns though, in the 'Time Out Film Guide', is as damning as Thomson. For him, the film is a "leaden rehash of ideas from Godard, Antonioni and Bergman", although with nods to the "Royal Court school", which "now looks grotesquely pretentious and out of touch with the realities of the life-styles that it purports to represent."'Time Out Film Guide 2009', London: Ebury Press, 2008, p.242
'Darling' holds a rating of 65% on Rotten Tomatoes from 17 reviews.
Box office
The film was a commercial success, grossing $12 million at the worldwide box office against a budget of only 400,000. It earned $4 million in theatrical rentals."Big Rental Pictures of 1966", 'Variety', 4 January 1967 p 8According to Richard Gregson, the film only earned 250,000 in Britain, but Nat Cohen sold the U.S. rights to Joe E. Levine for $900,000 and made a profit and the movie was a big hit in the U.S.
Awards and honours
See also
* BFI Top 100 British films
References
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