Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Rich and Famous

Today's edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post turns to a drama from 1981.  Co-starring Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen and directed by George Cukor, this is Rich and Famous.

The film begins with two young women in 1959 at Smith College, a pair who are friends despite their divergent paths they want for their lives,  

Merry Blake, an all American blonde beauty whose aspirations are to elope with a young man named Doug and start living the American dream with a house, a yard, a dog and a cat and 2.5 children.  

Liz Hamilton who wants nothing to do with that and has literary ambitions. 

Liz quickly achieves on those ambitions with a critically acclaimed book. What comes after is a wandering path of speeches about that book, frustration at not righting the next one and drifting through a litany of one night stands,

Merry is living her life of perfect American domesticity with her husband and child in a beach house in Malibu, California. Merry decides to emulate Liz and write her own book,a trashy roman à clef about the Malibu elite. She gets it published and it becomes a best seller, turning Merry into a media hotshot. 

Then much to the chagrin of One Book Liz, Merry writes another book. 

And another one. 

And so on and so on 

The prolific Merry's ever escalating fame shatters the facade of her happy domestic life and puts a strain on her relationship with Liz who can't seem to find her groove. 

The movie ends with Merry and Liz sharing a cabin together for what could've been a sexy sapphic romantic weekend but it was 1981 and movies weren't ready to go their yet. 

But they are friends again, a fragile but constant core in a whirlwind of everything else.  

The film takes place over the course of 22 years, starting in 1959 then picking up with 1969, 1975 and 1981. We see Liz and Merry changing over time as does society around them.

I'm not exactly sure what drew me to watch this movie. The appeal might have been the vivacious Jacqueline Bisset.   I had seen her in  François Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) and I definitely do remember her from the coming of age comedy Class (1983) where she was a smoking hot MILF years before the term was invented.  Bisett as hot mess Liz Hamilton does not evoke such sensuality.

Candice Bergen (TV's Murphy Brown) does fine by Merry as she gets swept up in the rush of fame and noteriety with little inclination to slow down that rush.  

I think what really intrigued me was that George Cukor directed this thing. In 1981, he was still active?

Yes he was but Rich and Famous was his last movie.  

Cukor has quote the filmography back in the day: 

• Little Women (1933)
• Romeo and Juliet (1936) 
• The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• Gaslight (1944)
• Adam's Rib (1949)
• Born Yesterday (1950)
• A Star Is Born (1954)  

Cukor won the Academy Award for Best Director for My Fair Lady (1964).   

It's weird to have a director from that era overseeing a film in 1981 where someone says "fuck".  

Rich and Famous was the film debut of Meg Ryan who plays Merry's daughter in the 1981 segment.  

Over all, Rich and Famous is not a great film but it is a perfectly servicable melodrama that tracks a friendship between two women that spans decades, a relationship that is bruised and battered along the way but somehow still survives.

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Tomorrow on the blog: Doctor Who time!