James Kirkwood wrote the kind of engaging novels you recommend to friends. (He's best-known for the book for "A Chorus Line".) "There Must Be a Pony" is a semi-autobiographical novel about his growing up as the son of a once-popular actress (Lila Lee). The TV movie is a disaster -- not only poorly written, but inappropriately cast.
I've never been a fan of Elizabeth Taylor, but there's no denying that, as a young actress, she was beautiful and talented. Somewhere along the line ("Cleopatra", perhaps) she turned into an edgy b****. Too much of this remains in her portrayal of Marguerite Sydney. She's supposedly a naïve, dependent woman who makes bad choices, especially in men. Little of this comes through in an unsympathetic and unconvincing performance.
Robert Wagner is similarly miscast as a man who genuinely loves Sydney. Kirkwood was likely thinking of Cary Grant, and Wagner doesn't come close to being the elegant gentleman Ben is supposed to be.
James Coco plays a close gay friend, who in the novel is skinny and birdlike. Kirkwood probably had Roddy McDowall in mind; the heavyset Coco just doesn't work.
Of the principals, only Chad Lowe escapes unscathed. His performance throughout is sincere and believable. He makes Taylor and Wagner look quite bad.
A lot of the problems have to be laid at Matt Crowley's door. Josh is the novel's narrator, but you know darn well Liz ain't gonna appear in a film where somebody else is the lead. Crowley therefore had the task of imagining scenes where Josh wasn't present. Unfortunately, his dialog is often boring and/or clichéd.
It doesn't help that Crowley discards the best sequence in the book. Josh is a klutz at just about everything, and his attempt to bake a cake ends in comic disaster. Then, a page later, he finds Ben's body. Kirkwood pulls this off perfectly: "I laughed and I cried". In the movie, Josh is awakened by noises, and finds Ben's body without any contrasting prior emotion.
If you haven't read the novel, you might like the movie. But the movie is poor, for no justifiable reason. Its problems could have been resolved long before the cameras rolled.
I've never been a fan of Elizabeth Taylor, but there's no denying that, as a young actress, she was beautiful and talented. Somewhere along the line ("Cleopatra", perhaps) she turned into an edgy b****. Too much of this remains in her portrayal of Marguerite Sydney. She's supposedly a naïve, dependent woman who makes bad choices, especially in men. Little of this comes through in an unsympathetic and unconvincing performance.
Robert Wagner is similarly miscast as a man who genuinely loves Sydney. Kirkwood was likely thinking of Cary Grant, and Wagner doesn't come close to being the elegant gentleman Ben is supposed to be.
James Coco plays a close gay friend, who in the novel is skinny and birdlike. Kirkwood probably had Roddy McDowall in mind; the heavyset Coco just doesn't work.
Of the principals, only Chad Lowe escapes unscathed. His performance throughout is sincere and believable. He makes Taylor and Wagner look quite bad.
A lot of the problems have to be laid at Matt Crowley's door. Josh is the novel's narrator, but you know darn well Liz ain't gonna appear in a film where somebody else is the lead. Crowley therefore had the task of imagining scenes where Josh wasn't present. Unfortunately, his dialog is often boring and/or clichéd.
It doesn't help that Crowley discards the best sequence in the book. Josh is a klutz at just about everything, and his attempt to bake a cake ends in comic disaster. Then, a page later, he finds Ben's body. Kirkwood pulls this off perfectly: "I laughed and I cried". In the movie, Josh is awakened by noises, and finds Ben's body without any contrasting prior emotion.
If you haven't read the novel, you might like the movie. But the movie is poor, for no justifiable reason. Its problems could have been resolved long before the cameras rolled.