Darling (1965)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

John Schlesinger

Writers:

Frederic Raphael (screenplay)
Frederic Raphael (idea) ...

Release Date:

3 August 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A powerful and bold motion picture...made by adults...with adults...for adults!

Plot:

A beautiful but amoral model sleeps her way to the top of the London fashion scene at the height of the Swinging Sixties.

Plot Keywords:

Model | Fashion | Journalist | Love | Italy

Awards:

Won 3 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Laurence Harvey	...	Miles Brand
Dirk Bogarde	...	Robert Gold
Julie Christie	...	Diana Scott
José Luis de Villalonga	...	Prince Cesare della Romita (as Jose Luis De Villalonga)
Roland Curram	...	Malcolm
Basil Henson	...	Alec Prosser-Jones
Helen Lindsay	...	Felicity Prosser-Jones
Carlo Palmucci	...	Curzio della Romita
Dante Posani	...	Gino
Umberto Raho	...	Palucci
Marika Rivera	...	Woman
Alex Scott	...	Sean Martin
Ernest Walder	...	Kurt
Brian Wilde	...	Willett
Pauline Yates	...	Estelle Gold

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIA | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:X (original rating) | UK:15 (video rating)

Filming Locations:

40-41 Wimpole Street, Marylebone, London, England, UK

Company:

Joseph Janni Production

Trivia:

The first film role of James Cossins.

Goofs:

Continuity: In a compartment on a train after their visit with the writer Southgate, Diana and Robert kiss. Both of Robert's hands touch her face in a close shot. When the angle changes to a shot from the corridor looking into the compartment, they are still embracing but Robert has a cigarette in his right hand which is resting on his knee.

Quotes:

Robert Gold: You're just a whore baby, nothing but a whore and I don't take whores in taxi's

Movie Connections:

Referenced in A Decade Under the Influence (2003)

One of the very best

I find this movie unique. If you have read of, or can remember the mid-1960s, you know that the character Julie Christie plays was absolutely the one adored by everyone- by all who considered themselves "in" and "trendy" and "modern". And she is completely taken apart by this movie.

I can think of only one other movie at any time in any language that so thoroughly demolishes the pretensions of the very people whom the smart set aspired to be at the time the movie was coming out. Amazingly that movie was 'Alfie', that came out about that same year. (A movie like La Dolce Vita is in a different mode - the people are the new meretricious post-war haute bourgeois class - a frequent target through history, and in that way, like The Ice Storm or Interiors or American Beauty as an attack on such values).

Virtually all "serious satires" take on targets that the "chattering classes" consider suspect - the hidebound, the hypocritical, the "authority figures" whom youth wish to overturn. Not this one. Astonishingly, in the midst of mod London, the very middle of the swinging 60s, you get a movie that looks at its non-committal "live for the moment" hedonistic experimentation and blasts its moral character with a cannon.

This just doesn't happen in movies - compare say, "If" or "O Lucky Man" or say, "Network" (to name three I like), and you'll see the targets as the familiar powers that be - from school to television. But Julie Christie's character is what people thought was new and wonderful - and its superficiality is blown to bits.

It's as if a movie now were to look at a poor black woman raising a child alone - and blast her for any behavior that contributed to this state. It just won't be done - the sympathies are all running FOR that character. So were the sympathies for the Julie Christie character in that time - and the movie is very very brave in running so utterly against the current.

I just love the movie - it's a step up from Schlesinger's earlier ones -the script is superb, the performances are excellent without exception. (Lawrence Harvey is particularly good - but of course it's Christie's movie).

Do see it. It's also full of wonderfully imaginative touches - such as the ending scene.