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At Long Last Love (1975) More at IMDbPro »

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15 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
I love this movie!, 19 January 2005
10/10
Author: lengel46 from Iowa, United States

This movie is one of my all-time favorites! I saw it three times in the theater and thankfully was able to record it during a rare TV broadcast. I watch it at least once a year.

The costumes and set design are beautiful. I love the basic black and white color-scheme throughout. John Hillerman and Eileen Brennan are wonderful with their witty repartee. Cybil Shepherd is the ideal spoiled,dumb blonde. And Burt Reynolds truly is the consummate rich, playboy bachelor (probably actually type casting back in 1975) It's very campy and of course the songs are phenomenal.

Forget what the critics say. WATCH THIS MOVIE

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10 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Ahead of its time, 5 January 2005
Author: mcelesia-1 from Monterey, California

This film was widely misinterpreted at the time of its release. As the other commentator on this page mentions, Bogdanovich not only used non-professional singers, but the songs were recorded live! Each actor had an earpiece through which they received a transmission of the basic melody. I was fond of the movie from the very beginning, being such a devoted fan of Madeline Kahn (just check out her Primitive Man number), but the true finds of the movie were the delicious Eileen Brennan and the deadpan John Hillerman, as the faithful servants. I do not hesitate to say that Eileen Brennan, with that incredible delivery and posture, a cigarette dangling from her lips, was the best thing to hit a Hollywood kitchen since Thelma Ritter in All About Eve! I hope this film will eventually be released in DVD. And by the way, shame on you Mr. Bodanovich for apologizing for your creation. Too bad she was not nominated for an Oscar.

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Underrated, Ambitious Musical, 30 June 1999
7/10
Author: Jim Kenney (jimfk@hotmail.com) from New York

This is definitely a case of people running around saying a film is terrible they've probably never seen. Upon release, the film was trashed, probably partially because of its type of cinema being out of favor (this was Scorsese/Altman time) and because of people's annoyance with Bogdanovich and Shepard on talk shows and such. But with time as a distancer, watch this film and dare to tell me it isn't superiour to "Everyone Says I Love You" in every way! I LIKE "Everyone says..." but this film, with its cinematography, and its use of Cole Porter tunes to advance the plot, while uneven, is much more ambitious than the charming Allen film. If you didn't like the Allen film, you may well not like this -- but Reynolds, Shepard, Eileen Brennan singing, which got trashed upon release, is just as good as Roberts, Norton et al warbling in "Everyone." This is a funny, unique work that does occasionally suffer from the cutes -- but so what? Polly Platt, Bogdanovich's ex-wife, always talks about this as one of his "he's no good after he left me" examples, but at least his musical retains its music (she's one of the creators of James L. Brooks' "I'll Do Anything"). This film is a target from so many for no good reason. I recommend this and "Nickelodeon", another overlooked Bogdanovich picture, to be rediscovered as the just plain good films they are!

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Completely underrated musical comedy and tribute to Cole Porter, 27 October 1999
Author: Richard Stephens (richard@stephens.net) from Madrid, Spain

I saw this film years ago in Radio City Music Hall in NYC and have never been so delighted with a Hollywood treatment of musicals in my life. The sophistication of Bogdanovich's direction I felt caught the real essence of Cole Porter and his wonderful music and lyrics. All of that slightly off-key singing and crazy phrasing was the perfect touch to a truly atmospheric musical.... a refreshing bit of tongue-in-cheek that I have never forgotten. I have been trying for years to get my hands on a video of this movie, but, alas, most people have never heard of it..... It deserved a better fate....

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Exhilarating Musical, 3 November 2002
10/10
Author: drednm

An homage to 30s musicals, this vastly underrated film features tongue-in-cheek performances by Cybill Shepherd and Burt Reynolds, and terrific comedy turns by Eileen Brennan and Madeline Kahn.

Kahn does a great, obscure Cole Porter (all music in this film) called "Find Me a Primitive Man"; Brennan shines in the "Gentlemen Don't Want Love" number. Duilio del Prete, Mildred Natwick, and John Hillerman are also quite good.

Many obscure Porter songs and a few well-known ones. The costumes and sets are nice and evoke the 30s with the star blacks and whites with hints of beige. While the dancing may be a little rough, the stars more than make up for it in their zest and obvious enjoyment of the material.

The entire cast has fun with this slight story of changing partners until each finds at long last love. Reynolds might be a tad too silly but Shepherd has fun and display a great set of pipes. Ultimately, Brennan and Kahn make this one worth catching.

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12 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
A Misunderstood Film Masterpiece, 5 February 2005
9/10
Author: Kit Wilson from Washington, DC

I love "At Long Last Love"! I really think the enmity displayed by critics at the time was most probably personal given Mr. Bogdonovich and Ms. Shepherd's public relationship. People wanted them to fail. I think the main problem people had with this film is that they didn't know how to categorize it. Not too long ago, I saw Mr. Bogdanovich speak at a preview of "The Cat's Meow" (another great evocative film) and asked him if we might ever see All on DVD, he said "probably not". This is a shame, because I think so many aspects of this film are brilliantly executed. I only hope, in time, that Mr. Bogdanovich will relent. While no film is perfect, it's a truism to state that many great films were panned when released but are seen as great today. As well, many great works of art have been reviled, only to be revered as masterpieces later on. At Long Last Love is one of them. The sets, costumes, cinematography, songs and story are wonderfully true to the period of the 30's (as Mr. Bogdanovich, an accomplished film historian would know) and I think Ms. Shepherd, Ms. Kahn, et al. were simply super given the difficulty of the tasks set before them. That they come across as breezily indolent as they do is a true testament to their acting chops. Consider they had to sing on cue, while swimming and meeting camera marks. A great experiment in Cinema Verite meets the Artifice of the Golden Age. Too bad it was so misunderstood. Then again, if you don't get it, you don't get it. Why some complain about Ms. Shepherds singing, I cannot understand. Ms. Shepherd's voice is better than many a modern singer. I hope we will someday see a full length version with all songs restored (like "Which", sung with aplomb by Ms. Shepherd) on DVD. Mr. Bogdanovich, please relent!! I think you would be very surprised at how many people would happily snap this up.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Madeline Kahn musical comedy., 20 May 2005
5/10
Author: Dominick Mazza from United States

At Long Last Love may be far from a great musical, but it stars the great Madeline Kahn and that is the reason to give this film a chance. It was a big flop in 1975. It is clumsily filmed in some ways. Burt Reynolds and Cybil Shepherd are no singers, but are not all that bad either. Dulio Del Prete is annoying though. JOhn Hillerman, Eileen Brennan and Mildred Natwick are all fun to watch. Peter Bogdanvich directed this homage to the musicals of the 1930's. 16 Cole Porter songs are used in it. I do enjoy the whole cast singing Friendship in the limo. The art deco set is beautiful looking and the technicolor is as well. The cast sang these songs live on film and that was the big mistake. 120 minutes of singing and dancing. The comedy is funny at times but a little dated. But as I said its great to see a movie with Madeline Kahn singing and dancing.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
I liked it, 9 February 2003
7/10
Author: crose5 from Oklahoma City

When I saw it in'75 (I was 25 at the time) I walked out of the theater smiling, and sang Cole Porter tunes in my car all the way home. It was a preview, so it hadn't been panned yet and I had formed my own opinion. Eileen Brennan cracked me up in her wanton pursuit of John Hillerman. Cybill was just my age and a knockout and, no, she doesn't sing badly. I've never been a big fan of Burt, but I liked him more after the movie than before. Kahn was marvelous, Del Prete the weak link, because I couldn't understand his English. Don't expect it to be more than cotton candy, it's sweet without substance and doesn't pretend to be more. It was probably the first exposure I'd had to Cole Porter since Can-Can (1960 - I was 10 then) and I fell in love with his music again, and forever. It's not the Music Man or Top Hat or Flying Down to Rio, but just go along for the pleasant ride, enjoy the sets and costumes, and, especially, the words and music. If you want to trash it, go ahead, but I think that those who do need a glass of champagne(or two)and to just chill out. --- Carl

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8 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
"A total wreck, a flop...", 2 August 2004
1/10
Author: Merwyn Grote (majikstl@aol.com) from St. Louis, Missouri

In this attempt to make a new old movie, Madeline Kahn, playing a supposedly famous stage star named Kitty O'Kelly, performs the song "Give Me a Primitive Man" in a supposed Broadway musical (supposedly written by Cole Porter). The number is dreadful. The concept is stupid, the staging clumsy and Kahn may or may not be putting us on, in much the same way she parodied Marlene Dietrich in BLAZING SADDLES. The only interesting thing about it is trying to figure out if the musical number is supposed to be bad. I mean, is it supposed to be good but was just badly done, or was it supposed to be purposely bad to show that Kitty isn't very talented, or was it supposed to be intentionally funny-bad, and just isn't funny? Just what the heck was director/writer Peter Bogdanovich trying to do?

That is the question that haunts AT LONG LAST LOVE. All the songs -- torn violently from the Cole Porter songbook -- are badly performed. Indeed, all the numbers are so consistently awful, it would seem that it was Bogdanovich's intent. But why? Obviously, some of the songs are purposely butchered -- sung by characters who are supposed to be drunk or hung over or desperately trying to be nonchalant. So, it is bad enough that Bogdanovich goes out of his way to render some of Porter's witty lyrics gratingly unmelodic and sometimes totally unintelligible, but in other unfortunate numbers, the songs seem to be victims of incompetent staging and performances that are either simply indifferent or just flat out lousy. It is hard to say which is more offensive: that Bogdanovich would choose to mangle Porter's music or that he couldn't be bothered to do the songs justice.

This is all the more perplexing since this is supposed to be a valentine to Cole Porter, a celebration of the wit and charm of his songs, all wrapped up in a pretty package designed to look like the Lubitsch comedies and the Astaire and Rogers musicals of the 1930s. Well, the packaging is nicely done; the art deco set design looks great. But the tone of the movie is schizophrenic: The plot is featherweight: a silly tale of the idle rich dilly-dallying around in a game of change-partners-and-romance. Yet, though the film was conceived to honor Porter, his material is approached with something slightly above contempt. It seems that everyone thinks they are just too good to be involved with the project, or worse, with Porter's music. The result is sophisticated bemusement performed with juvenile arrogance; sweetness soured by disdain.

This type of story is not meant to be taken seriously by the audience, but the players ought to at least respect the material enough to fake some interest. Instead, we get something akin to amateur night at the high school talent show. This sort of comedy doesn't require great acting, but it does demand a certain attitude, a sincere appreciation for style and a knack for comedic timing. John Hillerman, Mildred Natwick and Duilio del Prete get into the spirit of things, though the comedy styles of Kahn and Eileen Brennan are a bit too broad for this kind of material. (They fare much better in nostalgic parodies like THE CHEAP DETECTIVE and CLUE.) But they all fall under the shadow of the nominal stars, Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd. One doesn't expect Reynolds to be Fred Astaire or Cary Grant, or even Edward Everett Horton, but at least he could have tried to stifle his tendency to mug for the camera like a teenage boy trying to show his friends how cool he is. By the same token, Shepherd is in her are-we-done-yet? prom queen mode, seemingly bored with the whole affair. Neither can sing well, and unlike the supporting players, they don't even try.

But, as bad as Reynolds and Shepherd are, all the blame has to go to Bogdanovich; he is the one who miscast them in the first place and then made no apparent attempt to make them behave. Bogdanovich apparently loves Cole Porter, yet he lets Reynolds and Shepherd treat the songs like they are reciting dirty limericks: they snicker and snort and contribute smarmy asides. Possibly Bogdanovich was aiming for the film to have an easygoing attitude, a sense of contemporary improvisation. But the resulting scenes look like everybody is walking through the material on the first day of rehearsal. Instead of casual, the tone is callous; indifferent rather than infectious. Light and airy does not come easy; in the movies actors have to work hard to make it look like they aren't working at all. Timing is everything, in comedy and in music. A film scholar like Bogdanovich should have realized this.

The film's title song asks the musical question "Is it a fancy not worth thinking of? Or is it At Long Last Love?" Under Bogdanovich's direction, it turns out to be both.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
An incredible musical featuring the music of Cole Porter., 7 March 2000
10/10
Author: aroche from New York City

I love this movie, which introduced me to Cole Porter, one of the best, smartest, and wittiest songwriters ever. All of the performers seem to be having a genuinely great time -- and their mood is infectious. I love the singing, dancing, and look of this movie. It's filmed in color, but everyone is dressed exclusively in black and white. A timeless classic.

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