The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)

A daydreamer convinces his radio personality brother to help fund one of his get-rich-quick schemes.

Director:

Bob Rafelson

Writers:

Jacob Brackman (screenplay), Bob Rafelson (story)

Stars:

Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Ellen Burstyn

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jack Nicholson	...	David Staebler
Bruce Dern	...	Jason Staebler
Ellen Burstyn	...	Sally
Julia Anne Robinson	...	Jessica
Scatman Crothers	...	Lewis (as Benjamin 'Scatman' Crothers)
Charles LaVine	...	Grandfather
Arnold Williams	...	Rosko
John P. Ryan	...	Surtees (as John Ryan)
Sully Boyar	...	Lebowitz
Josh Mostel	...	Frank
William Pabst	...	Bidlack
Garry Goodrow	...	Nervous Man (as Gary Goodrow)
Imogene Bliss	...	Magda
Ann Thomas	...	Bambi
Tom Overton	...	Spot Operator

Storyline

'It's Monopoly out there'. Jason Staebler, The King of Marvin Gardens, has gone directly to jail, lives on the Boardwalk and fronts for the local mob in Atlantic City. He is also a dreamer who asks his brother, David, a radio personality from Philadelphia to help him build a paradise on a Pacific Island - asking him to believe in yet another of his dreams, yet another of his get-rich-quick schemes. But luck is against them both and the game ends badly - real life reduced to radio drama.

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Plot Keywords:

watching tv | jail | radio | hotel | hawaii | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Japanese

Release Date:

26 April 1973 (France)

Also Known As:

The Philosopher King

Filming Locations:

Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

BBS Productions,Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jack Nicholson and Scatman Crothers appeared in The Fortune (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), and The Shining (1980).

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Goofs

David listens to tape recording he made but during close-up of tape recorder, none of the buttons that would allow it to play are depressed.

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Quotes

[first lines]
David Staebler: I promised that I would tell you... why I never eat fish. When we all moved into my grandfather's house... it somehow fell to me to keep the old man's mind off of things. We would play casino over an old card table. He never let me win. One time he put one of those tiny model trains... into my hamburger. He was a practical joker. I broke my tooth on it. On Friday evenings we had fish at our house. Every Friday. Not on religious grounds, but because... Grandpa was a fish enthusiast....
[...]

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Crazy Credits

The Columbia Pictures logo does not appear on this film.

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Connections

Referenced in People I Know (2002)

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Soundtracks

I Could Have Danced All Night
(uncredited)
Music by Frederick Loewe

User Reviews

about as low-key as 70s movies get (that's a compliment)

The King of Marvin Gardens was Bob Rafelson's experiment at doing a film where the leads are switched around- the actors playing them, anyway. You rarely get to see Jack Nicholson in the role of the quiet, observant, and really more intuitive characters in any film, and to see it in his prime in-between doing films like Carnal Knowledge and The Last Detail is a revelation. Every once in a while he pulls out a performance that is attuned to a sensibility that is surprising, even if the film is not. One of those that worked best was About Schmidt. But this time in Rafelson's vision, he plays second fiddle to the more personable, idealistic, talkative, pushy, and far more conflicted brother played by Bruce Dern. For Dern this is also a somewhat different role, as he often could play roles with a good deal of dialog well, though with also a lowered guard. Here he plays a guy with lots of ideas, and those of which he really wants to impress upon his more detached but not too unresponsive brother. It's a mix that works, though it's very understandable why I've only seen it once, and not only do I not really desire to see it again, it's not too much of a wonder why its still one of the real underrated films of the 70s.

Keep in mind it's not just the men to see here, but Ellen Burstyn too, in one of her other great parts of her real prime, as she plays Dern's depressed, loopy, over-the-top girlfriend. She has her counterpart too in Julie Anne Robinson. Her character is maybe a little more like Nicholson's, though not really as withdrawn. These are all characters who are estranged, if not from themselves then from each other, and amid the big plans in the (correctly chosen) sights of dreary Atlantic City they're cast against a glow that just poses a kind of nothingness for them. And in the end, when tragedy strikes, it finally comes when the emotional cork gets pulled completely off. And bookending the film are Nicholson's monologues on the airwaves to his listeners, whomever they may be, and they're some of my favorite scenes I still remember from the film. If it's less than really memorable and affecting like the best of 70s subversive cinema, it's because its content in its low-key ways. It's a smart movie that isn't really at the heights of Five Easy Pieces- Rafelson's masterpiece that's also low-key in its way but reaches higher in psychological hang-ups- but it does come as close as anything the director's done since. Most noteworthy is the challenge of reversing the roles for Nicholson and Dern pays off in that independent-film way. Look for Shining co-star Scatman Crothers in some scenes late in the picture.