I recall a line from The Alamo in which John Wayne says to Linda Cristal that political differences don't make for good breakfast talk between a man and a woman. That's a piece of wisdom that Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford should have remembered for their characters in The Way We Were.
Meet Hubbell Gardiner and Katie Marofsky from the Thirties at Columbia University. Redford as Gardiner is your all American athlete and the Prince Charming of many a young girl's dreams. An elegant WASP Ivy League future is in store for him if he wants it.
One of those girls who thinks Redford is Prince Charming is Barbra Streisand as Katie Marofsky. She's a member of the young Communists and is one eloquent campus radical for her cause. When we see her she's got a picture of Lenin in her dormitory room. We see her talking about the cause of Republican Spain and the budding young Ivy League Republicans on the campus are hooting her down. All, but Redford who's impressed by her convictions even if he doesn't share them.
But when the USA does get into World War II and Redford is in the Navy and Streisand now working for the Office of War Information now meet. Politics seem to take a back seat to romance and Streisand lives out a real life fairy tale as a Brooklyn Jewish Cinderella.
Their love gets really tested in the post World War II period during the Red Scare. Streisand's not quite the Communist she once was, a picture of FDR is now in her room. That was in fact one of FDR's main contributions to our body politic, winning over budding revolutionaries like Streisand to support our democratic, (big and small "D") way of life. But he's gone now and the Soviet Union has become our cold war enemy. A lot of people are now caught in the post war reaction.
Because Hollywood is the glamor capital of the world and right-wing politicos can't get any mileage out of investigating Communist plumbers, it's to the movie capital that the House Un-American Activities Committee turns. Redford is now working in that industry as is Streisand.
Redford sees the problem in personal terms, Streisand sees the big picture, but that's all she does see. How things resolve themselves is the basis of The Way We Were.
With all the political differences there beats the heart of one of the best love stories ever done in Hollywood. When Redford's around, Streisand lights up the screen with her passion for him. But it never quite covers the different world views they have.
With such detail given to the stars by director Sydney Pollack, the supporting cast and it's a good one, never really establish their characters. Maybe that's what he wanted, to have them appear as plastic as Streisand's Katie Marofsky thinks they are.
The Way We Were contains the title song written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan and Marilyn Bregman which became one of Streisand's best loved ballads. Her singing of that song is unforgettable whether heard on record or if fortunate, live at one of her concerts. Bing Crosby also made a nice recording of it for one of his last albums. Hamlisch also won an Oscar for Best overall Musical Score that year, they were the only two Oscars won by The Way We Were.
The sad thing about The Way We Were is that Streisand and Redford hold such different views and yet are fundamentally decent people who cannot agree to disagree. It's what makes The Way We Were such a beautiful, yet ultimately sad film.
