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F. SCOTT FITZGERALD AND 'THE LAST OF THE BELLES' (1974)
STARS: Richard Chamberlain, Blythe Danner, Susan Sarandon, David Huffman.
DIRECTOR: George Schaefer. DURATION: 98 mins.
SYNOPSIS: Dramatisation of the author's crumbling marriage and his efforts to write the semi-autobiographical short story The Last of the Belles. The action is interspersed with scenes from the story itself about a small-town good time girl who keeps a steady flow of First World War army officers buzzing around her.
RC PLAYS: F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Jazz Age writer's traumatic life was just waiting to be made into a film. After all, thanks to his wife's problems it was as colourful as any of his stories, so it came as no surprise when it was announced that a biographical account was being planned. However, what did come as surprise was that even after the critical mauling of Portrait: The Woman I Love, ABC were only too keen to back Richard Chamberlain for the lead role.
Despite initial enthusiasm, Chamberlain soon began to feel there were difficulties: "Quite frankly, I thought it was dangerous to do. It was a character study, a mood piece, and on television it was my belief viewers wanted more high drama. This was much more difficult to do because there is not a lot of plot."
The film was certainly rather unusual. Chamberlain plays the writer, and the production focuses on his relationship with wife Zelda (Blythe Danner) following their excesses in the Twenties. It also incorporates the semi-autobiographical story which he wrote to try and understand his failing marriage (in which David Huffman and Susan Sarandon take the main parts).
Richard though found his role rather difficult: "He was a most elusive man who was hard to get a clear feeling about because he was so involved in his fantasy world. After I learned to act in stage, I had to learn to act for film again. I discovered myself doing too much, too big. And I didn't notice it until I saw myself in the F. Scott Fitzgerald movie. While I was doing it, I felt like there was some reasonably interesting behaviour, but nobody was home. I was awful. I was so obsessed with trying to be like him that I forgot to make a person. I'll never do a recent historical figure again."
It was certainly a frank and honest appraisal of his work. The film itself proved to be a ratings and critical failure, so it seems Chamberlain was certainly right in his assessment of the project's unsuitability for TV audiences. But looking back on it now, it's a highly interesting and ambitious piece, if not wholly successful.
As for Richard's vow never to do another recent historical figure, he kept his word for almost 10 years until the TV movie Cook and Peary: The Race to the Pole.
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