The last picture of the great director Elia Kazan, The Last Tycoon is also one of his weakest, an unsuccessful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished final novel, about Monroe Stahr, a brilliant and efficient studio executive (based upon Fitzgerald’s experiences with MGM wunderkind Irving Thalberg).
The sensibilities of director Kazan and his scribe (the noted playwright Harold Pinter) simply do not match, and unusually for Kazan, the acting is not good.
Robert De Niro is miscast (or misguided by Kazan) as Monroe Starr, playing the man in a cool but too detached and uninvolving manner. He is in conflict with the firm studio head, Brady (modeled on Louis B. Mayer), played with firm authority by vet Robert Mitchum.
Worse, Kazan shows no feeling for the Hollywood Dream Factory of the 1930s. The tale shows how Starr juggles several productions at the same time, deals with nervous actors and stubborn directors, tries to stay afloat in the Hollywood corporate, while secretly carrying on a love affair with an English girl named Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting).
Oscar Nominations: 1
Art direction-Set decoration: Gene Callahan and Jack Collins; Jerry Wunderlich
Oscar Awards: None
Oscar Context:
The Art Direction winner was All the President’s Men
Credits
Released by Paramount
Sam Spiegel-Elia Kazan production
Running time: 123 minutes
Directed by Elia Kazan
Written by Harold Pinter