Great Gatsby (1974)

The film, made in 1974 and not a huge success at the time, seemed to stick very closely to F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel.

We are sometime in the 1920’s, when Nick Carraway moves into a modest Long Island cottage next door to the large mansion that belongs to the mysterious Jay Gatsby. A man who frequently throws lavish parties but rarely bothers to attend them himself. Gatsby is played by Robert Redford, who somehow to me, just didn't seem right for the role.

Nick is gradually drawn into Gatsby's world, the world of the decadent upper-class, helped by the fact that Nick's cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and Gatsby were once lovers. Gatsby is still totally in lust with Daisy, although she is now married to the immensely dislikeable Tom, who could give her the life of privilege she so desired because five years ago Gatsby had nothing. That’s some women for you; chase the wallet and not the heart. Since then Gatsby had worked his way up the moneyed scale via some highly dubious means.



Now with Nick’s help, because Gatsby comes over as a bit on a wimp on the seduction front, they restart their affair. All this happens amidst a series of indiscretions by, well just about everyone. Daisy's husband Tom brazenly carries on his own infidelity with Myrtle Wilson, the local garage mechanic's wife. While Nick himself longs to get physical with another high society babe, Jordan Baker, but seems to be the one getting the least action.



Naturally they’re all heading for a fall and the film builds slowly towards this. I found the book slowly paced, and it's only like a pamphlet, but the film takes things on to a new, two and a half hour level.

The story culminates in tragedy, several deaths and perhaps a dose of the ‘just desserts’. Myrtle is run down by Daisy but Gatsby carries the bullet for it, literally, despatched by Myrtle’s husband, the only moral person in the story. Who then turns the gun on himself. Despite this triple tragedy, high society and in particular Daisy and Tom carry on regardless, without a care to what had happened. Only Nick and Gatsby’s father attend his funeral.

A pleasant and glitzy period film but not exactly riveting, I’m afraid.