The Fountainhead (1949)

This overheated potboiler attempts to make a social comment on the corrupt nature of conforming to the wishes of the masses, when its most interesting aspect these days is the teaming on screen (and off) of gruff-voiced Patricia Neal and her self-confessed 'love of her life', Gary Cooper. Their love scenes together are certainly not lukewarm!

Aside from this, there's a convoluted plot about architecture, the newspaper business, and the understated power of the humble columnist. Raymond Massey moves from one situation to the next with the same lack of passion, eventually giving Cooper and Neal their chance to simmer in close proximity. Robert Douglas is terrific as the obnoxious architectural critic, Ellsworth Toohey; while Kent Smith and Henry Hull put in OK performances as a weak architect of little originality, and a nervous press room editor, respectively.

The ones who catch the eye of the viewer, however, are Neal and Cooper. Towering performances in camp classic style. The imagery, too, is suitably suggestive – drills in a stone quarry, large skyscraping buildings, whips and pokers.

'The Fountainhead', adapted by Ayn Rand from her own novel and brought to the screen under the direction of King Vidor, is enjoyable despite the odd bout of overacting from both its principal and minor actors, and a truly silly script on occasion. The movie isn't great but in using the world in which it is set as a character of equivalent power to anyone on the screen, it sets itself apart as more than just run-of-the-mill.

Fmovies: One of the biggest mistakes in film history was allowing Ayn Rand to write the screenplay adaptation for her own novel. Boy does she like to hear herself talk or what? There is not one line of dialogue in this film that isn't overly dramatic and patently didactic. Rand does for dialogue what Norma Desmond does for mannerisms, except in the case of Norma Desmond there's an excuse -- she's nuts. Rand as a screenwriter just comes off as an egomaniac and she proves it with every over-stretched word. Even Hamlet would have told her to shut up.

Rand somehow manages to make Gary Cooper and Patricia Neil totally unlikeable in their respective roles. The whole thing is a handbook for art-deco dialogue as a dying language. Okay, Howard won't compromise his art and Dominique is a tortured chick -- we get it already, lady. Massey's newspaper mogul character, on the other hand, is great and he plays with the fecund dialogue like a little boy plays with a puppy. Too bad he's in the wrong movie.

I now have a new nightmare. I'm dead and I run into Ayn Rand at a celestial cocktail party. She corners me in a conversation and, oh my god, she sounds just like this movie.

Damien

I fear that giving Ayn Rand full control over what was said on screen turned what might have been an interesting film into nothing more than an extension of her book. Now that might sound a good thing, but film and book are two different media that rarely sit comfortably with one another. Strangely it is this refusal to compromise, an important point in the book, that is this films biggest flaw.

While the acting is fine, aside from Coopers and Neal's in my opinion, the dialogue is stilted and stands out of place on screen, almost to the point of preaching rather than aiding the development of the story.

This might be simply a sign of the times, after all this was made in 1948, but this film stands out in my mind as perhaps the pinnacle of 'straight from the book to film' type of writing.

The film isn't subtle by any means, its point is pushed down your throat time and time again, the price of having your writer push an agenda.

It seems like every other line is a speech rather than a genuine conversation, with constant swings back and forth from over the top melodrama to meaningless contrite phrases.

As a book, without the aid of background music and the delivery of a host of different actors I'm sure this works fine, but as a film it just becomes noise with all meaning lost.

The Fountainhead fmovies. Gary Cooper is much too mature for the role of the idealistic architect, but everyone else in the cast is fine. Cooper and Patricia Neal were supposedly involved in a passionate off-camera romance at the time, and some fans of this movie insist they can detect the sparks on-screen, too. I don't, but then I find Cooper such a bore as an actor that it's hard to tell if he's breathing, let alone excited. His performance here almost ruins what could have been a brilliant adaptation of Ayn Rand's ambitious novel. Howard Roark, the architect who refuses to conform to another man's ideals (or lack of them), does not strike me as an "Aw' shucks" kind of guy, but that's pretty much the way Cooper plays him. Roark will build anything--a public housing project, a townhouse, even a gas station--as long as it's built according to his vision. He will not compromise. Cooper just doesn't possess the fire that this character requires. When he becomes impassioned ("A man who works for the sake of others is a slave"), you can almost see the cue cards reflecting in his eyes. Certainly, he doesn't feel Rand's words in his gut. On the plus side, King Vidor's visual style is imaginative, and despite a lot of pompous sermonizing and Cooper's miscasting, this is a worthwhile film simply because there are so few Hollywood productions that emphasize ideas and a man's philosophy. In a curious way, it brings to mind "Network," and other Paddy Chayefsky films.

Movie based on Ayn Rand's book. Idealistic architect Howard Roark (Gary Cooper) won't compromise his designs for society. He also falls for beautiful Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal).

Now the original novel is brilliant...but over 1,000 pages and quite dense. The studio (wisely) got Rand to write the screenplay for this--I suspect a studio writer would have ruined it. She manages to cut down the book and get her message across perfectly. The movie is also well-directed--full of incredible sets and designs. It has a pounding lush score and some truly hysterical sexual imagery involving Cooper and Neal.

The acting though is another story. Neal is fantastic--the perfect choice for Dominique--sexy, smart and strong. Raymond Massey is also good as Gail Wynand. Unfortunately Gary Cooper is terrible as Roark. He was hand-picked by Rand to play the role--but I think she picked him because she was attracted to him. He's wooden all through the movie and his unsure line readings are pretty painful. (Purportedly he didn't understand the script--it shows). Still, the movie survives despite him. I can truthfully only give it a 9--with a better actor I might give this a 10.

Be warned--this is not an easy movie. It's all talk, runs almost 2 hours and deals with idealism and values. Some people will be bored silly by this but I find it fascinating. Recommended.

Veteran director King Vidor was assigned the impossible project by Warner Brothers - Make a film out of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Broadly supported by actors and other subversive elements in the film industry, The Fountainhead is sort of a grandfather to the well-budgeted, big-studio supported "Independant" film so often made today. Gary Cooper, who was close to the pinnacle of his career at the time, all but volunteered to play Howard Roark after reading Rand's novel. Rand herself wrote the screenplay, and offered the same deal Roark so often repeated in the film - "It's my way or the highway".

Remarkably, Vidor managed to hybridize Rand's intensely philosophical and political dialogical essay (in the guise of a novel) with his own superb visual skill, and came up with a movie which, though it has its problems, remains interesting, entertaining and relevant.

Like Rand's novel, the film is about the noble struggle of the individual against society - and amounts to a socratic dialog between several intensely powerful intellects: Visionary modern architect Howard Roark (Cooper); erstwhile defeatist social critic Domenique (Neal); Contemptuous nihilist Wynand (Massey) and brilliant sociopath Toohey (Douglas). Although the film, like the book, contains a lot of overblown soliloquies and philosophical prose which places components of the story fairly far from reality, Vidor's visual style and uncompromising directing made the film work.

Howard Roark is a modernist amidst an increasingly collectivist neo-classicist society. Roark will compromise nothing of his own integrity, and will not lie, compromise or entertain any notions about doing anything for the common good. He is an embodiment of Rand's individualist-capitalist political philosophy, and eventually inspires even those who defy him to question themselves. But what will Roark have to sacrifice to fulfill his calling? And will he be able to do so despite his uncompromising approach to life?

Although many have derided Cooper's performance and have stated that he was miscast,I do not really agree. Cooper himself was disappointed in the lengthy soliloquy he delivered near the end of the film, and it is clear that he was not given enough time to make this scene as good as it could have been. By the standards of the time, a one-day shoot for a scene like this must have seemed like an eternity. However, today, I would not be surprised if a contemporary director would give an actor of Cooper's ability and stature several days and multiple cuts. Roark is a man of deeds, not words, and Cooper's unassuming, almost humble, matter-of-fact approach to the character is a surprising and consistent take on Rand's great protagonist. Nevertheless, Cooper is, in terms of acting, the weakest member of the principal cast. Neal is excellent, and Massey and Douglas are both unforgettable in their support roles.

Recommendation: Great fun for Rand fans, and those who enjoy politically and philosophically charged dialog. Not recommended for art-film fans as anything but an historic curiosity. Not recommended for fans of action films.