Customer Reviews

Landlord [VHS]

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I agree- they DON'T make 'em like this anymore- honest, bold, uncompromising, socially and politically meaningful... yet (lest we forget) ENTERTAINING. Like Stanley Kubrick,the late Hal Ashby didn't direct a whole lot of films, but most of them were built to last ("Harold & Maude", "The Last Detail", "Being There", "Shampoo"). "The Landlord" was Ashby's impressive directorial debut in 1970. Spoiled rich kid Beau Bridges, worrisome to his parents due to his "liberal views", buys a run-down tenement building with intentions to rennovate. His introduction to, and subsequent involvement with, the various black tenants is played sometimes for laughs, sometimes for intense drama, but always for real, and that's the magic of Ashby's work. The social satire is dead-on, but never preachy (are you listening, Spike Lee?). The ensemble work is top-notch, with a young Lou Gossett (with hair!) giving a memorable dramatic turn, and the lovely Susan Anspach hilarious as Bridges' perpetually stoned and bemused sister. The scene in which Pearl Bailey and Lee Grant (two more knockout performances) get drunk and bond over a bottle of "sparkling" wine is a minor classic all on its own. Don't miss this one.

Based on the novel by African American novelist, Kristin Hunter, this movie explores the intricacies of black consciousness during the 1960's. Further it examines the effect of gentrification on existing communities. It stars Pearl Bailey, Lou Gossett and features a spectacular performance by the late, great Diana Sands. The film is visually provacative and incorporates a number of literary techniques that add dimension. It stands out above many of the "blaxploitation" flix of its day and is an overlooked classic.

I first saw this film in the mid-70s when ABC ran it on TV. The movie grabbed me right away. I told everyone about this movie, but ABC never ran it again. It's played infrequently over the decades, but has lately been showing up on cable. Now, FINALLY, to have it released on DVD is the kind of respect this film deserves.
YearNightbeats
This is the first film directed by Hal Ashby, now regarded as one of the great directors of the 70s, and it's frankly my favorite of his films. Filled with energy and brilliant editing styles (Ashby won the Oscar for editing In The Heat Of The Night) and natural, low-key performances, which is unusual for a comedy from any decade. Visually it's just as striking, being the first feature film shot by Gordon Willis, who then went on to shoot The Godfather.

Beau Bridges gives one of his best performances of his career, as does Lee Grant, Pearl Bailey and Lou Gossett Jr.

It's one of the best edited films I've ever seen. Not fast cutting, but invisible and unpredictable. There's a brilliant scene with Pearl Bailey and Lee Grant which has to have been semi-improvised which is staggeringly brilliant. I've run it in classes when I talk about film editing.
The DVD could be better image-wise, but considering that it was shot on high-speed film at the time it's not surprising that there is a graininess to it. The color itself is wonderful. And, let's face it, to have this film available at all is to give kudos to MGM/UA and The Mirisch Corporation for finally releasing it.

There are not extras or even a menu, one of the new DVD-R on-demand DVDs that are being made available of older films from the studios' vaults, but I'm not complaining.

Finally, I was concerned about whether this film might be dated at all. It was made in 1968-1969 during the rise of the Black Power and Black Is Beautiful era. I gave the film to a close friend who is an actor and African American to get his input. He came back to me and said he watched the movie twice and that it was the film he'd been waiting his whole life to see: a film about the Black American Experience that wasn't trying to be definitive, but was completely honest with it's characters, none of which were caricatures or stereotypes, and where everyone looked like, spoke like and behaved like people he'd known and grew up with. This makes The Landlord even more of a rarity: a hip film from the late-60s/early-70s that still holds up today.

Thank you to MGM/UA and please keep more of these treasures from the vault coming.

A rich, sharply observed social satire that proceeds from farce to tragedy with logic and integrity. What a pleasure.

Although Hal Ashby, first-time director, and Gordon Willis, almost as new to feature cinematography, deserve the highest praise for their contributions, I split the lion's share of credit for the film's success between Bill Gunn's biting, hilarious script and the perfectly cast ensemble:

Beau Bridges is deceptively nuanced in a deceptively tough role: Elgar Enders, an unmarked, unformed trust-funder whose scheme of renovating a tenement house into a groovy bachelor pad is his trial by fire waiting to happen. His relentless lessons in humility would be exhausting if they weren't leavened with (dark) humor. Had Bridges chewed some scenery, he might have garnered an Oscar. As it is, he opts for a bewildered spontaneity that sure looks like great acting to me.

Elgar's mother Joyce (Lee Grant) and Marge (Pearl Bailey), a tenant in Elgar's building, have a lengthy, hilarious scene over bottle after bottle of fortified wine that would be a comic touchstone if only more people knew about the movie. Observes Marge: "You can get at those hamhocks a little better if you take those gloves off, honey."

Diana Sands as Fanny Copee is flat out hilarious when the script calls for it (Broadly pouting, having sussed what a light touch Elgar is: "Complaints? Well let's see... The roof leaks, the oven door's broke, the toilet runs all day, and you're awful cute to be a landlord..."), equally wrenching when the script calls for that. Marki Bey offers a lived-in performance as Lanie, another of Elgar's romantic intrigues: Lanie is sad, serious, but not despairing. Watch the "Spinal Meningitis Festival Ball" scene closely- she's given almost no dialogue, but her reactions supply all the eloquence required: joy, apprehension, tenderness.

Lou Gossett is first seen embodying The White Man's nightmare version of The Urban Black Male, but it's a put-on. Still, the film plumbs the pain behind the role-playing, and finally it's clear that the pain is bottomless: ("D-don't let them transplant my heart til I'm dead," he pleads, his mind finally snapped). Mel Stewart is the droll, menacing Prof. Dubois, another of Elgar's tenants, who would despise Elgar if such a feeling weren't beneath him. Stingingly aloof as he is, the professor delivers the jab to Elgar's conscience that helps end the film on a hopeful note.

"The Landlord" impresses first with its wit, then with the seriousness of its intentions.

The relative obscurity of "The Landlord" is somewhat puzzling. It's also puzzling that it has only been given a proper DVD release until now. It's trenchant observations on race and bigotry make "Look Who's Coming To Dinner" seem horribly dated. I think that lies in the fact that the makers of the film take an unjaundiced look at their subject matter. There are actual full-bodied characters here and not caricatures. There are no convenient heroes and villains here just people with their virtues and warts fully exposed. You can divorce "The Landlord" from the time it was made and it's evident truths about human nature ring true today. One aspect I found intriguing was how an unwanted pregnancy was handled. Despite the grief that would be caused by bringing the child to term at no time is abortion alluded to. You have to bear in mind that at the time the film was made Roe v. Wade was a few years away. This is a brilliantly directed film by Hal Ashby who was making his debut here. This isn't a conventional narrative with a number of flashbacks, first person narratives, and fantasy sequences being employed. Not only is the audience challenged by the film's subject but also stylistically. "The Landlord" is unlike any film I've ever seen. I remember years ago a local film critic said he had seen the film some 50 times just to pick up the richness of it's detail. The first(and last) time I saw it was in a truncated form on UHF. Now having seen it as it's intended I now know what that critic meant.

This is a DVD on demand (= DVD-R, which will ONLY play on dvd players; ie no PC drive, no dvd recorder etc) coming from MGM.
DVD has no menu or extras.
Picture looks very good even on 46" monitor (ie upscaled by BD player + TV)

Picture quality: 8.5/10
Sound quality: 8/10
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1 (1.85:1 orig.)
Run time: 1:50'25'' (acc. to imdb.com, an amazon.com-owned website, film orig. runs 112 min??)
Chapters: 22
Audio: English
ST: none
RC: 1
Bonus: none
ASIN: B003B3NV6S
Studio: MGM

I discovered this film by accident while reading a black cinema history book by Donald Bogle. I was fascinated by the movie once I saw it. It's become one of my favorites. This is an art house film about a wealthy white man who becomes a landlord of a Brooklyn tenament and makes connections with two very different black women. I love the boldness and complexity of the film and the directing was dreamy and odd--making it a surreal visual experience. I was captivated, as usual, by the spectacular performance of the late, great superior Diana Sands, who died too soon: I think she would have been one of Hollywood's biggest black actresses had she lived. She is mesmerizing in this film. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone interested in movies that explore race relations and the complexities of human relationships.

Pearl Bailey, Diana Sands, and Lou Gossett, Jr. all give powerful performances. My favorite line was delivered by Diana Sands while pointing at her very pregnant belly. Pearl Bailey could easily give Queen Latifah a run for her money if she were around today. Don't get it twisted, I love Queen Latifah. Unfortunately a very young Beau Bridges was out of his league, and the ending seemed forced and derivative (I thought) of The Graduate. Hopefully someone will release this on dvd soon.

Beau Bridges is the son of a wealthy but racist white mom, who falls in love with a black woman named Fanny and who ends up actually having a baby with her!!!

Elgar's mother, Mrs. Enders is the owner of a building in
which several black people live in. Mrs. Enders cares nothing about the people except that they pay her on time with rent.
Elgar, on the other hand, is a sensitive and open minded
guy who gets along with everyone in the building with the

exception of a black racist professor named Professor Duboise (Melvin Stewart). Every encounter these two have, results in either Duboise mocking the white society, or
Duboise, try to show Elgar how superior black people are
to white people. When it was it released it probably got alot of controversy because interracial romances was something that just wasn't shown on screen. Making things more complicated is the fact, that black men and women still didn't have the rights that white people in the time. It's a great example of great cinema directing, in one scene, Elgar Enders (Beau) has just made love to

Fanny, then the girls leans over and tells him that she
loves her boyfriend Copee (played by Louis Gosset Jr in
one of his first movie appearences). The scene then cutaways to Elgar running to talk to another girl for advice while Fanny is telling Elgar this. Copee is a black, jealous and violent boyfriend of Fanny. When he learns that Fanny is pregnant and he is not the father, he goes berserk, beating Fanny into telling him who the father is.

Once Copee, learns who it is, he grabs an axe and goes
after Elgar!!!! I loved the film because it breaks several stereotypes:

*It shows that color doesn't matter when we are talking about love, it's all about the feelings a man and woman feel for each other that is important.

*Elgar represents a group of conscious men who don't see Blacks and other minorities as inferior. In fact, throughout the film, Elgar is actually happier with his black friends than with his own mother.

*There are several messages about the dysfunctional family.

Elgar's mother (Lee Grant) is a rich white woman who has everything, yet she is a cold, miserable woman.

It was interesting to see Louis Gossett Jr. (Copee) as a crazy , jealous boyfriend . He usually plays good guy roles, but in this role, he nails his part by playing a guy who

has completely lost it.

The movie was directed by Hal Ashby, a man who has directed
several important cult films of our time including:
*Being There (1979 film with Peter Sellers ) *Shampoo (Great 1975 film with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie)
* Coming Home (A good 1978 film with Jane Fonda)
This is a very good movie, hard to find on video, but I highly recommend it.

It's so good to see this film on DVD finally. Hal Ashby's debut directorial effort (made possible by Norman Jewison) is a solid effort with great performances by Beua Bridges, Lou Gosset Jr., Markie Bey, Lee Grant and, most notably, the incredible Diana Sands in one of her final roles. Ahead of it's time editorially, and insigntful (for 1970) this is a grittier, hipper take on themes alluded to in "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", but done with much more flavor, flair, and contemporary focus. Although Ashby went on to do several landmark films (i.e. "Shampoo", "Being There", "Coming Home") this is still my favorite. Thanks MGM!