Customer Reviews

Moment to Moment [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I saw this movie at a theater in 1965 and it is one of the most memorable movies I ever saw. After 35 years I can still hear the Henry Mancini, haunting melody in my head. I am anxious for it to come out on video. It is a shame that this jewel has been obscure for so long. Jean Seberg, the neglected housewife of Arthur Hill, has an affair with a sailor, Sean Garrison. The plot gets thick when an accidental murder takes place and then a surprise ending. Honor Blackman plays the next-door neighbor. James Bond affectionados will remember her from Goldfinger. If you like a tragic love story you will thoroughly enjoy this tear jerker.

This is a great movie if you still like movies where you can use your mind and don't have to have the screen filled with naked bodies and full of foul language. Actors and actresses today could not carry this story without it being one bed scene after another. Instead, in this oldie, we get the old time husband's away, wife is lonely, attractive nice sailor is in town. All the ingredients add up to something that shouldn't have happened. There is a price that must be paid. Folks character will determine what that price will be. A story with a moral! How neat!

I saw this movie many years ago but the images and haunting melody never left me. Recently I heard the theme song on the radio and knew I had to see if it was available on video. If you are a collector of fine movies, this is a MUST for your collection. It has all the elements-romance, drama, and mystery. The acting is superb.

What an incredible theme song this lovely picture has. Henry Mancini, along with other major composers, wrote some of the best movie themes during this era (50s & 60s). Also, during that era, songs that went on to get nominated for Oscars were first rate - unlike today's non-descript dreck.

"Moment to Moment" is a lovely movie. I loved the scene at the cafe when the white doves flew up into the sun (turning golden) to say "goodbye to the day." That glorious theme music crept in all through the picture, making the mood extra special.

I recently bought a Mancini CD just to get the theme from this film. Jean Seberg was a beautiful actress with perfect looks which matched the astonishingly handsome, Sean Garrison, playing the man she cheats with and believes she's killed.

I could see Lana Turner playing this role, it was her kind of picture, but Seberg was just fine. I'm just disappointed that I can't have this on DVD with possible "extras" of outakes, interviews, etc., especially with Mancini who created this impassioned music. The music theme set the entire mood for the movie. I just love it.

It was more than a romance film... A Hitchckockic atmospheric film and Seberg was absolutely wonderful!!!
...and the music of Henry Mancici spoken right into my heart

I saw this with my Mom when I was just a young teenager and it made a huge impression on me. The music of Mancini is haunting. In fact I just ordered it on CD. The cast is beyond belief, even down to the chidren's roles. Honor Blackman at her sauciest! I've always wondered what happened to Mr. Garrison. Did you know he had a small roll in Splendor in the Grass.Jean Seburg was fabulous and didn,t give a clue to the torment that would later end her life. Best of all the location always made me want to go to La Colume D'or someday to watch the doves fly off into the golden evening light. It's still there to experience. This is my all time favorite romantic movie. The only one that comes close is Until September. Can't belive it's not available on DVD yet. The only VHS copy is for sale for $300. Guess I'll treasure my copy even more.

Arthur Hill, Honor Blackman, the stunning Jean Seberg and a Mancini sountrack, are part of this well kept secret called Moment to Moment. I saw this movie about seven months ago and have been trying to locate a copy since then. I loved the whole movie especially the part at the outdoor cafe when the doves fly off. Honor Blackman was great as the carefree neighbor and Arthur Hill the neglectful husband. But Jean Seberg's portrayal of the neglected wife was terrific. I'm going to add this to my collection.

A Fan,
S.A.Thompson, Author of
What's Done In The Dark

I remember this film, way back in 1966, it was on one of our local movie stations in NY. I was only 11 years old when I saw it. But the impression it left was--I would love to live a life like that. The story, acting and the actors in this was over the top, Seberg was gorgeous, Garrison was too handsome, and Blackman was as good as she was in GOLDFINGER. Arthur Hill played the typical "husband". Always like Hill too. A real classy, modern love
triangle. I sound flip, but I really enjoyed this film. And also it was before 4-letter words and explicit sex on screen(Yuk), so it made for a more innocent time and Mancini's music added to the beauty of this flic.
Really good, hope it comes to DVD sometime soon.

Kay Stanton (Jean Seberg) takes her young son to market with her before school, and he befriends a sailor on leave. Mark Dominic (Sean Garrison) loves to sketch, he wants to become an architect, and the area is too beautiful to pass up. Kay gives him a ride to a tower he wanted a better look at, but they get side tracked along the way and enjoy lunch together. Kay is hesitant because her husband (Arthur Hill) is away, but she indulges in a few dates with Mark. One night, things go too far, and the only person Kay can trust is her kooky neighbor next door (Honor Blackman).

Moment to Moment is a glorified soap opera complete with hazy photography, beautiful people, and silly situations, but I liked it in spite of myself. The melodramatic story is gripping, even though you can guess what is going to happen. There are hints planted everywhere. All of the actors give good performances, but Seberg and Blackman are the most enjoyable. Seberg's beauty is heightened by her classy wardrobe designed by Yves Saint Laurent.

"Moment to Moment" is a movie that screams for edgier writing & direction. Brought to you by Mervyn LeRoy (Wizard of Oz), the plot has Hitchcock written all over it: A "good" woman whose husband is frequently away on business is driven by loneliness to have an adulterous affair, during which she accidentally shoots her temporary paramour --then hides his body with the help of her nosy neighbor, trying all the while to conceal her "crime" from investigators and ultimately from her husband and son. "Moment to Moment" could have been a wickedly funny, suspenseful and clever concoction in the "Rear Window" vein.

But the comic as well as the dramatic possibilities of the premise are apparently lost on LeRoy, who seems so bent on delivering a product which can offend no one, that he inadvertently heads off all the most interesting possibilities at the pass. The most obvious casualty is Seberg's performance in the lead role. Over-coiffed and over-coutured, she sleepwalks through a series of pastel scenes with a tight-lipped and fixed expression that recalls Jessica Lang's lobotomized Frances Farmer in the last scenes of "Frances". Under LeRoy's direction, Seberg--magical in her best films-- is an attractive but drab presence here.

When Tippi Hedren or Grace Kelly played cool society blondes-in-a-jam, they seasoned their placid characterizations with the suggestion of inner turmoils, hidden agendas, By contrast, Seberg is all surface here, completely lacking the inner fire apparent in her earlier work. Where is the Tinkerbellish, dimpled pixie of "Breathless", the feline duplicity of "Bonjour Tristesse" or the lurking malevolence of "Lilith"? Here she is merely pretty, a decorative ornament in a movie full of decorative ornaments.

What Hitchcock could have provided, and which the movie sorely needs, is one of two things: a) a more complex character (either written or suggested), or a scene in which Seberg's character completely unravels. This would have given a seeming point to her flatness elsewhere in the film. It's a cinematic axiom that characters this quick-frozen must at some point in the plot be melted--undone, deconstructed, ravaged. "Moment" ignores this axiom, and suffers all the more for it.

Only Honor Blackman is vivid as comic relief in a secondary role as Seberg's nosy neighbor and partner-in-crime, offering the film's only indelible character. Blackman, at least, is willing to go out on a limb in a movie which takes no risks, easily stealing the show from both her co-stars and the plot in which they flounder.