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DVD Review: THE WAY WE WERE / Sydney Pollack (1973)

November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Marks

The Way We Were (1973)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Written by Arthur Laurents
Starring: Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Bradford Dillman, Lois Chiles, Patrick O’Neal, Herb Edelman, Viveca Lindfors, Murray Hamilton and James Woods in his first film
Photographed by Harry Stradling, Jr. in Panavision and Eastmancolor
Running Time: 118 min.

Rating: ★½☆☆☆

Gene Siskel didn’t drive, and after the preview of The Way We Were (it sneaked with the Robby Benson film One On One), he stood in front of the Golf Mill Theatre looking for a cab.This was a few years before At the Movies transformed him into one of America’s most recognizable, if not top, movie critics. There weren’t many hacks cruising Milwaukee Ave. at 10:30 on a Friday night, so Gene accepted my offer of a lift home and was good enough to buy my friend and me a burger at the old Lum’s in Old Town. We all agreed that One on One was the better of the two and I’d probably still feel that way today were the same double bill presented to me.

Let’s begin with a couple of pet annoyances. When a character removes a pot from a hot stove and transfers a spoonful of its contents to another character’s mouth (who in turn winces from the scalding spoon), they should never handle and return said pot to their lap lest they covet third degree thighs.

Nothing undermines painstaking period detail quicker than an anachronistic haircut. Though the film takes place during and after World War II, Robert Redford’s thatched, Summer Boy headdress smacks of Santa Monica Pier c.1973. There is a running hair motif that has Streisand lightly adjusting the fallen locks of her goyisha-kup lover doll’s feathered do. The only man allowed to have hair hanging over his forehead in the 1940s was Hitler. Put away the damn blow dryers when you’re making a period piece! While of the subject of anachronisms, check out Patrick O’Neal’s swingin’ wardrobe. He looks like Peter Lawford subbing for Dickie Dawson on a game show.

Streisand plays an outwardly tough dame who alternates between fiercely independent and hopelessly needy. By day she’s a college student championing Leftist causes. (Her bedroom is painted red and she cries when FDR dies even though she has a huge picture of Uncle Joe Stalin hanging in her living room.) Away from the rallies she’s a virginal meeskite who turns into a lap dog the second Hubbell (Redford) is around. Spotting him in a bar she can’t wait to take him back to her place and hop Hubbell’s telescope. She’s a dishrag waiting for some buff surfer to come along and wipe his hands all over her.

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