From the Terrace (1960) Reviews

• A smart, heavy-going family melodrama,...

  Nazi_Fighter_David2005-06-26

  Although based on a John O'Hara novel, "From the Terrace" is another 'Young Philadelphians': a smart, heavy-going family melodrama, set from the late forties to the late fifties, with Newman as an angry young opportunist from Philadelphia… Again the moral (which undoubted1y attracted him) is that the drive for wealth and power corrupts innocence and love… Here there's more of a motivation, the old reliable one: his father hates him... He tells his cold, nasty father (Leon Ames), "All I ever wanted was to be friends with you," then defiantly rejects the family's fairly substantial steel mill… He wants more—to make $5 million by age forty, to be better than his old man… On his way up the cynical path to Wall Street, he ignores his marriage, driving his once-sweet wife (Woodward) to bitchery and into the bed of an old flame… He works intensively to become a high financier, but suddenly realizes how empty his life is; unlike Tony Lawrence ("The Young Philadelphians"), he drops out completely, leaving his failed marriage and flourishing career to marry a wholesome small-town woman… Newman battles valiantly with incredible soap opera contrivances, crises and inflated dialog, but he loses… He's worst in his scenes with the decent young woman (Ina Balin), because the relationship is improbable, their talk about love is slow, and he's not convincing as the shy, gentle lover… We've seen him earlier as sexually confident and aggressive, and besides, Newman is not very good at expressing tenderness… He's excellent at the beginning, indicating bitterness toward his father with contemptuous facial expressions, although here, as elsewhere, his tendency to show tension or self-absorption by blinking and looking away during conversations is overdone… But with Woodward, he and the film really come to life… During their first meetings, as he comes on strong and she resists, the antagonism, flavored with overtones of desperate sexuality, reminds us of "The Long, Hot Summer." Then, in their marriage, the roles are reversed: he becomes immersed in business, and she becomes sexually frustrated, creating a highly-charged tension between them… There's a beautifully acted scene near the end when, like Maggie the Cat, she pathetically flaunts her sexuality at him and he merely sits there with a world-weary look… Ironically, Woodward make the wife so vital and pathetic that it's hard to accept her as a bitch, and the ending makes little sense...

• A lush budget guilty pleasure

  mcbee-12001-12-17

  Paul Newman is doing his angry young man thing here, and Joanne Woodward is wonderful as she goes from rebellious rich brat to shrewish, slutty harridan. It's beautifully filmed with lots of sumptuous sets and it's obvious that a good part of the budget went to costumes. If you like movies with boozy, unhappy rich people who do little more than snipe at each other, you've got to see "From the Terrace."

• My Newman Fandom Started Here

  tracee2004-03-06

  Paul Newman has many more famous roles...but for some reason, this is one of my all time favorite movies of his. It comes on the Love Stories, AMC, or TCM cable channels every here and now...or you could just buy it like I did. He's nice, determined, well-meaning Alfred Eaton, who starts off with lofty, wealthy ideas about what is important in life...the right woman, the right career, the right friends...and showing them all how important he can be when he has them. Ultimately, he learns that what is important is only what feels right to him alone. I love his story of personal discovery as much as his love affair story with Natalie. Alfred and Natalie have this beautiful scene where they are saying goodbye, they're barely touching, but it's the most painfully romantic thing to see. Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward have some excellent scenes in this movie also with real good comeback dialogue. He's the hardworking, decent man and she's the desperate-to-impress and just plain desperate society wife. She self-righteously and hurtfully accuses him of adultery with a girl with no guts when she's been sleeping with her ex-fiancee all along. She actually calls her lover and arranges a tryst while her husband is in the room!!!! She has guts!!!! Unbeknownst to her, Alfred has exhaustingly if unaffectedly (if you can look unaffected and disgusted at the same time, that is) done his best to makes her invisible in the room, but she probably just becomes invisible without any real effort on his part to make her so by that point. Their voices just have the most impactful tones...especially when they get to play off of each other. I can play their final scene over and over again where she says she won't give him a divorce and he says,"Any further communication between you and me will be through legal channels." He has the most genuine smile on that handsome face in that moment than through the entire movie!!!!! This movie is actually pretty long, but not a moment is wasted. It all comes together in the end when Alfred finally chooses what he actually wants instead of what he's supposed to want. Maybe it's because it's so subtle and not at all like a "movie" that it seems to be largely overlooked by everyone except me and 20 other people. Paul Newman is one fine, naturally classy actor, I say.

• Interesting mid-century drama.

  merrywood2003-11-24

  This engaging 1960 Hollywood production anticipated a coming decade of changing values in America. Its script teeters a bit, emphasizing a bit more the strain of the love conflict rather than the story's real essence. This is an easy mark for critics standing by with sharp knives who may then view it as superficial. However, its real drama depicts the changing generations of an America where at one time successes was measured only by the bank account and social prominence and not by integrity, the ramifications of truth in character. Here, we see the contrasting generations in conflict. The Old Guard embraced expediency and placed the home and its values second to business success. Once in a while, a young man came along with enough awareness to see the lie in this doctrine. FROM THE TERRACE is in its pure essence the story about such a young man. This was done with a bit more success a few years before in THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT but this drama is certainly worthwhile seeing. It is well cast and played with production values that at the time were the best that Hollywood could offer. This includes an outstanding music score by Elmer Bernstein.

• enthralling vintage piece

  umb502007-06-04

  This is a wonderful movie. Gorgeous Newman, bitchy Woodward, sad Loy, great performances all around, with fabulous sets and costumes. Plus a wonderful story about the marriage of two of the beautiful people, with lots of sex and scandal and romance and fun bitchiness throughout. They had to tone down the sex in the book of course, for a 1960 movie, but if you read between the lines you will be amazed how sexy this movie really is. If you like movies about the rich and how they once lived, even if it's all fantasy, you will like this. Oh yes it's all kind of silly looking at it today, but they don't make movies like this anymore. Watch it for the sheer fun of it. But don't take it seriously. Just let yourself lay back and wallow.