The Arrangement
by Elia Kazan
List Price:
Our Price: $17.99
You Save: $1.98 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $9.88 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Deborah Kerr, Faye Dunaway, Hume Cronyn, Kirk Douglas, Richard BooneDirector: Elia Kazan
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Robert Surtees
Producer: Elia Kazan
Writer: Elia Kazan
Editor: Stefan Arnsten
Producer: Charles H. Maguire
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 125 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-01-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Arrangement
Movie Review: A Film Whose Time Has Come.
Summary: 4 Stars
Panned and patronized at the time of it's initial release, Elia Kazan's adaptation of his best selling book THE ARRANGEMENT plays much better now than it did in 1969. Made after a 6 year hiatus from filmmaking at a time when movies were enjoying unheard of freedom due to the demise of the production code, THE ARRANGEMENT clearly shows that Kazan was still a director to be reckoned with. The basic premise was nothing new. A highly succesful businessman (Kirk Douglas) suffers a mid-life crisis and attempts suicide. How he and the other characters deal with the aftermath make up the rest of the story.
Kazan has always been an actor's director and the film provides a showcase for the young Faye Dunaway as Douglas' mistress who gets him to reexamine his life but wants out to be with someone else. Deborah Kerr in her last major film appearance is superb in the difficult role of the wife who tries to understand what Douglas is going through but doesn't want to give up the rich lifestyle she's become accustomed to. Strong support is given by Hume Cronyn as the family solicitor who has plans of his own and from Richard Boone in a rare non-Western role as Douglas' ailing father. His slide into dementia is both heartbreaking and terrifying. Marlon Brando had originally agreed to play the lead but bowed out allowing Kirk Douglas who really wanted to work with Kazan to step in. He acquits himself well in an emotionally as opposed to a physically demanding role.
The combination of raw emotions, alternating points-of-view including black humor, and touches of surrealism was ambitious then and still is today (think AMERICAN BEAUTY). The movie is not without its flaws. It runs too long and is occasionally sloppy in everything from editing to make-up but the powerful writing and intense performances make THE ARRANGEMENT provocative filmmaking nearly 40 years later. Called everything from a harrowing emotional ride to a self-indulgent mess (see the Amazon summary) it is ultimately for the home viewer to decide (my 4 star rating indicates where I stand). Kazan will always be a controversial figure because of his HUAC testimony in the 1950's but his greatness as a director cannot be denied and remains captured on film for all to see.
Summary of The Arrangement
Kirk Douglas and Faye Dunaway in master moviemaker Elia Kazan's hard-hitting story about an adman's attempts to rebuild his shattered life after suffering a nervous breakdown. Year: 1969 Director: Elia Kazan Starring: Kirk Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Deborah KerrDuring the grim, glum cacophony of images and sounds that constitutes the first few minutes of The Arrangement, a self-loathing advertising wizard (Kirk Douglas) with a stultifying marriage and a career focused on selling "Zephyr, The Clean Cigarette!" impulsively hits upon a spectacular method of committing suicide. Viewers would have been spared two hours of further flailing if he'd succeeded. Instead we get a combination psychodrama and Bildungsroman--at once crashingly obvious and fragmented to the point of incoherence--that attempts to frame the betrayal of the American Dream through the guilty/proud machismo, professional frustrations, and oppressive ethnic heritage of a very unappealing guy.
At least credit writer-director Elia Kazan, adapting his own bestselling novel, with honesty: the guy is, essentially, he himself. The once-great filmmaker hoped to reunite with Marlon Brando on the project; he wound up with Douglas, whose career-long image was the guy with the indomitable spirit no matter what ("I'm Spartacus!"). But dismay over Douglas's miscasting--which led to the miscasting of Faye Dunaway in a mistress role based on and intended for Barbara Loden--doesn't excuse the total mishmash. Scenes begin in the middle or break off without warning; some characters are introduced portentously, then abandoned or beaten as one-note Symbols. The technique is a m?lange of ugly, puerile effects, including still photos absurdly sprung to life and a daydream sequence studded with BIFF! BAM! POW! comic-book titles. There's even a desperate dive into self-quotation, a snippet of Kazan's 1963 America America to establish that a character barely seen in The Arrangement is the aged version of the youthful protagonist of that exultant masterpiece.
For the record, the cast includes Deborah Kerr as Douglas's wife and Richard Boone as his terminally Old World dad. They didn't deserve to come off as badly as they do. --Richard T. Jameson
Drama DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in If you want to discover Deborah Kerr (1921 - 2007)
Love on the DoleDVD
Best price: $29.98
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion CollectionImage Entertainment; Release date: 2002-10-22; DVD
Best price: $27.50
Price in other shops:
I See a Dark StrangerImage Entertainment; Release date: 2003-01-21; DVD
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops:
Black Narcissus - Criterion CollectionImage Entertainment; Release date: 2001-01-30; DVD
Best price: $24.70
Price in other shops:
The Hucksters (1947)DVD
King Solomon's MinesWarner Brothers; Release date: 2005-01-11; DVD
Best price: $11.60
Price in other shops:
Quo VadisDVD
Best price: $9.90
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 and 1952 Versions)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-03-06; DVD
Best price: $11.53
Price in other shops:
Julius CaesarWarner Brothers; Release date: 2006-11-07; DVD
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
From Here to Eternity (Superbit Collection)Sony; Release date: 2003-03-04; DVD
Best price: $19.13
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
Ace in the Hole - Criterion CollectionImage Entertainment; Release date: 2007-07-17; DVD
Best price: $21.95
Price in other shops:
Elia Kazan: A Lifeby Elia Kazan
Da Capo Press; Published: 1997-08-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.00
Price in other shops:
Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)Paramount; Release date: 2007-11-06; DVD
Best price: $7.55
Price in other shops:
Natalie Wood Collection (Splendor in the Grass / Sex and the Single Girl / Inside Daisy Clover / Gypsy / Bombers B-52 / Cash McCall)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-02-03; DVD
Best price: $37.00
Price in other shops:
The Gypsy MothsWarner Brothers; Release date: 2002-09-03; DVD
Best price: $3.69
Price in other shops:
A Face in the CrowdWarner Brothers; Release date: 2005-05-10; DVD
Best price: $9.48
Price in other shops:
Pre-Code Hollywood Collection (The Cheat / Merrily We Go to Hell / Hot Saturday / Torch Singer / Murder at the Vanities / Search for Beauty)Universal; Release date: 2009-04-07; DVD
Best price: $35.99
Price in other shops:
The Last TycoonParamount; Release date: 2003-11-18; DVD
Best price: $4.35
Price in other shops:
Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume Three (Other Men's Women / The Purchase Price / Frisco Jenny / Midnight Mary / Heroes for Sale / Wild Boys of the Road)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-03-24; DVD
Best price: $34.87
Price in other shops:
The SundownersWarner Brothers; Release date: 2007-01-23; DVD
Best price: $10.73
Price in other shops: