Two for the Seesaw (1962)

Strong and Moving!

I wanted to but couldn't!

The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Very unexpected gem... but you gotta like them talky to love this one.Based on a play and that really shows. But LOVE the way it examines the nooks and crannies of a relationship.Its about two people who have something to learn from each other, and not in an obvious way either. Who is hanging their hope and dreams on who here...? And completely disagree with those who find Mitchum too deadpan for this... he is completely his character, a old school guy of another generation (compared to Gittel, or MacLaine for that matter)... but enough of an off-beat to head to New York to live with some bed bugs once his marriage goes south. The phone calls between him and his wife are painful, Mitchum who himself had a long suffering wife who he had married young and ultimately stuck by (despite, apparently being super unfaithful), I think gives a very brave performance, possibly inspired by the cheer chutzpah of MacLaine's talent. He really shows the complex emotional ties that come with a very long marriage....for the generations who really, without a second thought, thought they married for life.The emotional tables are turned on them both several times, and you always think its completely true.There are a couple of clunky moments, and you must honestly also just take it on the chin (pun) that this was made in an era when a "slutty" woman could expect to be slapped for flaunting her "lack of morality". Here its all part of her problem though, the way she accepts how others treat her, much too readily.Great, very little known film that seems to fit no genre what so ever.Maybe its closest relatives are some french new wave relationship dramas. And those it beats, hands down. Because, unlike the Le French, its not about Women and Men but about people...

In spite of Ted McCord's beautiful deep focus b&w photography there is very little in this film that is interesting to look at. As a stage play brought to film, it never manages to get off the stage and with all of NYC as a potential set, a little more time devoted to exterior shots could have opened this up and made it into a 'real' film. A few brief glimpses of lower Manhattan, Mitchum pacing the streets in the opening sequence or stalking MacLaine from the shadows outside her apartment gives a taste of what this film could have been if Wise hadn't allowed himself to become hidebound by a talky script.Mitchum is clearly miscast - it almost feels like the overabundant dialog is being dragged out of him. But since it is Mitchum, and he's such a force of nature on screen, it's hard to mind too much - but also hard not to consider that Fonda would have been a much more appropriate choice. As it is, MacLaine has a lot of work to do to convince us that Mitch is the guy for her. She almost succeeds (no doubt the off screen chemistry between the two stars helped her a bit with this), but most of the pleasure in her performance derives from that lovable slob thing that she could do falling out of bed, as she proved so ably in Some Came Running. Problem is, she is a comedienne and Mitch most definitely was not. She could snap out those one-liners, "That must have been some bridge!", and get a laugh. If Mitch said anything funny, I must have missed it.Unfortunately most of the film is shot in two tiny, claustrophobic apartments with very few changes in camera angle which made me think that Wise could take a tip or two from Ozu on how to make a repeatedly shot interior more interesting. When we aren't gazing listlessly at one or the other of these stupefying spaces, we are treated to a stale looking split screen shot of both a la Pillow Talk. Except that this doesn't really remind me so much of Pillow Talk, and not that I ever wanted to be reminded of it, as make me wonder if the original stage set had been carted in.Some relief is provided by Elizabeth Fraser as MacLaine's friend Sophie and Billy Gray as the cranky landlord. At least they get us out of the house before we go stir crazy to visit a few post beat generation Bohemian style parties and MacLaine's dance studio loft space. Early on we do get to go out to for Chinese once with a real live waiter (yay!), but that is soon buried under endless home cooked meals, warm milk and the perennial opening and closing of fridge doors. It's oddly underpopulated for a Manhattan film - think the World the Flesh and the Devil - without cityscapes...Previn's score, loved by many but sorry, I've never been a fan of that overly loud 60s jazz style. Beyond that, it threatens to over power the film by setting a jazzy New York tone that the proceedings simply can't live up to. No matter how hard the music tries, what we see is never in sync with what we hear.Worth a watch for MacLaine's perf and McCord's lensing, but not one of Wise's better efforts.

Probably sweet and even touching onstage, at two hours, with essentially only two characters, this is lethal.Shirley MacLaine plays a hapless New York Jewish girl. One asks: Why? Made up to look like a cross between Molly Goldberg and Betty Boop, she is appealing but never convincing.Robert Mitchum (who, according to his biography, began a serious romance with his co-star during the filming; and chemistry there is) is appealing, as he generally is. But, with a strange, shiny hair style and his typical laconic style, he too seems like extremely illogical casting.

A tale of 'love will not find a way' as Robert Mitchum manfully looks for a member of the 'weaker sex' in New York. The story is somewhat repetitive as trad-male Mitchum tells modern girl Shirley MacLaine she is 'a beautiful girl' on numerous occasions. Both actors are very competent in this flick, with Shirl the 'girl' showing just how good she is, edging out Robert as MVP. There are scenes of domestic violence, with Ms MacLaine on the verge of rearranging Mr Mitchum's face because he hadn't informed her of his divorce papers coming through.