All Fall Down (1962) What took me by surprise about this one........what a frickin' guilty pleasure it turned out to be......
John Frankenheimer directed this overheated, overacted, chunk 'o ham......which plays like a community theater version of some long lost Tennessee Williams play.
Front and center comes heart throb Warren Beatty, at the very height of his male sex-symbol career. What he seems to be enacting here is a low-rent version of his real life persona......a semi-literate stud gifted with a magnetic pull on any woman who comes within 50 feet of him....no matter what her age.
And his character's name, for reasons never explained....is....Berry-Berry.
Now that sounds like goofy fun to simply repeat his name over and over....(as in "Where ya goin', Berry-Berry? Whatcha doin', Berry-Berry?").......
And sure thing, everybody else in the cast repeats his name constantly. You could give yourself some serious alcohol poisoning if your drinking game involved taking a shot every time you heard the magic words, "Berry-Berry".....in between giggling.
Except this movie's not a comedy. It's dead serious.....or at least tries for a degree of gravitas......that is, until somebody shouts out 'Berry-Berry'. Then forget it.....gravitas go bye bye bye..
And who the hell is this Beatty Berry-Berry anyway?
A worthless bum, a wandering wastrel who drifts from one dead-end job to the next and one desperate woman to the next.......
And as played by Beatty, he can turn on a rough charm that leaves women panting for him, and also quickly turn on them when his limited attention span wanders......(so forgive me for pointing out that the movie sometimes looks a cruder version of Beatty's real youthful life Hollywood's favorite anointed gigalo.....)
But Berry Berry's very very virginal teenage little brother (Brandon De Wilde) adores and idolizes him. His parents, a pair of bickering eccentrics (played at the top of their considerable lungs by Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury) alternately loathe and love BB.in equal measures. And oh boy are they exhausting to watch. No wonder Berry-Berry needed to go go as far far away from them as possible.
But Double-B is back! And to everyone's everlasting misery, he arrived at the same time as his parents other house guest Echo,(the luminous very blonde Eva Marie Saint) who's unmarried, 30-ish, lonely and devoted only to the vintage car she drives and expertly knows how to repair.
To De Wilde's resigned acceptance, Echo quickly falls under Berry-Berry's spell......but plot developments throw a melodramatic monkey wrench into everything......and well, anyone could spot where this film would end up from the very beginning.
As pretentious and overbearing as it all is, I can't deny watching it fully entertained. How could I not? A cast top-heavy with charismatic actors, a top director who stages their feverish histrionics for maximum impact.......and Beatty's Berry-Berry....(time for a vodka shot).
Didn't mind watching it all.......though I'll pass at ever watching it again. 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).
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