Almost certainly the best movie where Kirk Douglas does a weird face turn, and then Burt Lancaster no-sells a chair shot to Hulk out and clear the ring like a house afire.

There are parts of this film that remind me of Metropolitan, I.e. they make me want to claw my eyes out rather than enduring them any more. (I know lots of people love Stillman; those people clearly aren’t driven by searing class resentment.) However, the whole Connecticut sequence suddenly becomes a truly delight farce, and afterward I kind of warmed up to everybody, and to the movie in general.

I feel like they spent 75% of the budget on music, and it might’ve been worth it.

The politics and message of this move are great; the performances are all over the place, and no two characters seem like they’re in the same movie. A few laughs, but a weird watch.