The King of Marvin Gardens

I saw this on Bravo a couple of weeks ago and boy did it suck. Bruce Dern plays an ex-convict who appearently has a secret stash of money hidden away. He plans on sharing the wealth with his brother, Jack Nicholson, some girl, and the girls "Crazy" step-mother. The movie itself made no sense and put me to sleep half the time. The films only saving grace was Scatman Crothers. He was probably the only good actor in the movie. He even out-"SHINED" Jack Nicholson. Unfortunately, he was only in two scenes. I personally recommend you stay away from this movie. Instead see "The Shining" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" (both movies featured Nicholson and Crothers). *(the movie would've earned a zero if it wasn't for the presence of Scatman Crothers)

"Five East Pieces" is one of my favorite movies, I waited nearly 20 years to see Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson's reunion in the next movie, "The King of Marvin Gardens." When I finally saw the film, thinking the scuttblebutt and reviews were potent to my standpoint, I was sorry to say that this was actually a disjointed and very disappointing effort. Bruce Dern and Jack Nicholson play brothers, one is a radio personality, and the other is a criminal. radio personality Nicholson sinks deeper into crooked Dern's underworld, etc.,etc.,etc. Formulaic storyline. I was waiting for something to happen. Superficial this is, Interesting it isn't. The best part of this movie was Jack Nicholson's monologue at the beginning. After that, the film devoids into senseless, pretentious, nosense.

You can watch this movie without sound, you can watch it in the English original without understanding a word – it is still a great experience. The actors and their surroundings merge into a whole, which has one aim: To show the beauty of decay. Atlantic City (in its state in the early seventies) is shown as a dead end, a city to die in. In The King of Marvin Garden Rafelson used Atlantic City like Italian director Luchino Visconti used Venice in some of his movies. This is one of the very few genuine, serious colour movies I know. It is a delight to see just how much care was taken with the actor's wardrobes, the set design and with the appearance of the sky in each scene. Ellen Burstyn (really one of the great American screen beauties) shines. Of course the should symbolize the beauty of decay. Well, there is more beauty than decay in this case, Burstyn looks gorgeous however hard she tries not to.

As many others stated here, this a criminally overlooked artistic triumph that deserves a larger reputation. I want to make an observation that I think has passed by almost every reviewer and critic of this film: There is one moment, and one moment only, in the film when there is soundtrack music. This occurs as they ride out of the stadium following their mock "Miss America" pageant. Why do you think this occurs? My theory: This is the thematic high-point of the film. The highest level of achievement they've managed to make of their dreams. From then on, a harsher reality intrudes on the fantasy. If you follow this, then you begin to see how remarkably constructed the film is as a whole. It's a masterpiece of form.

Jack, Bruce, & Ellen. How can you go wrong? Here's how: with a script that's made up of actors' 'show' pieces, a treasure-trove of monologues for the self-indulgent, earnest Thespian. The performances can't really be faulted, but performances aren't enough. The script's not nearly as profound, tragic, or interesting as it thinks it is. During a rambling and aimless movie I often have a dread feeling that the action (what there is) will come to a head in violence... That may in fact be a pitfall of the rambling and aimless, but in drama is one of the hallmarks of the lazy writer. I had that suspicion here, and the movie delivered on that promise. Supposedly Rafaelson was proud of casting against type. If you've ever wanted to see a whole movie of Jack clenching a pencil between his cheeks, by all means enjoy The King of Marvin Gardens.

The King of Marvin Gardens was Bob Rafelson's experiment at doing a film where the leads are switched around- the actors playing them, anyway. You rarely get to see Jack Nicholson in the role of the quiet, observant, and really more intuitive characters in any film, and to see it in his prime in-between doing films like Carnal Knowledge and The Last Detail is a revelation. Every once in a while he pulls out a performance that is attuned to a sensibility that is surprising, even if the film is not. One of those that worked best was About Schmidt. But this time in Rafelson's vision, he plays second fiddle to the more personable, idealistic, talkative, pushy, and far more conflicted brother played by Bruce Dern. For Dern this is also a somewhat different role, as he often could play roles with a good deal of dialog well, though with also a lowered guard. Here he plays a guy with lots of ideas, and those of which he really wants to impress upon his more detached but not too unresponsive brother. It's a mix that works, though it's very understandable why I've only seen it once, and not only do I not really desire to see it again, it's not too much of a wonder why its still one of the real underrated films of the 70s. Keep in mind it's not just the men to see here, but Ellen Burstyn too, in one of her other great parts of her real prime, as she plays Dern's depressed, loopy, over-the-top girlfriend. She has her counterpart too in Julie Anne Robinson. Her character is maybe a little more like Nicholson's, though not really as withdrawn. These are all characters who are estranged, if not from themselves then from each other, and amid the big plans in the (correctly chosen) sights of dreary Atlantic City they're cast against a glow that just poses a kind of nothingness for them. And in the end, when tragedy strikes, it finally comes when the emotional cork gets pulled completely off. And bookending the film are Nicholson's monologues on the airwaves to his listeners, whomever they may be, and they're some of my favorite scenes I still remember from the film. If it's less than really memorable and affecting like the best of 70s subversive cinema, it's because its content in its low-key ways. It's a smart movie that isn't really at the heights of Five Easy Pieces- Rafelson's masterpiece that's also low-key in its way but reaches higher in psychological hang-ups- but it does come as close as anything the director's done since. Most noteworthy is the challenge of reversing the roles for Nicholson and Dern pays off in that independent-film way. Look for Shining co-star Scatman Crothers in some scenes late in the picture.

"Bleak" might be the best word to describe this typically-low life early 1970s film. There were a number of these kind of grungy films made in that decade, and this is one another of them. It's also another example of a critics' favorite that bombed with the public. People generally do not want to see depressing stories like this, but Hollywood producers/directors will crank them out anyway to please their peers. How many films did that period did we see that were upbeat and took place in Atlantic City? Probably none. The city was a perfect setting dingy stories about losers. The movie does feature a good cast, is nicely understated and features a bunch of character stories, but I never really found out where it was going. It wound up being a slow piece about unappealing people. Can you say "disjointed?" Is it any wonder this film was another dud at the box office, despite the cast? SOME GOOD POINTS - It was refreshing to see Jack Nicholson playing against-type with the role of a introverted radio monologist. He didn't play too many introverts for a long time! Bruce Dern is interesting as always and if you want to see a "new" face, check out actress Julie Ann Robinson as "Jessica." This was her only role.

David Staebler (Jack Nicholson) is a late-night DJ who delivers rambling monologues that are presented as truth but which are really false. His brother, Jason (Bruce Dern) is a low-ranking mobster with grand plans to open a casino on an island near Hawaii. Jason summons David to Atlantic City to support him in his scheme, and he arrives to discover Jason embroiled in a strange relationship with fading beauty Sally (Ellen Burstyn) and her stepdaughter, Jessica (Julia Anne Robinson). We have here Bob Rafelson, Jack Nicholson and the early seventies, so I suppose we don't get anything we shouldn't really expect. Rafelson's career and reputation had not yet descended to the point where he was directing with increasing infrequency 'artistic' soft * and he still had a reputation as someone to watch; Nicholson was enjoying his new-found standing with a tendency to appear in 'serious' and 'intelligent' work instead of playing himself in every film as he has done for the past ten to fifteen years, and the early Seventies were the last great period of Hollywood movie-making in which films were green-lighted on consideration of criteria other than the their ability to appeal to the lowest common denominator. They were good times for movie-making in America, but there was a downside – over-indulgent and pretentious tosh like this. David Staebler is a dull and repressed character who does nothing other than occasionally twitch his nose like a rabbit. He observes things and he talks into his tape recorder but he plays little part in the events that take place on the screen. Even when he does eventually do something it changes nothing. His brother, played by an energised Dern, is the exact opposite: where David's feet are planted firmly on the ground, Jason's are floating up there in the clouds, and he is forever hustling. Jacob Brackman's flat and unconvincing screenplay spends the film's entire running time emphasising this disparity between the brothers to little effect. The character of Sally, played with real tact and sympathy by Burstyn, and her odd relationship with Jason is more interesting for the viewer, and the metaphor between her ageing beauty and the fading grandeur of the Atlantic City location is impossible to miss. As pointed out by other reviewers, however, that ending is a real cheat – it's cheap and unimaginative and is only a notch or two above the 'he woke up to discover it was all a dream' cliché – and it's no small wonder that Brackman's film-writing career failed to go anywhere. This isn't an overlooked classic, it isn't under-rated and it doesn't deserve to be rediscovered. It's pompous, pretentious, self-important and largely meaningless. Only the good work by the first-rate cast gives it any merit to speak of.

I thought this superior to CARNAL KNOWLEDGE and am a bit surprised by the reaction to it at time of release. After FIVE EASY PIECES and before STAY HUNGRY this '72 film was thrown aside and dismissed. I guess Nicholson wasn't using his eyebrows enough for public taste. Bruce Dern gives a superb performance as his shyster-dreamer brother with big plans. Ellen Burstyn is paranoid justifiably and gives a lovely performance. The young girl Julie Ann Robinson is terrible. A 7 out of 10. Best performance = Bruce Dern. Throw in Scatman and John Ryan and you have a fascinating mood piece. What happened to Bob Rafelson?

A truly great film and sadly overlooked and under rated, following up Five Easy Pieces and showing Nicholson at his most awesome. A far better take on Atlantic City than the Louis Malle's film of that name. Incredible acting from Nicholson, Dern, Burstyn... great direction and cinamatography. The movie is set in a pre-casino Atlantic City, sort of Coney Island perfected. A real actors film that we rarely see anymore. Perhaps difficult to watch because of that yet immensely rewarding. A film that perfectly captures the time and place. Dern plays an over the top hustler while Nicholson, of all things, plays an intellectual radio dweeb. Go on... see it... "no one reads anymore..."