Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Not a lot to say about this one. I had taped it from cable some years ago, probably because it had Lara Flynn Boyle in it. I suppose it was a direct-to-video release. It does not seem to have been seen widely, with only 3 comments and 280 ratings. It is very professionally done, with nice sets and costumes, good photography, and unobtrusive direction. It also sports a good cast, with good performances by Miss Boyle, Frank Whaley, and John Spencer. Honorable mention to Anna Levine and Cynthia Watros. But every single character was intensely unlikeable. That's not necessarily a fatal flaw for a movie, but it turned out that way in this one. The cast and crew could not overcome the script.

The undoing of "Cafe Society" is its sex liberal frame. DeFillita interprets the facts of this NYC sex scandal through his lens. To a sex liberal there is literally no such thing as immoral, or coerced sex because women, by nature, are sex, and want more sex with more men. So, any criticism of or attempt to regulate sex is viewed as hypocritical, moralistic, puritanical, bourgeois, and constraining. And women's refusal or rejection of sex is deflected as sexual repression, uptightness, and misplaced guilt that the liberal player is only to eager to liberate. Thus, the male institutions of prostitution, and pornography thrive because the sex liberal makes a mockery of any concept of consent."Cafe Society" is sexist--and unconvincing, because it subscribes to, upholds, and promotes this masculinist view. The set-up is this: the hero is attractive, romantic, boyishly naive, and questionably male; the women who populate his world are screaming caricatures; the legal system that "victimizes" him is hypocritical and corrupt. The point is the manufacturing of sympathy for a rich playboy who pimps and batters his fiancé. Only a sex liberal would want to push the envelope this far.The deadly center of "Cafe Society" is Mickey Jelte's porn collection, hidden behind a velvet curtain in his stylish pad. It acts as an ideological center for Mickey and his pimp friends--and yes also indicates his charmingly shy, boyish nature. He even naively shows it to Pat Ward on their "first date" which signals her women's true nature, initiating her seductive strip. Pornagraphy means depiction of a whore. But it is at Jelte's famous parties that there is a literal joining of this collection to a bevy of Mickey's hired whores--"Can you send a few horses down to my stable for a few bachelors," who gyrate in their underwear as mounds of flesh, in prelude to providing willing receptacles for his buddies.So Mickey's porn collection is revealed to be a control center for male domination. His women do what the photos instruct them to do, become the pictures, and become the sex. They smile, they want it, they do it. They are a pool of girls for sex, parties, and clubs. As Ray Davione makes clear "They're already in pictures. I put them in business." They are referred to as chicks, mice, and stray dogs who are headed back to the gutter once used up. And all women in the film vanish, if not by this sleight of hand than by outright stereotype. The bossy rich mom, who suckles her son and withdraws his money over his trampy Pat; the line-up of raunchy female fans in the Manhattan Criminal Court building who greet wronged Mickey with greedy eyes and scorchingly red lips; the horrible caricature of Dorothy Kilgallen who stands for the dirty, prosecuting press, of "ranting righteousness" who has the nerve to call Mickey a "pin-sized punk" and a "hapless little hero" in "elevator shoes;" and the city's top madam Erica Steele, a pastured slut now effectively impersonating a male role.Then there's Pat Ward who, given the actual historic material, should have been the film's courageous protagonist. Instead, she gets stuck inside the sex liberal script where her poor Ave D background, the rape by her father's boss, her lost child, get passed over as she is. Yes, she is permitted to evoke a wee bit of sympathy, but only because that filthy DA's office uses her (which also deflects from the director's sweet guy hero's use and abuse of her). But it's her desperation, isolation, and hope of love that makes her accept a ring that gives Mickey literal ownership of her body. Pat says to Kale: "I'm going to go to work for awhile. He and Davione know a lot of men who like to be with pretty girls and wouldn't mind paying for the privilege." But Mickey's game is up even sooner "Do you really think I would marry you? You're a prostitute." So what Greenbaum's rape did to Pat at age 16, Mickey's pimping and battering did to her at 18: they repudiated her life, setting up her repeated attempts at suicide. So that in her star prosecution witness role she continually blames herself: "I will tell every girl not to make the same Mistake I have." And later says "I'm the most famous whore in New York City now." The actual Pat Ward was an aspiring actress (born Sandra Wisotsky) who lived inside a similar plot but only up to the point at which she turns against Mickey. In reality, she told actor/comedian Martha Raye of her plight, and Raye reported it to DA Hogan. In one of her suicide attempts, she was rescued by the police, who broke her story to the press. During her trial she said "I am going to go away and bury myself" and this is what she did, and ended up dead before her 30th birthday.So what we are left with is a male love fest, a milieu in which prostitutes both serve as proof of their owner's balls, and as the exchange item that creates the male bond. It's obvious that Mickey finds much more pleasure in the company of his antagonist, Jack Kale, and even with the hardened master pimp and cynic PR slime, Ray Davione, than he does with Pat Ward. And Mickey's bachelor club "the Cafe Society, Lmt" is a badge of manhood to him that wasn't achieved by his stint as a bugle boy in the army (in which his brother died a hero) nor by his 5'3" stature. All his scapegoat tears in the final scene show no remorse--nor any hatred for the 1000 pimps he's serving for. (not 40 years, but 21 months) DeFellito makes his movie's point plain: "What's worse pimping for one woman, or manipulating public for moral correction?" Could any statement be more in line with sex liberals--or man's oldest oppression?

"Cafe Society" is a really good movie about the 50's that shows an underside to the squeaky-clean image that we normally associate with the Eisenhower era. It's sort of like "L.A. Confidential" and if you liked that movie you will definitely like this one. The movie captures a time and place where people were sexually liberated and, yes, there was some excessive behavior. Perhaps it was a foreshadowing of what was to come in the 60's. All the performances were good but Lara Flynn Boyle is a total standout. Hard to believe she went from this through "The Practice" and ended up in "Men In Black II" in less than a decade. For those of you who care about such things, there is an oral sex scene featuring her that pushes the boundaries for an R rated movie. Like I said I hope this gets a DVD release at some point because it clearly deserves one.

I saw this film at the home of some senior friends of mine who have a satellite dish. They both are in their eighties, but lived in New York City at the time of the events which take place in the movie. We all found the film entertaining, lively, well-written. My friends vouched for its accuracy as to what really happened. There's a bit more drama, more suspense, than the title alone suggests. Well worth your time.