Purely Joyful Movie!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

I guess "The Arrangement" has some merit-after all, it showcases late 1960s southern California quite well-but overall the movie is an all-star disaster due to its confusing structure and its incredibly muddled story.Los Angeles advertising executive Eddie Anderson (Kirk Douglas) has a nervous breakdown and tries to commit suicide by driving his sports car under a semi. The rest of the film flashes back to Anderson's childhood, his relationship with his dying father (Richard Boone, who was actually YOUNGER than Douglas), his deteriorating marriage with his wife (Deborah Kerr), and his torrid affair with a co-worker (Faye Dunaway). Along the way the flashbacks were very difficult to track and even harder to understand. Boone's character doesn't do much besides lie in bed, and Deborah Kerr chews the scenery as the cheated wife.I lost track of how many times the story flashed back, and I never did understand what the point of the movie was. The late 1960s time period touches were great, but otherwise I didn't really gain any understanding of the characters. Hume Cronyn, as Anderson's attorney, had about the only decent role in the whole film. If you decide to watch this mess of a film, be prepared for a lesson in confusion and expect to feel pretty empty afterward.

Two hours-plus of Kirk Douglas having a nervous breakdown. If that appeals to you then you're likely to enjoy Elia Kazan's idiotic adaption of his own novel. Presumably the book had some sort of deep meaning (at least to Kazan), but this film is a mess. Douglas is a highly regarded advertising exec will all the trappings of success: money; a beautiful home; 3 cars; Deborah Kerr as a wife. Playing 44(!) but actually closer to 54, Douglas is woefully miscast. His angst is never anything but comical and it manifests itself in the form of sexy Faye Dunaway (a free spirited girl who awakens in Douglas the need to find himself). Douglas grits his teeth a lot, Kerr is very under-utilized as his wife, Dunaway is never anything but angry and, as Douglas's father, Richard Boone comes across as if he were auditioning for the title role in a community theater production of "Zorba the Greek." Boone's casting is particularly baffling considering the fact that he's actually a year younger than Douglas! Despite offering up a lot of cinematic pyrotechnics like flashbacks, flash forwards, freeze frames and more, Kazan's film is silly rather than compelling. Hume Cronyn, Barry Sullivan and Michael Higgins are among the supporting cast. The high gloss cinematography is by Robert Surtees.

This is a movie that helped me make personal decisions..And i feel i should pay back by writing 2 or 3 words...This is a movie talking about the middle life crisis of a man who wasn't man enough to do what his heart was telling him, until one day..... OK....I could admit that the movie itself may not deserve that much for the directing or for the acting...It deserves it thought, for it's truthfulness..I feel the agony of Kazan,i feel his weakness, his cowardice,his lust for another chance...I really do..If not in real life, he achieved, through his Art,what his Hero is struggling for, through the whole movie,and says in a beautiful scene to a non listening ear...SELF RESPECT. So,if not for anything else, my respects for that.....

Elia Kazan may have bared his tortured soul in this autobiographical novel, but someone else was needed to bring it to the screen. Then again I'm not sure anyone could have made an entertaining film out of so dislikeable a subject.The Arrangement is ostensibly Elia Kazan telling his story of his relationship with a tyrannical father which is the root cause of the middle aged angst he now faces. Our protagonist is not a celebrated film director, but Kirk Douglas a rich and successful advertising executive who one fine day decides to go out in the way that Princess Diana did.It was not as fatal as poor Diana's crash. But all through this film you kind of wish he'd been put out of his misery. This man is selfish beyond all comprehension, narcissistic to the last exponent. Kirk Douglas has played some pretty rotten people on the screen, but even the cold blooded bank-robber/killer he played in his next film, There Was A Crooked Man, had far more going for him than this one.He's married to Deborah Kerr who was coming up short with decent film roles in the latter part of the Sixties. She's the long suffering wife in this one and initially you feel sorry for her. But after a while I got the impression she was just glorying in her martyrdom as the long suffering wife. Douglas even knocks up his mistress Faye Dunaway and even after she gives birth and the child is thrown in her face, she won't leave him.What she'd rather do is scheme with family lawyer Hume Cronyn and family doctor Harold Gould to get Douglas sent to the booby hatch. Not that he isn't giving them all plenty of good reason.Richard Boone is Douglas's father and he blusters and shouts his way through the part the Anthony Quinn does in his more bravura roles. Kazan didn't have a tight rein on the cast. Or perhaps they knew this film was a travesty and each was determined to overact and be noticed the most.Not the finest hour for all the talented people involved.