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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Film / Film Reviews / News DVD MIA: The Landlord
Posted By Brian Daye on Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:53 PM
By Brian Daye
(Lots of good movies have yet to make it to DVD. This is one of them.)
Picture a schoolroom where a teacher asks a question to begin each day. More than a metaphor, this question permeates topic, scope and narrative. That question is, “Children, how do we live?” Such a question begins The Landlord, a 1970 film that began the film directing career of Hal Ashby, who went on to direct Shampoo, Bound for Glory and Coming Home. (It should be noted that Norman Jewison produced The Landlord. Not a bad start for a first-time director.)
As The Staple Singers' “Brand New Day” aptly begins this film, we encounter Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges), a lily-white, brandy-swilling, racquetball-playing, blue-blooded Long Islander who is waited on hand and foot by African-American servants in his palatial estate. In wanting to “find meaning” in his life, he decides to buy a tenement in, of all places, Park Slope, Brooklyn – just three doors down from “Mom’s Chitlin & Rib Joint.” His goal in this endeavor is to evict his tenants and then fix up the building so his affluent friends can come and go as they please. One of Elgar’s quotes is, “We’re all like a bunch of ants, trying to gain the strongest territory.” How quaint.
As Elgar embarks on his “Vision Quest” to Brooklyn in a pristine white Beetle convertible replete with a huge decorative plant, he is hilariously assaulted upon arrival at his building by Louis Gossett, Jr. (or just plain Lou Gossett in those days) as “Copie” and “the brothers on the front steps,” who are successful in snatching the plant from him, humiliating him in all manner elitist and forcing him to drive his car away from the building he now owns, just to get away from the taunting. You will even hear a thinly veiled reference to A Raisin In The Sun from Mr. Gossett.
As Elgar drives around the neighborhood, a little boy no more than maybe eight or nine jumps into his car and demands money for cigarettes! Of course, Elgar has no choice but to oblige the boy and drives back to the apartment, where, upon entry, he is met by a shotgun-wielding Pearl Bailey, who demands to know who he is and what he is doing there. When Elgar says to her not only who he is, but how much back rent Pearl owes on her apartment, she puts down the shotgun and brings him upstairs for a ham-plated peace offering. It is in Pearl’s apartment where Elgar meets Francine, played by the amazing Diana Sands. He gives her the third degree as well when he finds out she is a bootleg hairdresser, which clearly violates the rules of the building (she is also the mother of the cigarette kid), but it is here where sparks between Elgar and Francine begin to generate. Those sparks continue to generate when Elgar inspects Francine’s apartment for safety violations and subsequently meets Copie, who stole his plant upon arrival. Copie is Francine’s husband and throws him out, just because he is The New Landlord. ‘Nuff Said.
Shifting back to suburbia, Elgar’s parents, played by the terrific Lee Grant and Walter Brooke (who, by the way, uttered the word “Plastics” in The Graduate), are stupefied as to why Elgar has such continued interest in being with those “colored” people. Even Elgar’s dorky brother, played by the then uni-browed comedian Robert Klein, gets into the act. This infuriates Elgar and he storms away from the dinner table, but not before dumping vichysoisse on the head of one of the servants in protest.
Elgar eventually makes crucial decisions that will change his life as well as those of the people around him.
Great nuances, stellar performances and a terrific script make The Landlord a truly thought-provoking and well-made film. Check it out.
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