After hearing about the death of acclaimed director Peter Bogdanovich, I thought it was high time I sit down and watch one of his movies. But I didn't feel like watching the classic The Last Picture Show, or the equally highly regarded Paper Moon, or even his debut, Targets. No, I wanted to watch one of the "worst movie musical of this or any decade." And you know what? It wasn't that bad.
Critically eviscerated on its release and a notorious box-office bomb, At Long Last Love's theatrical cut has been gone for decades. In its placed I watched the more well-received Director's Cut. It's a bit baffling how a film this harmless was dragged through the coals the way it was. It has its problems, but nothing about it is offensive or even all that horrible. It's certainly possible the Director's Cut is significantly different than the theatrical version, but for now it's impossible to know.
The main problem with At Long Last Love is the abundance of musical numbers. The filmmaker's opt for a quantity over quality approach, which is both baffling and damaging. It doesn't even work from a thematic standpoint: if the film was trying to emulate the musicals of the 1930s, there should have been way less. For comparison, Ginger Roger and Fred Astaire's Top Hat is about 100 minutes and features eight songs. At Long Last Love is 123 minutes and has sixteen. Sixteen! Surely that must be a record. Regardless, all the budget was poured into just getting these sixteen mediocre numbers on the screen, instead of using it to make a smaller amount of absolute showstoppers. A lot of these songs have real potential: "You're the Top," "Just One of Those Things," and "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" could have been extremely memorable sequences, and "Find Me a Primitive Man" and "Well, Did You Evah?" should have been hilarious. But by shoving in these numbers as well as a dozen more (including the complete duds "But in the Morning, No" and "Alpha and Omega," the former being uncomfortable and the latter being forgettable), things get lost in the shuffle, and all the numbers are reduced to very slight dancing or nothing visually interesting at all.
Another flaw of the movie is the costume design and art direction. Practically everything in the movie that's not grass is monochrome. I get what the filmmakers were going for: it's in theory a clever nod to the black-and-white necessity of the musicals of yore, but it gets distracting and annoying. Distracting because you end up constantly searching the frame for a sign of color, and annoying because you become conscious of how the film being shot in color is entirely redundant. What if the color of the costumes related to the emotional states of the characters? They could start out with just black and white, but as they join with the people they love more vibrancy introduced. But, no: the film might as well have been black-and-white, and little of value would've been lost.
Perhaps it seems like I'm being to harsh on a film that I gave a mildly positive rating. It's worth explaining, then, that the film is not without merit: Cybill Shepard and Burt Reynolds are extraordinarily charming, and surprisingly not horrible singers. Although they're not Oscar-worthy, they do pretty much exactly what they're asked to in terms of acting. Kahn and Del Prete are also solid, although the latter's singing is lacking a bit. Most of the songs themselves are great, and their renditions here don't take away anything from that. Finally, the ending is not at all what I was expecting, going for a note of ambiguity instead of heavy-handedness like most musicals.
The plot is paper-thin, which is totally fitting to the homage theme, but unfortunately means it can't compensate for the flawed musical numbers. Same goes for the characters: charm and likability aren't enough to sustain personalities. Luckily it is short by musical standards: 123 minutes may seem excessive, but compared to the likes of the endless Paint Your Wagon (a whole 164 minutes of mediocrity and terrible singing), it's nothing. If you feel like turning your brain off and watching a decidedly imperfect but fun movie, I'd recommend this one. Fun and lightweight, At Long Last Love is a lot better than it's reputation would lead you to believe, and something I have great affection for despite its shortcomings.
Final Score: 57/100.
Critically eviscerated on its release and a notorious box-office bomb, At Long Last Love's theatrical cut has been gone for decades. In its placed I watched the more well-received Director's Cut. It's a bit baffling how a film this harmless was dragged through the coals the way it was. It has its problems, but nothing about it is offensive or even all that horrible. It's certainly possible the Director's Cut is significantly different than the theatrical version, but for now it's impossible to know.
The main problem with At Long Last Love is the abundance of musical numbers. The filmmaker's opt for a quantity over quality approach, which is both baffling and damaging. It doesn't even work from a thematic standpoint: if the film was trying to emulate the musicals of the 1930s, there should have been way less. For comparison, Ginger Roger and Fred Astaire's Top Hat is about 100 minutes and features eight songs. At Long Last Love is 123 minutes and has sixteen. Sixteen! Surely that must be a record. Regardless, all the budget was poured into just getting these sixteen mediocre numbers on the screen, instead of using it to make a smaller amount of absolute showstoppers. A lot of these songs have real potential: "You're the Top," "Just One of Those Things," and "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" could have been extremely memorable sequences, and "Find Me a Primitive Man" and "Well, Did You Evah?" should have been hilarious. But by shoving in these numbers as well as a dozen more (including the complete duds "But in the Morning, No" and "Alpha and Omega," the former being uncomfortable and the latter being forgettable), things get lost in the shuffle, and all the numbers are reduced to very slight dancing or nothing visually interesting at all.
Another flaw of the movie is the costume design and art direction. Practically everything in the movie that's not grass is monochrome. I get what the filmmakers were going for: it's in theory a clever nod to the black-and-white necessity of the musicals of yore, but it gets distracting and annoying. Distracting because you end up constantly searching the frame for a sign of color, and annoying because you become conscious of how the film being shot in color is entirely redundant. What if the color of the costumes related to the emotional states of the characters? They could start out with just black and white, but as they join with the people they love more vibrancy introduced. But, no: the film might as well have been black-and-white, and little of value would've been lost.
Perhaps it seems like I'm being to harsh on a film that I gave a mildly positive rating. It's worth explaining, then, that the film is not without merit: Cybill Shepard and Burt Reynolds are extraordinarily charming, and surprisingly not horrible singers. Although they're not Oscar-worthy, they do pretty much exactly what they're asked to in terms of acting. Kahn and Del Prete are also solid, although the latter's singing is lacking a bit. Most of the songs themselves are great, and their renditions here don't take away anything from that. Finally, the ending is not at all what I was expecting, going for a note of ambiguity instead of heavy-handedness like most musicals.
The plot is paper-thin, which is totally fitting to the homage theme, but unfortunately means it can't compensate for the flawed musical numbers. Same goes for the characters: charm and likability aren't enough to sustain personalities. Luckily it is short by musical standards: 123 minutes may seem excessive, but compared to the likes of the endless Paint Your Wagon (a whole 164 minutes of mediocrity and terrible singing), it's nothing. If you feel like turning your brain off and watching a decidedly imperfect but fun movie, I'd recommend this one. Fun and lightweight, At Long Last Love is a lot better than it's reputation would lead you to believe, and something I have great affection for despite its shortcomings.
Final Score: 57/100.