Elia Kazan made "The Arrangement" in 1969 after having first published it as a novel. It's a difficult film but ultimately a rewarding one. It begins along the lines of a rather heavy-handed satire on consumerism before turning into a very late sixties psychodrama about a mid-life crisis which Kazan chooses to film in the fractured style of a European art-movie. The central character is Eddie Anderson, (not his real name; he changed it from the original Greek), and from flashbacks we are lead to believe he's the son of the boy from "America, America" who has now become Richard Boone. The film opens with Eddie's bizarre suicide attempt when he drives his sports car under the wheels of a truck and as it moves forward, to some kind of redemption. It also keeps skipping back to the events in Eddie's past that have lead up to that moment when he felt his life was no longer worth living. Kirk Douglas plays Eddie superbly, in what is really a very difficult role. His long-suffering wife is an equally superb Deborah Kerr, mixing acidity and sweetness to an almost alarming degree as she tries to comprehend what it is that's driving her husband. In the role of Eddie's mistress Faye Dunaway is less successful simply because her character is too much of a contradiction; she seems to undergo a complete change of personality. However, there's fine work from Hume Cronyn as Eddie's slimy lawyer and Boone is splendid as the gruff, seemingly uncaring father. The movie itself wasn't a success and critics were heavily divided, many feeling that Kazan had stepped outside of his comfort zone and had largely failed. However, the magazine 'Films and Filming', a bible of British film criticism at the time, selected it as the year's best film from any source. It was hardly that but it is still Kazan's last really good movie, an utterly essential part of one of the great canons of work in world cinema and it certainly shouldn't be missed if you get the chance to see it.

The personnel in The Arrangement reminds me of the LA Lakers basketball team ( around the time this film was made) when they had Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor on the same squad. There were great expectations for a team with three superstars but they never jelled as a unit and were a dismal failure overall. Such is the case with Elia Kazan's The Arrangement, a crashing, sloppy out of touch melodrama of marital infidelity and despair.It would be hard to surpass the ten year run that Elia Kazan had a as film director from 1947-57. Just about everything he directed turned to gold and those that didn't then (Boomerang, Panic in the Streets, Face in the Crowd) have that respect today. In the early 60s he was still producing quality work (Splendor in the Grass, America,America) when he turned to writing a best seller (The Arrangement) eventually bringing it to the screen in the late sixties. Kazan, an actor's director if their ever was one and who translated the words and feelings of John Steinbeck and Tennessee Williams to film so well seemed to be at a loss with his own work and his ability to coax well measured performances out of his cast. Kirk Douglas, Deborah Kerr and Faye Dunaway are uniformly shrill from start to finish moping from one scene to another, making it hard to believe they could feel tenderness for anything. The scenes between Douglas and his mistress (Dunaway) lack intimacy and warmth, their passion forced. With his wife (Kerr) there is total detachment and not even a hint of why they got together in the first place. Kerr for her part seems like she's still in rehearsal. Lacking both sincerity and push she is badly miscast. Richard Boone as Eddie's overbearing old man adds to the disaster with complete over the top bombast, making a lot of noise and saying nothing that brings incite to the role.Having failed at what he does best (directing actors) Kazan goes on to embarrass himself further by employing some of the latest techniques (including Batman pop art) to be au courant in this heady era of American film but in his hands he fumbles. Even the highly regarded cinematographer, John Surtees flounders with sloppy camera movement and uninspired compositions. It's as if everyone attached to the making of the Arrangement suffered from talent amnesia. Kazan had certainly lost his touch and The Arrangement in one full swoop symbolized that decline. As a film director he had nothing left in the tank.

This movie was ahead of its time. The scenes presaged Pulp Fiction and The Boondock Saints. Forty years later the pop culture elements provide a very interesting commentary on times past. And of course, Richard Boone, a truly fine actor, was one of the major reasons I like this movie so much. The idea of living out a relationship primarily in one's head reminds me also of Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Note that the license plate of Eddie Anderson's (Kirk Douglas) sports car is JJZ-106. That's 3 ticks away from Lt. Bullitt's (Steve McQueen) plate in the famous chase sequence, which was JJZ-109. I tried to get JJZ-109 as a Gmail address, but it was taken. (So was the Dodge Charger's plate in the Bullitt chase sequence.) Apparently, Warner Brothers got a series of plates for its company cars.

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.