Marjorie Morningstar (1958)

Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly make a cute (if not exactly convincing) couple in this Hollywood soap-opera version of Herman Wouk's coming-of-age romance. French/Russian Natalie Wood is decidedly non-ethnic as Marjorie Morgenstern, the starry-eyed Jewish college girl who falls in love with summer resort small-timer Gene Kelly (who never quite sells himself as a show-biz dreamer with limited talent). A stolid mix of modern, clear-eyed romance and old-fashioned melodrama, it nonetheless manages to slip in some frank (for 1958) discussions of sex and the single girl and sketch out an intriguing portrait of Jewish life in New York's upper crust between the romantic complications. Everett Sloane and Claire Trevor are excellent as Marjorie's success-obsessed parents, pre-Adam 12 Martin (Marty) Milner offers his boy-next-door charm as the former flunky turned Broadway success, and Ed Wynn is delightful as her eccentric uncle. --Sean Axmaker Amazon.com

Love it

Search high and low to find Majorie Morningstar.
Happy to have found it for a great price July 7, 2008

Seriously Dated

Although the performers are competent and pleasing, this film is seriously dated. Wouk's novel was powerful for its honest portrayal of its Jewish milieu, something the film does not understand or appreciate. The ending is particularly dated and trivial. Wouk's narrative should have been followed. February 12, 2008

Natalie Wood at nineteen

Pretty Marjorie Morganstern, a good Jewish girl, gets her chance to work with a summer-stock company at the summer camp where she is a counselor on her first job. She meets older, charismatic Noel Airman, the summer-stock director that is nearing the end of an always promising career. Marjorie encourages Noel to pursue his theatrical dreams and when he fails, he leaves Marjorie with a broken heart. Noel does the only thing that makes him feel success and adoration and Marjorie comes to terms that her love affair with Noel was the greatest love of her life. I don't want to give away the ending, but get your tissues ready. December 18, 2007

"I'm saddled, bridled, bitted, and tamed. Children ride me in Central Park for a dime." Unintended Hilarity!

"Sometimes I think I can act," Natalie Wood tells pal Carolyn Jones, "and other times I feel I don't have any talent at all." We can commiserate since, watching Wood struggling to play a Jewish teen who dreams of being a great theater actress, we feel the same way as her.

The two have summer resort jobs at South Wind -- named, no doubt, after all the hot air expelled by forty-six-year-old Gene Kelly as he tries to pass himself off as a thirty-three-year-old "genius." Watching him direct dancers ("Be a cat!" Kelly suggests), Jones warns Wood, "Careful, he affects young girls the way whiskey hits an Indian."

When Wood's mother Claire Trevor sends uncle Ed Wynn to keep an eye on her, Wood cracks, "You'd think mother was guarding Fort Knox." Jones says that losing one's virginity is "not a fate worse than death. Take a poll of your graduating class ten years from now, and see how many of them clinched the deal without giving away a few free samples."

Kelly would prefer not to bother, but he's happy to talk (and talk) about why. "I've no time for `Shirley,' " he tells Wood. " `Shirley' is a trade name for the respectable middle-class girl who likes to play at being worldly. It's monogrammed all over you the way parents sew camp initials on a child: `Hands Off, Decent Girl, Object: Matrimony.' " Wood eventually gets a word in -- "You think I'm just a stupid kid with a crush on you?" -- sending Kelly off again. " `Shirley' only hugs and paws on a rigidly graduated scale. We're an error in matchmaking. You're on a course charted by 5,000 years of Moses and his Ten Commandments. I'm a renegade."

We have only to hear Kelly croon the swoony song he's supposedly written, "A Very Special Love," or watch the unintentionally hilarious routine he choreographs for Wood to perform, a be-boppin' "Fiesta Rock," to see that Kelly's about as renegade as this expensive by-the-numbers soap straight off the studio assembly line. After that dance, Trevor opines, "Cigarettes, beer, all grown up!" but Wood gets it right when she says, "We may as well face it, I've gone to the dogs."

Though Kelly utters those words that every girl dreams of hearing -- "Marjorie, you are your mother" -- he can't help changing for her true love. "You've broken me," he claims, "I'm saddled, bridled, bitted, and tamed. Children ride me in Central Park for a dime." But when Kelly, "the Shakespeare of advertising," goes on a week-long bender with goodtime gal Ruta Lee, we know Wood's romance is doomed. Not, however, till Kelly's written a flop Broadway musical till Wood's chased him through Europe, till they both again return to South Wind where it all began. Sadder, wiser, at fadeout. Wood looks determined to find better scripts.
August 20, 2007

Don't read the book!

Yes, I'm a man and yes, I like this movie. It is strictly out of the 50's, however, but that is when I grew up and for that reason the film brings a bit of nostalgia with it. Another reason to watch this film is to see Natalie Wood's big brown eyes just one more time. No, she was never a great actress, although I think that she came close in Love with the Proper Stranger and in Splendor in the Grass, my favorite of her films. This being said, a few notes of caution are in order. I don't yet own the DVD of this title for one BIG reason: the transfer sounds like it is identical to the horrible laserdisc version, which I do own. On that transfer, the color is weak and distorted and the focus is not quite sharp. There are a few splices and one ridiculous jump-cut, as another reviewer pointed out. And to top it off, the movie opens with a trailer which cuts directly to the film, completely lopping off the Warner Bros. logo and the first notes of the main title. I keep hoping for a decent, legitimate transfer of this movie which is the only reason I am at this website. One final word: if you like the movie, don't EVER read the book! It a wonderful book with many "slice of life" truths and contains many poignant moments which the movie misses altogether, the "kiss under the lilacs" being just one example. Once you read the book, you will either throw out the film, or spend a lifetime regretting what should have been done with it! But then, there are those big brown eyes....... April 21, 2007

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