The Fountainhead (1949)

Bad movie/Great movie!

Technically, this is one of the worst movies ever made. The acting is stilted, the music is predictable, and the set designs are pedantic. Gary Cooper hated his interpretation of the courtroom scene. Ayn fought tooth and nail with the studio heads to have it filmed exactly as she wrote it. Unfortunately she won. The heavy hand of novelist Ayn Rand's script is evident throughout. Fortunately, the theme of the story, a man's uncompromising individuality, more than makes up for the film's shortcomings. Throughout her life, Ayn, (pronounced eye-ann), Rand, influenced by her childhood experiences in communist Russia, campaigned for the rights of the individual over the collective. Her novel "The Fountainhead" was her crowning achievement in this direction. Although her ideas did not translate into film as well as they might have, her message comes through loud and clear. I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone with a mind; but I would read the book first. Two of my favorite people are Nikola Tesla, and Howard Roark, both of them men of uncompromising integrity. August 12, 2008

Unintentionally Hilarious

Ayn Rand wrote herself the script for the film that features Gary Cooper as Roark and Patricia Neal as Dominique. Thanks God, she had condensed her bloated manifesto of individualism and brought it down to the reasonable size. Ironically, by cutting off hundreds of pages from the novel, the movie often does not make sense at all and in many scenes is unintentionally comical, exaggerated, and full of loud speeches that would never be heard in real life. The only interesting character of the book, Gail Waynad did not have any development, and we did not learn anything from his past, and about his way from Hell's Kitchen to the position of giving the public what it wants and creating single-hand the public opinion.

Both Gary Cooper(very attractive but too old for playing Roark) and Patricia Neal are very good actors and you can feel how uncomfortable they are doing their best and trying to stay serious and sincere while saying the most ridiculous lines of dialogue ever committed to celluloid. When the dramatic and moving (supposedly) scenes make me giggle uncomfortably and feel sorry for the actors on the screen I believe it was a bad movie. The scene in the court that was supposed to be Roark's triumph and celebration of Ayn Rand's philosophical ideas left me lost and confused about the way the criminal justice system worked in the Rand's utopian world. The only redeeming value the film has well two actually - truly magnificent buildings of New York City and the running time 112 minutes. Enduring the novel was much more difficult task that is suited for the masochists.
June 21, 2008

The book was better??

Kinda hard to say the book was better because Ayn Rand wrote the script for this movie version of her book. You'll definitely like the movie if you haven't read the book. I wonder why Ayn Rand left out so much good stuff especially during the era where a 2-3 hour movie experience was typical. April 27, 2008

Great memoies of how it was in the golden age.

Too bad our current congress can not remember what was intended for all Americans. In this case, copy right protection. Microsoft ought to show clips from this movie.
I hope the new Ann Rand movie "Atlas Shrugged" stays true to form. Angelina Jolie has a habit of taking important issues left. More than ever, we need the real Ann Rand "Atlas Shrugged". Especially the Americans leaning to the left. April 5, 2008

Nicely done

A nicely done movie that, a bit to my surprise, kept my three kids (ages 11, 14, 17) all entertained. I think the reason is that this movie is so plainly different from the current, bubblegum movies they see so often. Why not five stars, as I'm tempted to give?

First there's the fact that no one seems to smile in the whole film. Indulge me for a moment while I mention that I find this over-seriousness a recurring problem in Ayn Rand's work. It's a shame she never learned to lighten up a bit (or to appreciate the merits of well-placed charity, but I digress).

The second problem, which is hardly the fault of the movie, is that the modern style of architecture that seemed so cutting edge at the time has now been done to death -- to the point that the wonderful buildings that are supposed to be driving the story tend to leave the viewer wistful for classicism.

The third problem (WARNING - PLOT SPOILER) is that blowing up a building has a different flavor to it in these post-9/11 days than it did earlier.

These are serious flaws, but perhaps they mostly show how much I enjoyed the movie overall, given that I still rate it between 4 and 5 stars.
March 23, 2008

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