Director: John Schlesinger

Writer: Waldo Salt

From novel: The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

Keywords: Romantic Drama, Hollywood

Dark tale depicting Hollywood's lost souls and broken dreams. William Atherton is a studio artist, designing sets and costumes. He falls in love with Karen Black, a frustrated actress who will do absolutely anything to further her career, but is quite lacking in the talent department. One of the greatest endings of any film ever made. Received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best Cinematography.

John Schlesinger, quoted in Elsie M. Walker (ed.), Conversations with Directors: "If you talk about adaptations, Day of the Locust was the most difficult one of all. It was really very tough trying to develop it into a story with characters of flesh and blood and a dramatic thrust to the whole thing. When I saw the first cut of the film, I knew it was going to be controversial, but I was very proud of it -- and still am, incidentally. I realized that maybe the casting of Karen Black as Faye was fatal, but I felt we had a really interesting and extraordinary film which by no means was going to be popular."

[watch trailer]

Name	Occupation	Birth	Death	Known for
William Atherton	Actor	30-Jul-1947		Ghostbusters
Billy Barty	Actor	25-Oct-1924	23-Dec-2000	High-profile little person
Karen Black	Actor	1-Jul-1939	7-Aug-2013	Five Easy Pieces
William Castle	Film Director	24-Apr-1914	31-May-1977	House on Haunted Hill
Dennis Dugan	Actor	5-Sep-1946		Happy Gilmore
Richard Dysart	Actor	30-Mar-1929	5-Apr-2015	Leland McKenzie on L.A. Law
Jackie Earle Haley	Actor	14-Jul-1961		Breaking Away
John Hillerman	Actor	20-Dec-1932	9-Nov-2017	Higgins on Magnum, P.I.
Bo Hopkins	Actor	2-Feb-1942		Matthew Blaisdel on Dynasty
Madge Kennedy	Actor	19-Apr-1891	9-Jun-1987	The Marrying Kind
David Ladd	Actor	5-Feb-1947		A Dog of Flanders
Burgess Meredith	Actor	16-Nov-1908	9-Sep-1997	Rocky and Grumpy Old Men
Geraldine Page	Actor	22-Nov-1924	13-Jun-1987	Toys in the Attic
Robert Pine	Actor	10-Jul-1941		Sgt. Getraer on CHiPS
Natalie Schafer	Actor	5-Nov-1900	10-Apr-1991	Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island
Paul Stewart	Actor	13-Mar-1908	17-Feb-1986	Citizen Kane
Donald Sutherland	Actor	17-Jul-1935		The Dirty Dozen
Nita Talbot	Actor	8-Aug-1930		Rose on Starting from Scratch
John War Eagle	Actor	8-Jun-1901	7-Feb-1991	The Man from Laramie

REVIEWS

Review by anonymous (posted on 22-Jun-2005)

This film is very underrated and was a bomb at the box office. Based on a short novel by Nathaniel West, Day of the Locust focuses in Hollywood of the late 30's. As told through an art director working at Paramount, Hollywood is not the glamour capitol of the world. In fact its a haven for hucksters, wanna bes, never weres, and nobodies. The art director sees the people living and working in Hollywood as locusts, open mouthed, feeding, wanting, destroying. Schlesinger paints this Hollywood with great hues and colors. Its depressing and colorful, yet down and disturbing. None of the characters have any real merit and the ending scenes will blow your socks off. One of my all-time favorite films by one of my all-time favorite directors. A must-see.

Have you seen this film? We would love to see your review. Submit your review for this film

Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile

Copyright ©2019 Soylent Communications