TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (1962) ** Seven years before her final act, my best guess is that someone was thinking about Judy Garland at some point during filming. Vicente Minnelli weaves themes of suicide, romance gone wrong that should have been better, alcohol and pills and frightened stars, and the irresolute pressures of acting all the time. He does this in Rome, but without saying much about anything other than acting (and that quickly, over a bottle of wine on the beach) until the closing minutes when a great deal is said about power, reputation, ethics, and struggle in the film industry. Kirk Douglas has Daliah Lavi willing to pay attention to him, but can't get over Cyd Charisse: how can anyone look at what you can see of the woman underneath all those baubles and not understand that she has something to hide? George Hamilton plays the young heart-throb on the way back up after the way down...he's a fine looking man, but I believe that they're also trying to portray him as a born actor-I'm not positive, no one flat out says so. Edward G. Robinson gets most of the good lines and throws them away so casually...they're all throwing things away fairly casually now that I think on it, everything except for Douglas' comfortable room in the nuthouse. Maybe that was worth fighting oneself for.
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