Alicia I love this movie so much

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . writer\director Elia Kazan into mapping out most of the Circles of Hell in THE ARRANGEMENT. On its surface this chick flick is Uninvolving and Drier than Flo's Complaint (literally, Deborah Kerr says that her character "Florence" cannot flow--that is, she "goes dry" Down There--when men touch her). But as you start to peel back the layers of Tinseltown Stool Pigeon Kazan's blistered soul, you begin to see the desperate Mea Culpa's Hell-Bound Rat Finks can sputter when they feel that first foot sinking and beginning to singe in their grave. Playing a thinly-veiled version of Back-Stabber Kazan himself, Kirk Douglas' "Eddie" accumulates a Fat Cat Fortune as a shill for "clean" Zephyr Cigarettes. Warner Bros. recognizes here that Joe Camel-type Ad-Men foisting off "coffin nails" upon gullible teens (in 1969 more than 85% of future Cancer Cadavers got hooked by the age of 14, thanks to fiends such as Eddie) is about the next worst thing to Kazan's Real Life Perfidy: joining his fellow Confederate Nazi Dregs of Society such as Ronnie Reagan, John "Il Duce" Wayne, Ward Bond, and Charlatan Heston to rat out and destroy hundreds of Progressive Hollywood Families, including that of Paul Revere's heiress Anne (offed as she galloped down Mulholland Drive screaming "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!"). As the 2016 Rigged Election proved, these Venal Fascist Thugs were the REAL Commies themselves, in league with the Corrupt Job-Killing Corporate One Per Centers since the formation of Ye Olde Soviet Union a century ago: that's the sordid ARRANGEMENT Warner Bros. tricks Kazan into confessing here.

secondtake The Arrangement (1969)You might say this movie is about a very successful man coming to realize his success means nothing in the big picture and all he wants is time to be himself, to enjoy life simply.Or you might say this is a movie about a man cheating on his wife with a younger woman and all the fallout that goes with that.Or you might say this is a psychoanalytical dive inward to a man realizing he was ruined by his parents and trapped by his wife, and he descent into introspection makes him go almost mad, and then mad. And he likes it that way.You might even say this is an exercise in narrative storytelling, with a virtuosic layering and intercutting of all these elements into a single highly complex tale.Kirk Douglas is the lynchpin to all of this, and The Arrangement, a masterpiece if there ever was one, is the merging of art-house cinema with mainstream Hollywood. Except that there was no real art-house movie scene in 1969. This film pushes the boundaries as hard as they could be and still survive at all as a mainstream release. Director Elia Kazan is certainly one of the greats of the era (Scorsese agrees here) and he went out on a limb with editor Stefan Arnsten to make something utterly unique. There are foreshadowings of Woody Allen (though without humor) and Six Feet Under (in the kind of surrealism created by editing and the changing presence of people in a single scene). The plot is also intensely personal. Kazan, born in Istanbul and brought to American when he was four, was the son of Greek immigrants and his father was actually a rug merchant. And Kazan was apparently having an affair at the time of the shooting (he remarried in 1969 and later had a child). The screenplay is Kazan's and it's based a 1967 novel, also by Kazan. So if this is a deeply felt movie about a man having a mid-life crisis, it's understandable. Is it overwrought and self-indulgent? It has that potential for viewers who don't connect with the style or the characters, but for me it was too honest and well made to brush off. I got sucked in and was mesmerized by the swirling, teetering effects that never let you get confused or out of control.

Lee Eisenberg As I understand it, Elia Kazan's "The Arrangement" has had a mostly negative reputation. Much like Otto Preminger's "Hurry Sundown" - which gave Faye Dunaway an early starring role - it contains a somewhat confusing plot and is more noticeable for its cast. Kirk Douglas plays a businessman going through his midlife crisis and having an affair with a young woman (Dunaway); and his wife (Deborah Kerr) accepts it. But there's more...I feel that I can neither pan this movie nor recommend it. I'm not quite sure what to say about it. I guess that I've seen far better movies, but also far worse movies. If you choose to see it, you probably needn't bother seeing it more than once. Also starring Richard Boone and Harold Gould.

thataw Panned and patronized at the time of it's initial release, Elia Kazan's adaptation of his best selling book THE ARRANGEMENT plays much better now than it did in 1969. Made after a 6 year hiatus from film-making at a time when movies were enjoying unheard of freedom due to the demise of the production code, THE ARRANGEMENT clearly shows that Kazan was still a director to be reckoned with. The basic premise was nothing new. A highly successful businessman (Kirk Douglas) suffers a mid-life crisis and attempts suicide. How he and the other characters deal with the aftermath make up the rest of the story. Kazan has always been an actor's director and the film provides a showcase for the young Faye Dunaway as Douglas' mistress who gets him to reexamine his life but wants out to be with someone else. Deborah Kerr in her last major film appearance is superb in the difficult role of the wife who tries to understand what Douglas is going through but doesn't want to give up the rich lifestyle she's become accustomed to. Strong support is given by Hume Cronyn as the family solicitor who has plans of his own and from Richard Boone in a rare non-Western role as Douglas' ailing father. His slide into dementia is both heartbreaking and terrifying. Marlon Brando had originally agreed to play the lead but bowed out allowing Kirk Douglas who really wanted to work with Kazan to step in. While not stage trained like the other principals, he acquits himself well in an emotionally as opposed to a physically demanding role. The combination of raw emotions, alternating points-of-view including black humor, and touches of surrealism was ambitious then and still is today (think American BEAUTY). The movie is not without its flaws. It runs too long and is occasionally sloppy in everything from editing to make-up but the powerful writing and intense performances make THE ARRANGEMENT provocative film-making nearly 40 years later. Called everything from a harrowing emotional ride to a self-indulgent mess, it is ultimately for the home viewer to decide (my rating indicates where I stand). Kazan will always be a controversial figure because of his HUAC testimony in the 1950's but his greatness as a director cannot be denied and remains captured on film for all to see.