Volume 21, Number 7 · May 2, 1974
The Ghost of Gatsby
By Robert Mazzocco
The Great Gatsby
directed by Jack Clayton
I don't know what David Merrick will be sprinkling over himself to atone for Jack Clayton's spiritless direction of The Great Gatsby, but I suspect it won't be gold dust. For though the film's probably the most elegant recreation of the Twenties since The Razor's Edge, the most sumptuous clothes-opera since Funny Face or Lady in the Dark, it has neither Fitzgerald's 'promises of life' nor even the 'divine romance' the ads suggest. And it hardly seems American at all. For a while I thought I was watching one of those dramas about wicked weekends at country houses around Surrey which used to flourish on the London stage. I almost expected Beatrice Lillie to emerge from among the guests at Gatsby's parties and talk about Nounou and Nada and Nell. Would that she had.
Review, 3558 words
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