Toys in the Attic [VHS]

Toys in the Attic [VHS]
by George Roy Hill

Toys in the Attic [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Dean Martin, Gene Tierney, Geraldine Page, Wendy Hiller, Yvette Mimieux
Director: George Roy Hill
Edition: VHS Tape
Format: NTSC
Release Date: 1989-09-16
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Woodknapp Video
Studio: Woodknapp Video

VHS Movie Reviews of Toys in the Attic [VHS]

Movie Review: what is taking so long to put this on dvd?
Summary: 5 Stars

One word wonderful! and only if they remaster the film and put on dvd,because you most likely not going to see it only once on TCM because they give hype to mainstream classics.

Movie Review: There's something not quite on target here
Summary: 3 Stars

The performances by Dean Martin, Geraldine Page, and Wendy Hiller are all top-notch, and they make this movie a good rainy afternoon entertainment. There is also the beautiful black and white cinematography that always shows off New Orleans well. But as my title for this review suggests, this movie aspires to hit a target but misses. I don't know the original play, so I don't know if the problem lies in the censorship of the early 1960s that sometimes afflicted "spicey" plays making the transition to the screen. Given some of the movie's theme's, however, I wouldn't be surprised if part of the film's weakness stems from the facat that key plot and thematic developments were made obscure so as not to offend audiences of a more "sensitive" era.

Now to the problems. To begin with, Yvette Mimieux's character makes no sense. Mimieux is rich, beautiful and sexy, and she is deeply in-love with Dean Martin's character. Why would any man NOT be interested in her? Martin's character, however, can barely stand her. Late in the movie, it is suggested that Mimieux is a dim bulb, but we go through most of the movie not seeing any indication of this. She seems entirely desireable, so the fact that Martin has to be bribed to marry her makes no sense. Unless there is more to her story than we are allowed to see. IN any case, casting someone other than the va-va-va-voom Mimieux would certainly have helped with the character's credibility.

Why would Gene Tierney, Mimieux's mother, have to pay someone to marry her child? To get the child off her hands? Plausible, but there is nothing on screen to suggest this. And why, as a rich and socially prominent matron, would she pay low-life Dean Martin to take up the burden? Is the bribery necessary because white Tierney is keeping company with a black man in the highly segregated South? This is a possibility, but that explanation is not made clear. We don't know how long Tierney's interracial daliance has lasted, and we don't know if it came about after Mimieux left the home---in which case, the daliance would not have affected Mimieux' marriage prospects. [And how did rich, white Tierney get publically involved with a black man in the New Orleans of that era? Certainly such relationships were possible then, but they were highly improbable. We are given none of the context underlying their relationship.]

Towards the film's end, when Mimieux's desperate act has caused Martin to lose all prospects, he explains to Mimieux that the "other woman" who has been Mimieux' obsession only cared about helping Martin and Mimieux establish a life together. What?? This is either a bold-face lie designed to help the dim bulb feel better about herself or "the other woman" is very odd. In any case, the explanation makes no sense in the context in which it is offered. After the assualt that he has just suffered, Martin should be angry at Mimieux; it is wildly unlikely that he would tell her a lie to protect her sensibilities.

Finally, at the end of the film when Martin finally understands the sickness underlying his relationship with his sisters, he seems determined to go back to Mimieux. Why? If he is at the end of his rope, without money or hope, why is he going back to a woman that he never loved? Why not go back to the "other woman," whom he really cared for? At this point, why is he falling back into bourgeois propriety?

The movie is a mess, but the performances allow you to overlook the fact that the story makes no sense.

Movie Review: Something Else
Summary: 5 Stars

I got to see this movie on Cable on Saturday evening by taping it, and yes, it was a good performance by Dean Martin. He was believeable. But Geraldine Page always took the cake and more. That lady knew she had her roles down pat. On one hand, I wanted to shake that young Yvette Mimeaux,and tell her to go and get some self esteem and a back bone. Always going behind her husband's back and believing any little thing folk told her. All in all, a good movie.

Movie Review: Toys in the Attic film
Summary: 5 Stars

Though I didn't see the play or read the screenplay of L. Hellman's "Toys in the Attic," I have just seen the video and was entranced by the performances of Geraldine Page, Dean Martin, and Wendy Hiller!! What a movie!! Ms. Page never disappointed her audience, and 21 years later gave her Oscar-winning performance in "The Trip to Bountiful." I didn't realize how wonderfully Dean Martin could handle a dramatic role...Wendy Hiller stoicly is the older, common-sense sister who survives all the dysfunction in the siblings..what a movie!! Ms. Mimeaux is quite good as well. In my retirement, I'm trying to see the movies I missed when our children were small...this one is a "keeper."

Movie Review: PAGE AND HILLER ARE BRILLIANT...AS USUAL!!!
Summary: 5 Stars

I LOVE THIS FILM! OF COURSE, I ADMIT, I'M PARTIAL TO 60'S FILMS ESPECIALLY GOOD OLD BLACK AND WHITE DRAMAS BUT PLEASE TAKE MY WORD ON THIS ONE...IF YOU ARE A GERALDINE PAGE FAN YOU CAN'T MISS THIS MOVIE!!! I'VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN, THIS WOMAN WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST ACTRESSES EVER TO GRACE A MOVIE CAMERA...SHE DOES MORE IN 10 SECONDS OF SCREEN TIME THAN MOST ACTRESSES DO IN MOVIE AFTER MOVIE...TAKE NOTE: MISS ROBERTS, MISS RYAN, MISS JOLIE, ETC.! DEAN MARTIN IS ALSO EXCELLENT AND THE DIVINE WENDY HILLER IS SIMPLY STUNNING AS USUAL!

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