Themes: Fathers and Sons, Fired or Laid-Off, Suicide
Main Cast: Fredric March, Mildred Dunnock, Kevin McCarthy, Cameron Mitchell, Howard I. Smith
Release Year: 1951
Country: US
Run Time: 115 minutes
Plot
It was considered a serious coup at Columbia Pictures when producer Stanley Kramer landed the rights to Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and got most of the key members of the Broadway cast for the movie, plus Kevin McCarthy from the original London cast. The one exception was Lee J. Cobb, who'd done the part of Willy Loman on Broadway but, because of his alleged past left-wing political associations, couldn't do the movie -- so Kramer and Columbia went with a proven box office star, Fredric March. He plays Willy Loman, who has spent a lifetime pursuing success, only to find himself a failure at age 60, a victim of poor choices, lost opportunities, and unreasonable expectations, especially for his two sons, and in particular the older one, Biff (Kevin McCarthy). Despite the support of his loving, patient wife Linda (Mildred Dunnock, in the performance of a lifetime), Willy's life comes apart along with his hold on reality, as he increasingly slips between the present and the past, reliving incidents in a desperate search for what went wrong. March brings a good deal of dignity to the role, and McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell are superb as his two sons, but the movie was a failure at the time of its release, partly owing to its difficult subject matter -- the failure of the American dream was not the first item on every moviegoer's list in 1951, no matter how successful the play had been on Broadway or how many awards it won -- and also to March's performance, which was just as likely the fault of director Laslo Benedek; he's sympathetic but too externalized, without Cobb's seething energy (represented in the 1960's television portrayal), and in the second half is too over-the-top in his madness. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
An amazingly faithful adaptation of Arthur Miller's stage masterpiece, Death of a Salesman is a powerful, disturbing, and wrenching film experience. Critics have argued for years over whether Miller's work qualifies as a tragedy, but it's impossible to deny the force and passion that pours forth from it. Given the unenviable task of replacing Lee J. Cobb, whose stage performance in the role was legendary, Fredric March more than rises to the occasion, giving what is arguably the finest performance of his career. March offers glimpses of the real humanity that lies deeply buried at the core of his character, but not at the expense of the less pleasant aspects of the character. He is a liar, a fake, and dangerously self-involved, and March's skillful performance doesn't shy away from any of this, while at the same time making the viewer care so deeply that a man could be so terribly afraid and angry and unable to admit to it. Mildred Dunnock is sheer perfection as the wife and mother who constantly tries to support the men in her life and is torn up by their failures, and Kevin McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell are aces as the sons. Laslo Benedek's direction is taut and gripping, his only real misfire being a straightforward cinematic translation of the play's commingling of past and present rather than a more imaginative approach. All in all, an excellent adaptation of one of the American theater's greatest plays. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Cary O'Dell - Art Director, Laslo Benedek - Director, Harry Gerstad - Editor, William Lyon - Editor, Alex North - Composer (Music Score), Morris W. Stoloff - Musical Direction/Supervision, Clay Campbell - Makeup, Rudolph Sternad - Production Designer, Franz Planer - Cinematographer, Stanley Kramer - Producer, William Kiernan - Set Designer, George Cooper - Sound/Sound Designer, Stanley Roberts - Screenwriter, Arthur Miller - Play Author
