Thrice Told Tales: The Great Gatsby

Last July, our beloved former Ricochet editor, Jon Gabriel, tweeted the following: “The Great Gatsby is a terrible, terrible book.” Feeling the need to express disdain for a century-old novel already says something. How many books published in 1925 are still being discussed?

I disagree with Gabriel about this even more strongly than his scorn for Bruce Springsteen, though it is interesting that F. Scott Fitzgerald considered his book a failure, at least financially. The novel debuted to decent reviews, but sold less than 20,000 copies. It was largely forgotten by the public. Then, during World War II, the Council on Books in Wartime distributed free copies of The Great Gatsby to soldiers overseas, leading to a surge in the book's popularity. I rather like that it wasn’t Ivy League scholars that led to the book’s revival, but rather G.I. Joes.

These days, academicians have much to say about the book, many arguing it deserves to be “The Great American Novel.” Respect for it is widespread. NPR’s book reviewer Maureen Corrigan wrote an excellent history of the book, So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures. Hillsdale College has a variety of classes and lectures on the story. Economist Gary Wolfram uses the book to examine wealth in America in the 1920s, and English professor Dr. Benedict Whalen discussed The Great Gatsby as a ghost story on its centennial.

Since high school English class is a distant memory for most of us, here is a quick summary of the plot:

In the spring of 1922, Yale graduate and veteran of the Great War Nick Carroway moves to West Egg on Long Island and tries to get work as a bond salesman. His neighbor is Jay Gatsby, a millionaire who throws frequent, elaborate parties. Nick resumes his friendship with his cousin, Daisy, a pretty socialite who lives in a mansion on nearby East Egg with her husband, the opulent Tom Buchanan.

Gatsby invites Nick to one of his parties. Nick will learn that Gatsby had an affair with Daisy prior to the war. She said she would wait for him, but instead married Tom. Gatsby uses Nick to reintroduce himself to Daisy. Gatsby and Daisy resume their affair.

While the group is in a hotel suite in Manhattan, Gatsby forces a confrontation. He asks Daisy to renounce Tom and go off with him. When Tom reveals that Gatsby made his fortune through bootlegging, Daisy hesitates to leave her husband (and young daughter). Tom scornfully allows Gatsby and Daisy to drive together back to Long Island. Daisy drives the car and, through a series of fateful coincidences, runs over Tom’s lover, Myrtle. Gatsby takes responsibility for the accident and is shot and killed by Myrtle’s husband.

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There are several symbols in the book that are in all of the films. The most prominent are an optometrist’s billboard that features watching eyes and a green light at the end of a pier. The novel has prompted a variety of interpretations, often as a celebration or a eulogy of the American Dream. What matters to Thrice Told Tales is that Hollywood has made numerous adaptations of the story on the big screen. (There have also been television adaptations, which we will happily ignore.)

Sadly, I don’t have the option of reviewing the 1926 version of The Great Gatsby. The film is lost, with only stills and the trailer remaining. I can say these three things about the film:

1. It probably had the most accurate sets and costumes compared to other film adaptations of the novel.
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald hated it.
3. Nick Carroway was played by Neil Hamilton, who later played Commissioner Gordon on the TV show, Batman.

I was able to watch three other versions of the story.

The Great Gatsby (1949)

This was the only major production of Gatsby filmed under the Hays Code. It is quite a “moral” telling of the story.

The film begins and ends with bookends that depart from the novel. Nick Carroway (Macdonald Carey), along with his wife, former tennis star Jordan Baker Carroway (Ruth Hussey) return after twenty years to the grave of Nick’s friend, Jay Gatsby.

The tombstone reads “Jay Gatsby 1896 - 1928 Proverbs 14:12.” Nick quotes the verse cited, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” It was apparently Nick’s bright idea to place that verse on the stone. Soon, we flash back twenty years for the telling of the tale. (It’s worth noting that while the novel takes place in 1922, this places the story in 1928 — possibly so, Alan Ladd won’t seem too old for the role of Gatsby.)

The film takes other liberties with the novel. It isn’t made clear in this version that Gatsby and Daisy reignite their affair. In the book and the two other adaptations to come, the sexual nature of their affair is clear. But not in this version.

We have a flashback within the flashback to see Gatsby and Daisy’s affair before the war.

Another plot invention for this film is that Tom Buchanan seeks to save Gatsby from his killer. When Tom is aware that Myrtle’s desperate husband (Henry De Silva) is heading to Gatsby’s mansion with murderous intent, he tries to phone and warn him. Gatsby, about to go swimming (with Nick present), ignores the phone as he renounces his sinful life. Myrtle’s husband, standing unnoticed on the other side of the pool, shoots him.

Alan Ladd makes an adequate Gatsby. He’s certainly able to pull off the gangster aspect of the role, but he isn’t a man of great charm. Betty Field as Daisy is not remotely memorable. Barry Sullivan is authoritative as Tom Buchanan. Shelley Winters is wonderful as the doomed flapper Myrtle Wilson, and we have Elisha Cook Jr. (the gunsel from The Maltese Falcon) as Klipspringer, Gatsby’s court musician.

Fashion and style play an important part in this story, so I’m going to a more knowledgeable source to discuss this: Mrs. Eustace C. Scrubb.

1949 and 1928 were very different in terms of women’s fashion. Myrtle’s clothing suggests the flamboyance of 1920s flapper satins and beads, all the women wear clothes with waistlines more-or-less at the waist and none of them seem to be aiming for a boyish silhouette. The exception might be in the flashback scene where Daisy wears an evening dress that a Kentucky belle might wear for a dance during the Great War.

One of the things I appreciate about this film is that its running time is only ninety minutes. The 1974 version is 146 minutes, and the 2013 version is 142 minutes. Arguably one of the things that has made the novel a popular choice for high school English classes is its relative short length. There is no reason the later versions should be well over two hours. Maybe the filmmakers felt that a longer running time made the film a “prestige” picture.

The Great Gatsby (1974)

Producer Robert Evans (responsible for The Godfather) wanted to make The Great Gatsby as a vehicle for his wife, Ali McGraw. Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson turned down the role of Gatsby — not wanting to act opposite McGraw (for whose acting skills they had little regard).

When McGraw ran off with Steve McQueen, Evans cast Mia Farrow as Daisy. He tried to cast 49-year-old Marlon Brando as Gatsby, but director Jack Clayton fought for the much younger Robert Redford. Brando’s $4 million salary demand helped Redford win the role.

This film doesn’t have the moralistic bookends of the 1949 version. It opens and closes with prose from the novel, and the screenwriter sticks much closer than he did with The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola’s the screenwriter, if you didn’t guess). However, the film moves at quite a leisurely pace.

Redford looks great as Gatsby, but is a bit stiff. Mia Farrow isn’t very likable as Daisy, but really, Daisy isn’t a very likable character. Lois Chiles (Holly Goodhead in Moonraker) plays Daisy’s friend, Jordan, a consistently more appealing character than Daisy. Bruce Dern is a marvelous jerk as Tom Buchanan with a couple of racist rants (that do come from the novel). Sam Waterson as Nick seems, as usual, to be moral rectitude personified. Karen Black plays Tom’s mistress, Myrtle. (Black’s appearance in so many movies of the 1970s has always been a mystery to me. I find her a little off-putting.) Edward Herrmann takes the role of Klipspringer.

Nelson Riddle received an Oscar for the musical score. I believe Mrs. Eustace was impressed with the costuming, as was the Academy, which gave the film another Oscar for Best Costume Design.

Yup, what Eustace said. The exultant shirt-throwing scene is probably the best in this version, and the men’s clothes are as wonderful as the women’s. -Mrs. Eustace

The film is a sight to behold, but as many critics of the time noted, it's rather lifeless. Jack Clayton directed this as he directed one of the greatest of cinematic ghost stories, The Innocents. But the ghosts of that film were much more intense and lively than the lovers in this one.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

One could look at Baz Luhrmann as a paraphrase of Fitzgerald’s novel rather than a word-for-word translation. Let’s start with the soundtrack. Jay-Z was brought in to work on the music. Hip-hop is used. The camera work is flashy and frenetic. If you’ve seen Luhrmann’s other films, particularly Moulin Rouge, you know what you’re in for: a loud spectacle.

I think the idea was to depict how the changes in fashion, music, and morality reverberated through the 1920s. Instead of accurately presenting the world of the Roaring Twenties, the story is presented as it would have felt to people at the time.

Critics were not won over by Luhrmann’s idea. At Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a negative rating of 49% (Not Fresh). Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal described the film as "a tale told idiotically, full of noise and furor, signifying next to nothing." Other critics believed Luhrmann was exactly the wrong person to tell Fitzgerald’s story, which requires subtlety and nuance, rather than flash and explosions.

There are some changes in the plot from the novel. The film opens with Nick in an insane asylum recovering from the events in the book. His psychiatrist suggests he work out his issues by writing down what happened to him, resulting in the novel. In this version, Gatsby makes a quite grand entrance (providing a very popular meme) to Nick, rather than the slow revelation of his identity that takes place in the book. And Gatsby dies still believing he’s won Daisy’s heart — an odd choice that lessens the tragedy.

Leo DiCaprio makes an excellent Gatsby. He captures the charm and the mystery of the character, and, amazingly, he seems to get younger as the film goes on. Carey Mulligan is an attractive Daisy, making Gatsby’s obsession with the character a bit more understandable. Tobey Maguire is a bit old for Nick, but he does an adequate job. Joel Edgerton is a creepy Tom Buchanan. Again, Klipspringer is a strange, small part of the story, here played by Brendan Maclean, an Australian musician who is also quite a strange man.

As for the fashion, this is Mrs. Eustace’s take:

It’s amazing. I appreciated this paraphrase if only because of the clothes. The shirt-throwing wasn't as effective, however. In that scene (and possibly that scene only) too much was less than just enough.

I’m someone who likes and admires the novel. This is the most entertaining movie adaptation of the book, but I don’t think there has been a truly successful adaptation yet. Maybe it can’t be done. Like the green light at the end of the pier, perhaps it’s always unattainable.