The Last Angry Man

The Last Angry Man combines some of the finest motion picture effects with many of the worst. Scenes of sheer poetry are juxtaposed with others of outrageous banality; splendid camera work is sometimes ruined by the most needless background music; several beautifully delivered speeches are muted by close-ups on the wrong faces. Only Paul Muni's performance as Dr. Samuel Abelman--the title figure--is consistently good.

If Gerald Greene, who adopted The Last Angry Man from his novel of the same name, had decided to focus the plot on Dr. Abelman, using him as a prism through which the audience could see Greene's distinctly colored view of Madison Avenue, he might have produced an interesting variationon the grey flannel theme.

But as it turns out, the movie's pivotal figure is Woody Thrasher (David Wayne), a rising young executive who is torn between his innate sense of honor (of course no man of honor would want to work in Madison Avenue) and financial pressure (it is almost axiomatic that men of honor have mortgages to pay). Thrasher's story, with some minor changes, has been told repeatedly in the past few years.

He is the producer of a television program Americans, U.S.A., whose sponsor has threatened to throw in the kinescope. One morning, over coffee and dexidrine, he reads a newspaper story about Dr. Samuel Abelman, tracks him down, and after some effort convinces him to appear on the program. From then on, whenever it tells Thrasher's story, the movie follows a well-worn course.

Dr. Abelman, though, as Muni portrays him, is magnificent. A sort of lower Flatbush Thoreau, he has spent most of his 68 years fighting the 'galoots' ("people who take, and give nothing in return"), and proving that he, at least, is uncorrupted by the 20th century mania for money. Played by an ordinary actor, Dr. Abelman might have appeared a caricature of some wistful or long dead ideal. But Muni in perfect; he never wastes a gesture or an expression, the timbre of his voice is always exactly appropriate to the speech he is delivering.

When director Daniel Mann works with experienced actors, such as Muni and Luther Adler (Abelman's closest friend, Dr. Max Vogel) his touch is sure and often imaginative; but the rest of the cast seems unable to carry out his suggestions. The worst of the group is Betsy Palmer (Woody Thrasher's wife) who is about as inspired as a deep sea diver in the Charles River.

Mann's judgement about technical effects is often questionable. For example, in a scene outside Dr. Abelman's house in the Brooklyn slums, three teen-age Negroes throw beer cans at Woody Thrasher's white sedan as Thrasher drives away. This moment could have been quite eloquent, but some loud, over-dramatic background music destroyed the entire effect.

It is disturbing to realize, during scenes like this, that the supposedly sensitive and intelligent men who make films such as The Last Angry Man feel that they must somehow explain to the audience every literate speech or subtle technical effect they use. And when it turns what might have been a thoroughly commendable effort into a slightly better than run-of-the-mill film, this kind of condescension is disastrous.