"Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle"

[Benzadmiral]

This one's from the mid-90s, as I recall without resorting to IMDb: Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker, the New York wit, poet, and short story writer (without peer, I might add), set mostly in the '20s and into the '30s. It was beautifully cast with Leigh, and Campbell Scott as Robert Benchley.

The director/set director even went above and beyond. In real life, at one time Parker and Benchley, as a gag, subscribed to a morticians' newsletter, and used to post items from it on the office bulletin board at Vanity Fair magazine. In the film, astonishingly, I spotted a squib on the VF office bulletin board, "From Grave to Gay" -- which is mentioned in DP's biographies as the letters column in the real life newsletter. They really did their research!

Anybody see this one? How accurate were the fashions and the men's hats?

 

[rmrdaddy]

Great period style movie that I'll need to dig out again. It's been YEARS since I've seen it!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Interesting flick - Alan Rudolph's films always are - but when I finally saw it just a couple of years ago, it didn't really live up to my hopes. It's worth seeing, but no masterpiece, alas.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Interesting flick - Alan Rudolph's films always are - but when I finally saw it just a couple of years ago, it didn't really live up to my hopes. It's worth seeing, but no masterpiece, alas.

No, no masterpiece, but it's the sort of movie that -- if I were teaching a class about Dorothy Parker's work -- I'd want the students to see, to see history/biography come to life. The film was ultimately as downbeat as DP's own life, and didn't whitewash her or her contemporaries, friends, and lovers.