American Cinematographer - September 2004 - 18

The Day

of the Locust (1975)
(16x9 Enhanced)
Dolby Digital 5.1

tion for AC in 1975, he said he was

1.85:1

attracted to the

Paramount Home

asm

Entertainment, $14.99

and

Adapated

from

Nathanael

West's 1939 novel of the
name,

same

The Day of the Locust offers

portrayal of marginalized
and often delusional Hollywood
hopefuls who have grown bitter about
the hollow promises of the Tinseltown
"dream factory." Tod Hackett (William
a

savage

Atherton),

a

scenic artist for Paramount

who has

recently graduated from Yale,
has his eye on vivacious neighbor Faye
(Karen Black), an ambitious, cruel movie
extra with aspirations of stardom. Faye
keeps Tod at a distance because she
can only let a man who is "really rich
and criminally handsome" love her, but

affection for the novel and his enthusi¬
for

working with Schlesinger. He
Schlesinger agreed on an unusual
concept for shooting the picture that
presented the characters in a glam¬
orous way, allowing the harsh realities
of their lives to come out of perfor¬
mances

rather than visuals. Hall wrote,

"I felt that this

nettings used as diffusion in the 1930s
and AOs to determine the most practi¬
cal way to make a film
resemble the images of

lous tests and trial and

timing, Hall created

(Burgess Meredith),

a vaudeville
clown turned door-to-door salesman,
moves in with a generous but
emotionally unstable suitor, Homer
(Donald Sutherland), who only has eyes

dies, she

Faye,
toward its legendary
in which legions of
screaming fans turn on the movie indus¬
try - and themselves - with raven¬
ous,

violent abandon.

ambitious and

September 2004

look with

resembling the film during scenes of very
intense contrasts; the final sequences
look the most accurate.

warm

a

error

Like many

unfortunate that
this

nothing is included in
package - not even the film's eerie

theatrical trailer. Much like the lives of
the characters The

Day of the Locust
presents, this DVD leaves much to be
desired.
-

Kenneth

Sweeney

with color

memorable, soft

traces of amber and

gold that suggest memory and fantasy.
He earned an Academy Award nomina¬
The Last of Sheila (1973)

tion for his work.
Paramount

John

Schlesinger's
generally successful
adaptation of The Day of the Locust has
long been a cult favorite. In creating the
alternately desolate and opulent visual
panorama of West's novel, Schlesinger
collaborated with Academy Award¬
winning cinematographer Conrad L.
Hall, ASC (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid]. When Hall
wrote of his experiences on the produc¬
Director

present, it doesn't often get fully real¬
ized, and this transfer only succeeds in

created at the time of its release, and it's

the story moves
final sequence,

try to woo her. When Faye's broken

father

moving toward violet. While

the intention of the visual scheme is

Hall researched the silks and

disturbed Homer and the sadistic

torch and watches other

intended, with reds running to orange
and blues

of Paramount's recent
catalogue releases, this DVD includes no
supplemental materials. Given the pres¬
tige of the project and the caliber of the
talent involved, it seems likely that a
good deal of promotional material was

for her. As tensions mount between the

men

a

film-to-digital transfer. The source
materials appear to be in good shape,
but the colors do not transfer as

'fantasy' element should
style, that it
should not be hard-edged, it should not
be real and gritty. I felt it would be
better if we adopted what the [charac¬
ters] were after as a style, rather than
what they were actually about."
be the theme of the visual

shot in 1975
glamour from
the early decades of Hollywood. "The
diffusion was one way of achieving the
fantasy point of view we had decided
upon," he explained. "The other was
through the color palette. Early on, John
and I talked about having a sort of
'golden outlook' without romanticizing
the subject matter." After many meticu¬

Tod carries

16

project because of his

the

Home

1.85:1 (16x9

Entertain¬

Enhanced)
Dolby Digital Mono 2.0
Warner Home Video, $19.98

ment's

recently released DVD of The
Day of the Locust represents a missed
opportunity for a number of reasons. In
spite of the surprisingly solid Dolby
Digital 5.1 audio presentation and 16x9
picture enhancement, the feature
presentation is lackluster and largely
disappointing. Grain is often too
evident and distracting, suggesting that
little was done to compensate during

"You don't have to [move

around]

for this game - //you're smart enough."
Line of dialogue in The Last of
-

Sheila

the

The quote above is addressed to
main characters in The Last of

seven
American Cinematographer - September 2004

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