Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)

Directed by Vincente Minnelli. Starring Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor, Daliah Lavi, Cyd Charrisse, George Hamilton, James Gregory, Rosanna Schiaffino.

Several principal talents from The Bad and the Beautiful (director Minnelli, producer John Houseman, writer Charles Schnee, star Douglas, composer David Raskin) are reunited for another cynical peek into the movie-making process. Washed-up former movie star Douglas is given a chance to resuscitate his career by flying out to Rome for a “Hollywood on the Tiber” picture directed by an old cohort/mentor (Robinson), finds professional disappointment and romantic complications instead. Muddy melodrama unworthy of its chief actors, with an abundance of second-rate swooning, soapy confrontations, and contrived plotting. Initially-disparaged flop has been reappraised in some circles as being stealthily good, but that certainly wasn’t the movie that yours truly watched. The two stars are adequate, scornful Trevor never shies away from an opportunity to ham it up, and miscast Hamilton seems to be weirdly trying to channel Warren-Beatty-aping-James-Dean. Gaudy set decoration and costumes upstage just about everything else. The movie-within-a-movie being screened at one point is none other than The Bad and the Beautiful (watch that one instead).

41/100