The Last Tycoon (1976)

Set in the 1930s, the young production chief (Robert De Niro) of a major Hollywood studio runs the studio with an iron fist much to the chagrin of another studio producer (Robert Mitchum). A widower, the young studio head becomes obsessed with a young girl (Ingrid Boulting), who resembles his dead wife. Based on the (unfinished) novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald and directed by Elia Kazan (ON THE WATERFRONT) in his final film. A stiff of a movie! With an illustrious cast, produced by Sam Spiegel (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) and Harold Pinter adapting Fitzgerald's novel for the screen, Kazan can't breath life into a deadly laborious elephant of a film that never gets off the ground. A major portion of the film is devoted to De Niro's fascination with Ingrid Boulting but she's not much of an actress and while pretty, she just doesn't justify the mogul's obsession with her. The movie briefly comes alive toward the end when a union organizer (Jack Nicholson in the film's best performance) enters the movie. Nicholson brings a much need vitality to the proceedings but alas, he's gone as quickly as he came in. The impressive cast includes Jeanne Moreau, Tony Curtis, Anjelica Huston, Ray Milland, Dana Andrews, Theresa Russell, Donald Pleasence, John Carradine, Peter Strauss, Jeff Corey, Rutanya Alda and Betsy Jones Moreland.