The Landlord, 1970.
Directed by Hal Ashby.
Starring Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Marki Bey, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey and Louis Gossett, Jr.
SYNOPSIS:
Elger Enders (Beau Bridges) buys an apartment block in Brooklyn with plans to renovate it, atlhough ,uch to his annoyance the tenants refuse to be evicted and as he is forced to interact with them, his unforgiving nature begins to wear away.
The Landlord is not the best example of director Hal Ashby’s body of work, but it is a good sign of the things that were to come. Ashby’s films were often based on relationships between people in struggling circumstance, and The Landlord tells its story of the race and class struggle in 1970s America as both a comedy and drama. For the most part, Ashby’s debut feature is a mild success.
Bea Bridges plays Elgar Enders, a white man form a rich and privileged background who wants to own his own property, and thus becomes the landlord of an apartment building in a poor black neighbourhood in New York. To begin with, Elgar is disliked because he’s white but the women of the building soon grow to love him, and even fall in love with him. Elgar’s parents on the other hand are still firmly grounded in the mentality of years ago and the exchanges between them provide some of the film’s funnier moments; it’s always fun to laugh at stupid people and stupid mentalities.
Although the story does lose its comedic edge in the final third as Elgar’s relationship with a married women grows stronger, the race relations in the film are believable and in no way forced, mainly because the film doesn’t attempt to depict anything unreal, apologetic or sentimental. In this film, people are just people, regardless of race or skin colour, just like we know it should be.
Notably, the lighting in the film is excellent, especially in the apartment building scenes; the film was one the first in master cinematographer Gordon Willis’ (The Godfather trilogy, Annie Hall, Manhattan) career. Hal Ashby too would go one to make more polished films, including Coming Home, Being There, and my personal favourite, the superb The Last Detail. Everyone has to start somewhere of course, and The Landlord is certainly an above average debut.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Rohan Morbey – follow me on Twitter.
Originally published October 1, 2012. Updated April 11, 2018.
