World Of Henry Orient, The
"Marvelous Comedy." -Leonard Maltin
Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, Angela Landsbury and Tom Bosley are hilarious in The World Of Henry Orient, a "funny, charming" (Los Angeles Times), "lively and imaginative" (Newsweek) place you'll want to visit again and again.
Two starry-eyed schoolgirls spy, stalk and scheme their way into the life of a concert pianist (Sellers) in this "wacky piece of inspired lunacy" (The Hollywood Reporter). With half of New York - including a bevy of befuddled cops and one man-hungry mom - in tow, these precocious teens do all they can to keep tabs on their harried hero, turning The World Of Henry Orient entirely upside down!
Member Reviews
Henry Orient meets his match - luminol
Although Peter Sellers gets top billing on the cover; he only has a minor comic turn as a middling philanderer with a taste for married women and morbid fear of jealous husbands. The actual story is about the deep friendship formed between two young girls. He's only the piano player.
After taking in one of his concerts, Valerie (Val) decides that Mr. Orient will be her first love and Marian (Gil) agrees to help her on the condition that when she falls in love (sometime in the near future) she'll help her. And so they start their own fan club and become adolescent stalkers.
Both girls come from semi-broken homes. Gil's father lives happily in Florida with his new family. She pines for his attention and has a little difficulty making friends. As for Val, although all of her material needs are more than adequately taken care of (at 14, she already has her own apartment and maid/care giver) It's telling that when her parents are in town for the couple weeks at the end of the year, she takes a room in the same hotel during the same festive period.
The best thing about the film is it's age: time creates different meanings. There's now a strong air of neglect about Val, and more than a little darkness hinted in her future. I was kind of worried for her. The unladylike things they do, from hopping over fire hydrants and stationary little boys, to running all over Manhattan without a s(care) in the world also resonant quite differently.
First rate contributions from everyone involved. There's a energy and liveliness to the George Roy Hill's direction. Nora Johnson does a nice job adapting her own novel for the screen. It's kind of fun trying to nail down Seller's wandering accent. I think the film catches that fleeting moment in a girl's life between childhood and the grown up world.A sweet, poignant look at coming-of-age - Shawn_in_Montreal
Two school-age girls in early 60s Manhattan develop a crush on a womanizing sleezeball showboat pianist who goes by the stage name of Henry Orient.
It's a sweet, funny, moving story. Sellers is of course fantastic. But check out how wonderful Tippy Walker is as the more precocious of the two girls. She retired from acting in the early 70s so we only know her for a few roles.
I was thinking that this might make for an interesting pairing with Ghost World, a very different coming of age tale, from a very different era. Then I happened to see in the Trivia section of imdb.com that a shot of Tippy from Henry Orient appears on the wall in one scene of Ghost World, which I thought was kind of cool.
Recommended.
Member Reviews
Read All...
Henry Orient meets his match - luminol
Although Peter Sellers gets top billing on the cover; he only has a minor comic turn as a middling philanderer with a taste for married women and morbid fear of jealous husbands. The actual story is about the deep friendship formed between two young girls. ...A sweet, poignant look at coming-of-age - Shawn_in_Montreal
Two school-age girls in early 60s Manhattan develop a crush on a womanizing sleezeball showboat pianist who goes by the stage name of Henry Orient.
It's a sweet, funny, moving story. Sellers is of course fantastic. But check out how wonderful Tippy ...