Why so much hype?

Purely Joyful Movie!

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I love James Garner, but he's miscast in this stilted movie about a man who's lost his memory wandering the streets of mid-sixties Manhattan. He awkwardly confronts random young women whom he confuses with a woman he knows named Grace. These startled women, played by Katharine Ross and Suzanne Pleshette. do a a great job, but they're too young for him and his fixation on these much younger women make him look creepier than the film intended. It's only when he meets a woman who accosts him, played by an older and more appropriate Jean Simmons, that he connects with his true identity. As another reviewer here noted, Garner is out of his natural range as an actor in this picture. Watching the film now, the real attraction is that it's shot on location in Manhattan, during a time when the city was sinking into the urban malaise that would affect it until the mid-nineties. Mister Buddwing's Manhattan is dingy and affordable and accessible to ordinary people in a way it isn't today. There are no steel and glass buildings blocking the sky. It's a more human place.

Whether you interpret the plot line as a vehicle for allegory or an ultimately flawed exercise in suspense, the highly successful photography, editing and musical scoring in "Mister Buddwing" deserves an audience. It is difficult to imagine a more urgent, dread-tinged, unsettling adrenaline rush as that brought on by the Jean Simmons sequence culminating in the Harlem craps game, even if the climax following is a bit of a pedestrian let-down. Sam Buddwing's grown-up Holden Caufield-like exile in urban wilderness - a bleak mid-1960s Manhattan where he encounters memorable, goodish Samaritans tainted by their own agendas(Jack Gilford as a cafeteria owner preoccupied with Judaism and Angela Lansbury in one of her trampish roles, but distinguishable from, say, "The World of Henry Orient" by her lower social class) and a park vagrant claiming to be God make for a very rich cinematic experience, and the final camera shots, essentially the opening ones in reverse, provide a strikingly satisfying coda.Notable for its time are a couple of overt homosexual references which don't seem to be significant to the plot, but contribute a degree of realism probably intended to be grittily alienating. In the most poorly-handled scene in the film, where Buddwing is accosted by a beat cop and a crowd, unlikely in its sheer numbers, quickly forms around them, an out gay man makes an appearance which is pretty significant considering the pre-Stonewall setting.

I recently saw this on TCM and was surprised that I had never seen this before. Based on the novel by popular novelist/writer Evan Hunter who wrote such classics as The blackboard Jungle and the screenplay for The Birds this was adapted for the screen by Hunter and Dale Wasserman. this is the story of an amnesiac (James Garner) who wakes up on a Central Park park bench with no idea who he is. Dressed in a gray suit he discovers only two possible clues to his identity, a ring with the initials G.V. inscribed and a piece of paper with a telephone number on it. He has the name of Grace in his mind who he assumes must be his wife and so with the lack of a name of his own his creates one on the spur of the moment in Sam Buddwing and begins his search through Manhattan of himself and of Grace. His adventure brings him to several memorable characters in Angela Lansbury as the loose woman with a kind heart Gloria, Suzanne Pleshette as actress Fiddle Corwin, Katherine Ross as the pretty and studious Janet, Jack Gifford as restaurant owner Izzy Schwartz, Joe Mantell as the 1st cab driver, George Voskovec as a shabby old man who calls himself God and Jean Simmons as the high society blonde out on treasure hunt for a party. This film was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Black and White Art direction and Best Black and White Costume. It has a gritty New York location feel and frequently uses hand-held cameras and is photographed by cinematographer Ellsworth Fredricks. Directed by Delbert Mann best known for directing such classics as Marty, Desire Under the elms and Separate Tables this is not one of his best but it's quirky and interesting and hold your interest thanks to great on screen performances by the fine cast. Garner is better served as an actor when he has some light comedic roles and he falls a little short in this straight dramatic role where he only smiles once briefly in the entire film. The ending falls short too but all in all it's a different film and I would give it a 7.5 out of 10.

I saw this movie on TNT after being intrigued by the lackluster comments from reviewers. I typically like James Garner movies. After seeing the movie, I saw it as a religious allegory. James Garner plays Everyman who was searching to answer the question "Who am I?" During the movie, I realized that he asks that question rather than the question "What is my name?" He is asking an ontological question.Furthermore, there are two scenes where he refers to the deity. In the first scene, where he is youthfully impetuous, he refers to "all the gods of the earth and cosmos" or something. In the latter reference to deity, he soberly and humbly refers to "God." This reference occurs after an intervening scene of a flashback where he tells his young wife that he loves perfection that he finds in music. He then hears Bach's Requiem Mass; they enter a church and stand before an altar. This is an example of how knowledge of nature can lead to God. As the flashbacks bring back more of his life, Garner matures as finally realizes his current, wretched condition.The final scene is quite touching. He finds life through grace. Of course, Grace is his wife's name but the scene allegorically refers to the "saving grace." The movie is not a typical amnesia movie. It is disjointed and the dialog stilted, but, like a classical painting, many scenes have meaning when viewed from a religious viewpoint. Perhaps seeing this viewpoint requires knowledge of Christian doctrine. I would've ordered it on DVD, but it doesn't seem to be available.