I’m on the road this week on my way to Austin, Texas. Since I neglected to bring anything to read with me, I thought I’d check out youtube and pore through some old videos. I happened to type in Alan Ladd (one of my favorite actors) and discovered that some kind soul has uploaded an entire copy of his 1949 version of The Great Gatsby, directed by Elliott Nugent. It’s a film I’ve wanted to see ever since I first read the book but it’s been almost impossible to find. I used to scour used video stores for a copy on VHS, with no luck.

This film as far as I know has never been released on DVD and rarely shows up on TV. You can watch the movie yourself (it’s broken up into ten easy-to-view portions). The only bugaboo is that it has Portuguese subtitles, but I found myself fascinated reading them. It was like reading and watching The Great Gatsby at the same time, although with a pronounced Portuguese accent.

You can find the videos here. Gatsby.  I hope the fellow who posted them won’t mind my showcasing a few screen caps here to illustrate my comments about it.

This 1949 version stars Alan Ladd in the title role, Betty Field (badly miscast) as Daisy Buchanan, Macdonald Carey as a stiff Nick Carraway, a tough Barry Sullivan as Tom Buchanan and the always amazing Ruth Hussey as Jordan Baker. Elisha Cook, Jr. (who played the “gunsel” in The Maltese Falcon with such poignant angst) has a bit part. Ed Begley, Sr. plays Myron Lupus (Meyer Wolfsheim, the Arnold Rothstein character.)

The big surprise here is Shelley Winters as Myrtle Wilson. She looks sexier than in any film I’ve seen her in and she gives a knockout performance as the girl who lives above the gas station. Shelley Winters has to be the most underrated actress in Hollywood history.

Die-hard fans of the novel will be disappointed in this 40s adaptation. The producers must have felt that the basic story was not dramatic enough so they jazzed up the script with a lot of bootlegging lingo, changed the time period (moving it closer to the Crash of 29) and added fancy film noir flashbacks. It has a lot in common actually with Orson Welles’s Lady from Shanghai, released a year earlier, right down to the wise old mogul lounging on his yacht. Nevertheless it is light years better than the ghastly 70s Necco-Wafer-color version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. This 1949 take has lavish expressionistic sets and dark sinister lighting. Plus it does a smash-up job of emphasizing the evil eyeglasses of Dr. Eckleburg.

And it has Alan Ladd in a bathing suit. What more can you ask for?

There is a scene at the end when Gatsby is shot that is like something out of a film by Jean Renoir. The ecstasy in Gatsby’s face as he is killed is almost erotic.

The earliest version from 1926, starring Warner Baxter, is apparently lost (although a trailer luckily exists). Hopefully one day it will turn up in a vault in some ex-movie mogul’s mansion. I hear that Baz Luhrmann is remaking The Great Gatsby. I hope he sticks closer to the novel than these other efforts. Fitzgerald knew what he was doing. It’s a tale as timeless as the Jazz Age itself and does not need any “improving”.