IMDb user comments for
Sometimes a Great Notion (1970) More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Index

18 reviews in total

---

20 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Surprisingly stirring…, 3 July 2005

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The film is based on Ken Kesey's complex novel of a contemporary family of lumberjacks who stubbornly maintain 19th-century frontier values, and whose motto is "Never Give a Inch."

The Stamper's patriarch, Henry (Henry Fonda), his son Hank (Newman) and nephew Joe Ben (Richard Jaeckel) alienate the entire community by refusing to participate in a local strike, because they're anti-union and want to honor their contract to deliver lumber… They overcome hostility, sabotage and violence, but succumb to nature…

Hank is another of Newman's tough, macho individualist, somewhat like "Hud." He brawls, hunts, drinks beer constantly, has no social conscience, and is coldly sarcastic, especially toward the strikers and his half-brother Lee (Michael Sarrazin), a hippie with pro-union and women's lib ideas… Hank shares his father's professional pride, rigid conservatism and purpose in life: 'To work and eat and sleep and screw and drink—that's all there is." The women play a marginal role, as is customary in male adventure films—they cook, clean and are passive sex objects…

Despite the ideological schizophrenia, ill-defined relationships and implausible plot resolutions, the film is surprisingly stirring…

Newman captures with zest the details of logging and the robust family life, as well as the kind of exhilarating camaraderie and professionalism that characterized the best thirties adventure films…

This extroverted masculine adventure contrasts sharply with the two introverted, confined, feminine dramas he has directed, but, interestingly, the combination of toughness and sensitivity constitutes Newman's own screen image...

The delicate balance between humor and horror, the suspenseful drawing out of time, the genuine feeling of brotherly love, the finely judged performances (Jaeckel was nominated for an Oscar), and Newman's expert use of long shots (emphasizing their utter desolation) and closeups (giving us a sense of claustrophobia) create the best scene he ever directed…

---

15 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Always A Great Movie, 4 December 2001
Author: mr_doright11 from Gresham, OR

This is one of my favorite movies. It has excellent acting, a great story (by the late great Ken Kesey), and some very intense scenes. I found that Paul Newman's direction was very well done. This is a movie for fans of great character development.

First, Paul Newman, as usual, did an outstanding job. This is my favorite character. He was able to pull off this very icey dominance, even over his own father. He plays his character like he is Hank Stamper. Paul Newman always does a great job in his movies, but I think this one I especially like because he isn't as likeable as Cool Hand Luke or Fast Eddie (which are two other favorite characters and movies of mine).

Then there is Henry Fonda, who plays the eldest Stamper, Henry. He was a very interesting character, and Henry Fonda did a great job at playing him. He and Hank both head the family, and he and Paul Newman have a fractured relationship that is sort of crass, but still fun to see them on-screen together.

Then there is Michael Sarrazin, who plays the outcast Leeland Stamper. He is probably the best character. While all the other Stampers have leather skin and huge scars from wood chips, he has big bushy hair and is not a big barrel chested logger. Hank and Henry treat him like crap almost the whole movie, because he doesn't belong. Leeland just came back from the city, and he came back for the sole purpose of getting even with Hank.

And Finally, there is Lee Remick, who plays Hank's shut out wife Viv. She is probably the most complex character, simply because she only lets on what she thinks of her situation in little bits. She and Hank used to be wild lovers, but Hank is working so hard because of the logger's strike, he pretty much shuts her out, and so she begins to drift away from Hank.

My only problem with this movie is that they didn't have the big rights of passage fight between Hank and Leeland. In the book Leeland fought Hank after everything bad happened to the Stampers, as a way to show Hank that he isn't in control. I think that was the biggest part in the novel, and they left it out. But aside from that, I loved this movie.

Check this movie, or the book out for that matter, if you enjoy strong character development, many tragic events, and stories that take place in the backwoods of Oregon. 9/10

---

16 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
A fine, workable adaption of an excellent but unfilmable novel, 27 December 2000
Author: jmcody from adams, oregon

Kesey's superb epic novel with its shifting points of view and verb tense is far too complex a work to adapt directly. Kesey's prose while exceptionally cinematic in its description and action ironically proves unfilmable.

That said, Paul Newman and his production team have created a most admirable and solid, if rather top heavy adaption of Kesey's excellent novel.

The dialogue while rather shallow and weak in spurts (Kesey's rich vernacular is lost)is overcome by a wonderful ensemble cast featuring some of America's finest. Who better that Henry Fonda to play Newman's father? Richard Jaekel richly earns the Oscar nomination as the dim-witted but enthusiastic born again lumberjack Joe-Ben. The famous scene where Newman tries desperately to save Jaekel's character from drowning is heartbreakingly tragic and darkly comic. It is a marvelous example of direction.

Newman spent a great deal of time in my native Oregon researching the part and the film and his homework shows. Kesey's rich descriptions of the land remain largely intact. The sense of time and place is impressively captured in the photography of rusting metal, dripping ferns, rotting wood and mildewed carpets. This is a film that one can almost smell.

Newman is one of the finest artists ever to come out of Hollywood. Not only as an actor, but also as a director. He instinctivly knows how to illicit naturalistic, comfortable and utterly human performances from his casts and Sometimes a Great Notion is no exception. Well worth a look. 7 out of 10 stars.

---

12 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
I wish someone would take another crack at this one., 11 June 2004
Author: Bongolito Furious from East Coast, USA

I have read Kesey's novel several times over the last 30 years or so. While I see some merit in this movie version, I'd like to see someone have another go at it. The movie only captures the novel in broad strokes. It hits the major point (brother returns to hometown to exact revenge on older sibling), but misses a lot of the flavor. I think Paul Newman, Henry Fonda and Lee Remick were perfect, as were many of the supporting cast. But Michael Sarrazin didn't quite do it for me. Maybe it was the hair, idunno. I always pictured a sort of geeky-looking, bespectacled, beatnick-looking guy with scruffy hair, but still fairly short, and sideburns. Sarrazin probably could have pulled it off, but back in the early 70s, actors were into looking like people from the early 70s.

But more to the point, the movie needed more back-story. We needed to see Johah Stamper "heading west" with young Henry and his brother. We needed to see Jonah fail and surrender to the dampness of the Pacific Northwest and desert his family. We needed to see young Henry take charge ("we're gonna whup her") and begin the logging business that becomes the crux of the story. Also missed were a lot of great scenes when Henry and Leland were children (Henry rescuing Leland from the Devil's Stovepipe, for one). Also missed was the passing of narrative from character to character. One small portion of the novel is actually narrated by a dog. The novel is written, mostly, in the first person from various points of view. There is a little second person narrative at the beginning of most chapters that pull the reader out of the story to offer additional flavor for the surroundings. Obviously, a novel needs to be pared in order to fit into the standard movie length. It would have to be a rather long movie, three hours or so, to portray the texture presented in the novel. But I'd like to see another go at it, maybe even starring Paul Newman as Henry.

---

7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Incredible book but so-so movie, 4 February 2006

Author: Paul Wegner (paulw@spiritone.com) from Scappoose, Oregon, United States

Unfortunately, as much as I love Paul Newman as an actor, the movie version of Ken Kesey's incredible book could have used a more seasoned director for its translation to the big screen. The perfect cast (the book even mentions Hank Stamper as looking like a muscular Paul Newman!), and some great performances (Fonda, Jaeckel, Remick), but the story just doesn't come across on film the way it should. I remember the first time I saw this movie was in the late 70's on TV (Portland's KPTV-12). It was so chopped-up for television that the story, character motivations, and ending made no sense at all to me. I loved Kesey's book "Cookoo's Nest" so read the novel of "Sometimes" to try to make some sense of what the story was all about. The book was an amazingly nuanced work of fiction with a great deal of depth and under-story (reading between the lines); none of which I saw on the TV screening. I later rented the video but even with the unedited version of the film, I found the story very lacking and barely comprehensive. I've recently watched the rental again (2005) and found more in the film than I had remembered, but I still feel that unless you've read the book, you can't truly understand what this movie and the character motivations are all about. They're just barely eluded to in the film version. In spite of all that, it's still a worthwhile movie to watch. If nothing else, it chronicles some great, authentic-looking logging footage. If you can, however, read the novel first and then catch the film. Also, if you ever make it to Newport, Oregon, visit the harbor bar "Bay Haven" where the scenes for the "Snag" were filmed. Tell them the old bartender from the "Embarcadero" sent you. ;-)

---

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Few movies have made a lasting impression as this one, 17 February 2004

Author: RedWine_1st from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Without making a spoiler all I can say is this is a most excellent movie with the best closing scenes ever.

I have not seen this movie for 30 years but two scenes are still vividly etch in my memory.

---

5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Wonderful ensemble performances, 9 May 1999

Author: TED CASTLE from Monterey, CA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Twenty-eight years later, it's remembered. Performances by Newman and Fonda made a good film out of a mediocre but nonconforming script. An Oregon timberland owner stands up to the big company trying to buy him out.

Scene when Newman tries to save his brother's life by blowing air into his lungs when he is pinned underwater by a fallen tree was remembered by a true-life father who did save his daughter's life the same way when she was caught beneath their boat. After all, it is a memorable film.

---

7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Good performances, especially from Fonda and Jaeckel., 16 July 2003
Author: (eddy-28) from Lake Isabella, CA

Sometimes a Great Notion is a fine film with good performances, based upon Ken Kesey's best selling novel, almost each actor in the film exactly knows how to play the character. Paul Newman (who also directed) stars as Hank the head of a logging company in Oregon, he refuses to quit working despite town protests, even when it comes to seeing his half brother (Michael Sarrazin) come to town and threatens to take Hank's wife (Lee Remick) away from him. Henry Fonda has most of the comical lines in the films, he did an amazing job as the crusty and mean, but also light spirited father of the family. On the other hand, Richard Jaeckel (who was Oscar nominated) does a perfect job at playing the simple and dim witted Joe Ben. Even when he is pinned by a tree in a river and drowns to death, despite Hank's repeated attempts to save him, he still puts a lot of dark comical meaning into death. Highly recommended for memorable performances and fans of Paul Newman.

---

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Sometimes a great movie!, 7 July 2006
Author: dedalus-16 from Canada

I saw this seventies movie for the first time last night. It must be one of the greats. The story line from Kesey's book, and the direction by Paul Newman are so closely woven and with such impact that there are times when one is left emotionally bare. There's not a fault in the casting,and the background of logging is nicely interwoven into the action bringing up surprise after surprise. The only flaw might be the glamorization of Lee Remick - I doubt that her character would show such a degree of grooming and cosmetic sophistication, but, as ever, Ms. Remick gives a performance that is impeccable. If awards were ever to come PaulNewman's way for direction and/or acting surely they should for this masterpiece.

---

4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Stuck under tree in river, 30 November 2005

Author: gmacpherson-1 from Jersey City, NJ

The scene in which Paul Newman is trying to keep Richard Jaeckel alive using mouth-to-mouth is one of the most haunting and memorable from that era's films (late 60s/early 70s; for my money, the true golden age of cinema). Here are some others I would compare it to: 1.) Oliver Reed vs. a pack of wolves in "The Trap". Reed's greatness as an actor was overshadowed by his off-screen, alcohol-induced antics, but watch him, outnumbered, terrified and enraged, fighting for his life in this scene - he was never better. 2.) The final slow-motion rodeo scene in J.W. Coop: Final score: Bull 1, Cliff Robertson 0. Still can't figure out how they filmed it - it looks like a snuff film. 3.) The opening 'frying pork chop' sequence from "Electra Glide In Blue". Flabbergasting and brilliant.

---

---

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Add another review

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Amazon.com summary	Ratings
Awards	External reviews	Plot keywords
Main details	Your user reviews	Your vote history