Inspired by this beautiful thread that has finally tied the knots between Ritchie and Rand as well as Ayn and Autism/Asperger's, I did watch The Fountainhead on DVD over the weekend.
It's a proper movie alright, not some horrendous piece of crap. For a 1948 film, I found the visuals very early 30ies (bit Fritz Lang in there), the director had a silent movie background, that might be a reason, or the fact that WW II probably stunted movie esthetics development. The stone quarry scene (Dominique lays gaze on Howard drilling marble or granite for the first time, she returns with the riding crop after he has insolently stared at her), generally regarded as a cinematic highlight of the film, reminded me uncomfortably of Mauthausen (the notorious quarry concentration camp where death rates were especially high), but that was most likely not intentional.
The film is rushed in its delivery initially, characters being introduced at breakneck speed and only superficially. The pace then decreases even though some parts of the book are completely left out, for instance the title-giving fountainhead as a (later) part of a building that Howard begins but may not finish after a smear campaign of Toohey in The Banner. Howard's/Rand's objectivist manifesto (his courtroom speech after blowing up public housing in conflict with his artistic integrity) otoh has a full 15 minutes or so.
Gary Cooper (hand-picked by Frau Rand for the role) is just too old for the Howard character at the beginning, he's not a credible student dropping out (being fired) from architect school. Cooper has an aura, a most flexible actor he never was, he's here pretty much as he would later on be in High Noon. That said, as the older, more weathered Howard he's credible. Patricia Neal, an unknown quantity at the time, is cast well as Dominique, spoiled rotten, restless, afraid to love anything, yet yearning for submission, Lauren Bacall without the warmth and mystery. Raymond Massey as the cynical, yet "having the heart in the right place" publisher of The Banner is probably the character you can feel the most empathy with (though in Rand's plot he is ultimately a failure, probably because he cares too much for other people, e.g. Howard and Dominique). And Robert Douglas as Toohey delivers the cardboard arch-villain scheming-deceiving collectivist styled as from another age while everyone else looks pretty much like from the late 20ies. We are immediately spoon-fed that (i) collectivists are from the past and (ii) vile people.
I don't believe that even in the 20ies or 30ies you would have been allowed to blow up a public housing area in NYC and walk free from a criminal trial because the jury feels with you that as a "maker/creator" that was your
God-, ooops, Ayn-given right (Howard didn't, after all, like the balconies they put on his design, so what else could he do?
), but I was entertained. Howard's architecture implanted in the film (trying not so much to look realistic as avant garde-breathtaking) is nice too.
