Click here to copy URL

The Day of the Locust

1975

John Schlesinger

Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, William Atherton, Burgess Meredith ...

6.5

546

Drama Tod Hackett, fresh out of Yale, wants to make it as an art director in late 1930's Hollywood - but he finds himself increasingly distracted by his new neighbor Faye, a would-be starlet with possible designs of her own on a lonely, morose accountant. As Tod is drawn deeper into the lurid private lives of studio bosses and film industry workers, he gradually becomes desperate to know if Faye - or anyone - is capable of real love.

	Author	Review
United States	TV Guide	"'Day Of The Locust' exudes authenticity, from the costuming to the cars, from the exotic clothes to the marcelled hair styles."	POS
United Kingdom	The Guardian	"A tale of the losers and chancers rattling around Hollywood's fringe, the film fatally lacks the black humour and nightmarish edge of Nathanael West's source novel"	NEU
United States	Variety Staff Variety	"Magnificent production, combined with excellent casting and direction, make The Day of the Locust as fine a film (in a professional sense) as the basic material lets it be."	POS
United States	Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times	"The movie finally becomes just an exercise, then: a brilliant one at times, and with a wealth of sharp-edged performances, but without people for its things to happen to. (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Pauline Kael The New Yorker	"A mosaic that never comes together."	NEU
United States	Matthew Gilbert Boston Globe	"Exquisitely painful look at how Hollywood turns its hopefuls into whores."	POS
United States	Newsweek	"Obvious and mushy beneath its dazzling surface, the film fails on its own terms."	NEU

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.