DVD/150: THE GREAT GATSBY (Jack Clayton, 1974)

Jack Clayton's leisurely film of the Fitzgerald classic - meticulously adapted by Francis Ford Coppola - infuriates some but I have loved it since becoming enraptured by it on the big screen as an impressionable lad.

Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography shimmers as in a nostalgic haze, especially showing the extravagant opulence of Gatsby's mansion, while the cast all drip with perspiration in the heat of the 1922 summer.

Theoni V. Aldredge's gorgeous costumes won the Academy Award as did Nelson Riddle's swooning music score which also incorporates 1920s ballads as mood music and wild Charlestons for the parties.

Over the years I have come to appreciate Robert Redford's performance; always guarded on screen, his aloofness suits Gatsby's mystery well.  I have always been a fan of Mia Farrow's maddeningly gossamer Daisy, Karen Black's tragic Myrtle, Scott Wilson as her sad-sack husband George and Sam Waterston is wonderfully sympathetic as narrator Nick Carraway. 

Shelf or charity shop? Now living in my plastic storage box, THE GREAT GATSBY will be viewed again - and again - for the film itself but also for the nostalgia it stirs in me for my early cinema-going years.