Happy-End für eine Ehe (1969)

Happy-End für eine Ehe: Directed by Richard Brooks. With Jean Simmons, John Forsythe, Shirley Jones, Lloyd Bridges. A middle-aged woman walks out on her husband and family in an desperate attempt to find herself.

“Take a good look at the film credits of Jean Simmons especially during the Fifties and youu0026#39;ll find that woman has been in some of the best movies ever made. Yet nary an Oscar nomination for her until The Happy Ending and she lost that year to Maggie Smith for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA great example of this would be Elmer Gantry where Jean did not get a nomination unlike the Oscars won by her co-stars Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones. Yet she did walk off with the director Richard Brooks who became her second husband. It was Brooks who wrote and directed The Happy Ending about a woman tipping into forty something who still has a whole lot of silly romantic notions.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eJean and husband John Forsythe are approaching their twentieth anniversary together and she feels in a rut. So she indulges in all kinds of bad behavior, runs up huge charge account bills, starts drinking like a fish, runs away to a vacation in the Bahamas where an old college pal, Shirley Jones, takes her in. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eElia Kazan in the same year 1969 did a similar film from the manu0026#39;s point of view, The Arrangement which starred Kirk Douglas. The Happy Ending however is far better and it might really have been interesting if Deborah Kerr in that film had gone off the edge the way Jean does here.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn The Happy Ending Jean loves watching Casablanca and I find it fascinating that she picks that as a great romantic film. If memory serves thatu0026#39;s the one where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman give up their personal happiness for what they conceive as the greater good.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI do like Shirley Jones in this film as the old college sorority chum who eschewed marriage to just being a permanent u0026#39;otheru0026#39; woman. Sheu0026#39;s had three so far and sheu0026#39;s accompanying a fourth to Nassau in the person of Lloyd Bridges. Itu0026#39;s fascinating that only Richard Brooks cast Shirley in parts where she wasnu0026#39;t a goody goody and she won great acclaim and an Oscar for being prostitute in Elmer Gantry.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eJeanu0026#39;s partial solution to her problems in the end is a very typical feminist one which I will not reveal. As to whether sheu0026#39;s damaged her relationship with Forsythe beyond repair, thatu0026#39;s anyoneu0026#39;s guess.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eYou will also like Teresa Wright as Jeanu0026#39;s mother, Bobby Darin as an about to go over the hill gigolo, and Tina Louise as the neighbor whou0026#39;s ready to take Jeanu0026#39;s place with Forsythe any time.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBesides Jean Simmons nomination, The Happy Ending also was nominated for Michel LeGrandu0026#39;s classic song, What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life, a question Jean is struggling to answer all the film long.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe Happy Ending is a good and mature film that could only have been made once the sacred Code was abandoned. Too bad though that it could not have resulted in an Oscar for its star.”