Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)

Vincent Minnelli is a real hit or miss director, Meet Me in Saint Louis is great,  Some Came Running I hate. This is a miss though it tackles much the same subject matter as an earlier hit, The Bad and the Beautiful. This move is considered by some a  kind of lose sequel to that film, I think some of the backstory is inspired by the later but the characters are not the same. I don't know why they decided not to do a direct sequel, probably because the plot here is borrowed from a book and perhaps there were copyright reasons.

Anyway this is the story of an alcoholic ex movie star (Kirk Douglas, who was also in The Bad and the Beautiful) who has been three years in rehab at a private hospital in Connecticut. Douglas is released from the hospital and then takes an offer of a small supporting part in a film being directed by his one time collaborator Edward G. Robinson. The two had had a falling out but Robinson flys him to Rome where he's shooting the picture (a historical romance). When he gets there Robinson decides Douglas is not right for the part, but that's in an effort to lure him into supervising the dubbing on the film, which is due in two weeks or Robinson loses the right of dubbing to his producer.

While there Douglas finds romance, is kind of stalked by his ex-wife, fights with Robinson and others, then Robinson has a stroke or something and Douglas takes over directing the feature. Robinson recovers, fires Douglas and takes all the credit for the film. Douglas turns back to booze, is almost in a car accident, and then unexpectedly regains his will to live and pursue his career. Douglas's strange epiphany is sudden, it doesn't fully seem to fit and feels almost like an add-on, but I suspect it was in the original script as the movie wasn't particularly well written. To quite Wikipedia:

 Bosley Crowther in his New York Times review of August 18, 1962 wrote: "The whole thing is a lot of glib trade patter, ridiculous and unconvincing snarls and a weird professional clash between the actor and director that is like something out of a Hollywood cartoon."

I agree, it wasn't very good. It felt trite and a forced effort to come across as Hemingwayesque, much like Some Came Running.  I'd say more but I think I've said it all.

Grade: D+