'Ragtime' is director Milos Forman's 1981 adaption of author E. L. Doctorow's 1975 novel of the same name. Or rather it's Forman's adaption of the parts of that novel he was most interested in. Doctorow himself felt the book was best suited for a mini-series adaptation, there was just so much story, maybe one day HBO will make this happen.
Ragtime is a saga of Theodore Roosevelt era America, the books story spanning mostly from 1902 to 1912, events here being largely condensed and set in 1904. One has the feeling throughout that there is much this movie does not tell us, at least one secondary character seems to imply having much more to his story. Harry Houdini even shows up multipal times in newsreel form and I got the sense he had a whole story line in the novel.
There are real historical characters here mixing with the fictional ones, and in addition to the historical cameo references from the text there is a whole other level "oh I know that person" from the many actors who have bit parts in the thing and went on to greater success, such as Jeff Daniels, Fran Drescher and Samuel L. Jackson.
The movie is filled with talented performers but to me the most memorable is a 20 year old Elizabeth McGovern and an 82 year old James Cagney, who came out of a 20 year screen retirement to play real life New York Police commissioner Rhinelander Waldo, who actually died at age 50 so Cagney's far to old for the part, but one doesn't care he's just so fun to watch.
This is a great film, It's what I want out of a historical epic and the sense of balance of the story and screenplay, even knowing so much had to be cut out, is really remarkable. This movie really made me want to read this book. ****
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