''Welcome to L.A.'' is a 1976 American
drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...
romance film
Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their ...
directed by
Alan Rudolph
Alan Steven Rudolph (born December 18, 1943) is an American film director and screenwriter.
Early life
Rudolph was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Oscar Rudolph (1911–1991), a television director and actor, and his wife.
Care ...
and starring
Keith Carradine
Keith Ian Carradine ( ; born August 8, 1949) is an American actor. In film he is known for his roles as Tom Frank in Robert Altman's ''Nashville'', E. J. Bellocq in Louis Malle's ''Pretty Baby'', and Mickey in Alan Rudolph's '' Choose Me.'' ...
and an
ensemble cast
In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that comprises many principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17
Structure
In contrast to the po ...
. The film focuses on themes of romantic despair and shallowness in the
decadent
Decadence was a late-19th-century movement emphasizing the need for sensationalism, egocentricity, and bizarre, artificial, perverse, and exotic sensations and experiences. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, ...
upper class
Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status. Usually, these are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper cla ...
during the 1970s, illustrated through a ''
La Ronde''-like circle of sexual adventures and failed affairs revolving around a womanizing songwriter, his businessman father, and their associates.
Plot
Celebrity musician Eric Wood plans to record an album of songs written by Carroll Barber, who has been living in England. Carroll's aging manager Susan Moore brings Carroll to Los Angeles for the recording sessions, and rents him a house from real estate agent Ann Goode. Ann is unhappily married to furniture store owner Jack Goode, who is pursuing their young housemaid, Linda Murray. Linda in turn wants a relationship with her friend Kenneth "Ken" Hood, a married young executive.
Susan expects Carroll to resume a past affair they had, but he rejects her and instead has sex with Ann when she shows him his house. Ann tries unsuccessfully to continue the affair by dropping in on Carroll at home and bringing Linda over to clean. However, Carroll shows himself to be a womanizer, seemingly incapable of connecting with anyone. He visits his wealthy father Carl, whom he has not seen in three years. Carl, with the help of Ken Hood, has built the small Barber family dairy into a major business. Carroll ends up having affairs with receptionist Jeannette and his father's photographer mistress Nona.
Ken works long hours at the Barber business and neglects his wife, Karen, a housewife and mother who is obsessed with taxi rides and the
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress and a premier star during Hollywood's Silent film, silent and early Classical Hollywood cinema, golden eras.
Regarded as one of the g ...
film ''
Camille''. While Carroll is drinking and driving through the city, he randomly meets Karen and is drawn to her. He takes her to his home but when he tries to romance her, she reveals she is married (though not to whom) and departs. She later leaves him her telephone number, but refuses to take his repeated calls. Linda, who has moved into Carroll's spare room, invites Ken to visit her there, where he meets Ann.
Just before Christmas, Ken is thrilled to learn that Carl has made him partner in the business, but Karen is not happy that he will be spending even more time at work. On Christmas Eve, Ken gets drunk and calls Ann, but their date ends badly as Ken cannot stop thinking of his wife. Meanwhile, Jack and Linda spend the evening together, which also ends badly when Linda asks Jack for money. Jack and Ann, both disappointed, return home and have sex with each other.
An angry Susan reveals to Carroll that Eric does not like his songs, and that she and Carroll's father bribed Eric to record the album in order to get Carroll to come to Los Angeles. Susan and Carl each hoped to build their separate relationships with Carroll, only to be thwarted by his lack of response. Karen, the only person who seems to have truly piqued Carroll's interest, finally appears at his home, but just as they are about to have sex, Ken telephones, upset and looking for his wife. Upon realizing that Karen is Ken's wife and seems primarily interested in her husband, Carroll leaves while Karen and Ken are reconciling on the phone, just as Linda arrives home. Linda, eavesdropping, hears the voice of Ken, her own crush, on the phone, saying the same things to Karen about relationships that he earlier said to Linda. Linda furtively disconnects the phone, then tries to bond with Karen, who imitates Garbo in ''Camille''. Carroll goes to the recording studio and discovers that Eric Wood has decided not to finish the album.
Cast
*
Keith Carradine
Keith Ian Carradine ( ; born August 8, 1949) is an American actor. In film he is known for his roles as Tom Frank in Robert Altman's ''Nashville'', E. J. Bellocq in Louis Malle's ''Pretty Baby'', and Mickey in Alan Rudolph's '' Choose Me.'' ...
as Carroll Barber
*
Sally Kellerman
Sally Clare Kellerman (June 2, 1937 – February 24, 2022) was an American actress whose acting career spanned 60 years. Her role as List of M*A*S*H characters#Margaret Houlihan, Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in Robert Altman's film ''M*A*S ...
as Ann Goode
*
Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born July 31, 1944) is an American actress whose long career has included multilingual roles in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German films.
Geraldine is a daughter of Charlie Chaplin, the first of his eigh ...
as Karen Hood
*
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel ( ; born May 13, 1939) is an American actor and film producer, known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running associatio ...
as Ken Hood
*
Lauren Hutton
Lauren Hutton (born Mary Laurence Hutton; November 17, 1943) is an American model and actress. Born and raised in the southern United States, Hutton relocated to New York City in her early adulthood to begin a modeling career. Though she was ini ...
as Nona Bruce
*
Sissy Spacek
Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek (; born December 25, 1949) is an American actress and singer. She has received List of awards and nominations received by Sissy Spacek, numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including ...
as Linda Murray
*
Viveca Lindfors
Elsa Viveca Torstensdotter Lindfors (December 29, 1920 – October 25, 1995) was a Swedish-American stage, film, and television actress. She won an Emmy Award and a Silver Bear for Best Actress.
Biography
Lindfors was born in Uppsala, Swed ...
as Susan Moore
*
Denver Pyle
Denver Dell Pyle (May 11, 1920 – December 25, 1997) was an American film and television actor and director. He was well known for a number of television roles from the 1960s through the 1980s, including his portrayal of Briscoe Darling i ...
as Carl Barber
*
John Considine as Jack Goode
*
Richard Baskin
Aaron Richard Baskin (born December 1, 1948)''Harlan Daily Enterprise'"Actor's Songs Do Not Please Nashville Set"/ref> is an American film composer and producer, best known as the musical director and producer of the Academy Award winning soundtra ...
as Eric Wood
*
Allan F. Nicholls as Dana Howard
* Cedric Scott as Faye
* Mike E. Kaplan as Russell Linden
*
Diahnne Abbott as Jeannette Ross
Critical reception
''Welcome to L.A'' was widely panned as an empty, vacuous, pretentious film with the music by Richard Baskin deemed especially grating.
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
critic Richard Eder wrote: "The songs are a particular torment. The music whines, the lyrics complain, and Mr. Carradine sings them with a kind of hushed writhing, like a worm dying at the bottom of a barrel."
John Simon called ''Welcome to L.A.'' a dumb and corrupt film. ''
TimeOut'' said the film was interesting in retrospect but that "it lacks both the inspirational spontaneity of his producer and mentor
Altman's best work, and the warmth of his own later films".
One of the few critics to support the film at the time was
Jack Kroll
John Kroll (''ca.'' 1926 – June 8, 2000) was an American drama and film critic. His career at ''Newsweek'' spanned 37 years—more than half the publication's existence.
Biography
Kroll was born in Manhattan. His mother was an Earl Carroll sho ...
of ''Newsweek'' who described the film as an "extraordinary debut" for Rudolph, continuing that the director "does a remarkable job of weaving this gallery of neurotics into a vivid pattern of sharp, distilled performances." Kroll also considered Rudolph's work with
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer, producer. He is considered an enduring figure from the New Hollywood era, known for directing subversive and sat ...
, "he's gone beyond even Altman's example in shaping a film from a total design concept." Furthermore, he praised Rudolph for creating a "Los Angeles that's shimmering Xanadu of psychic uncertainty. Mirrors reassemble people into soulless human collages. The swoosh of Hutton's ever-present Nikon sounds like a little guillotine beheading reality. The quavering cadences of Baskin's music evoke both the sweetness and self-indulgence of Carroll Barber. Cinematographer Dave Myers works like the new realist painters, capturing a metropolis of burnished surfaces that seems to dissolve the will in an amber nullity of light."
The
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcas ...
(TCM) capsule review warns, "The music score by Richard Baskin may affect your viewing pleasure."
Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born July 31, 1944) is an American actress whose long career has included multilingual roles in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German films.
Geraldine is a daughter of Charlie Chaplin, the first of his eigh ...
was nominated for a
British Academy Film Award
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs or BAFTA Awards, is an annual film award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to f ...
for
Best Supporting Actress.
It has also been cited as an example of
hyperlink cinema
Hyperlink cinema is a style of filmmaking characterized by complex or multilinear narrative structures with multiple characters under one unifying theme.
History
The term was coined by author Alissa Quart, who used the term in her review of the ...
.
Home media
It was first released on DVD October 26, 2011.
Kino Lorber
Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art film, art ho ...
released the film on
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
December 1, 2015.
DVD Talk
/ref>
References
External links
*
*
TCM.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welcome To L.A.
1976 drama films
1970s English-language films
1976 films
Films directed by Alan Rudolph
Films set in Los Angeles
United Artists films
Hyperlink films
American drama films
Films about music and musicians
1970s American films